I’m a Finale user that uses Finale for creating consistent scores for Sheet music books and lead sheets for a VBS program. I’m a graphic designer, not a composer, and am usually working on arranged files sent to me, and I just tweak the “engraving” (new term that I learned today playing in Dorico) so it fits into my layout (which I do in Adobe InDesign). One of the things I always tweak is the fonts. I want the lyrics to appear in our brand body font. In all cases, that font is not one of the standard regular/italic/bold fonts, but one that has multiple weights and styles. This caused issues in Finale, and I had to learn (by conversing with support) how to get the proper font to show and print. I had to override the font dialogue box name with the actual name of the font file that I wanted to use. (see image) And to get a proper PDF, I have to print to PDF with “use system fonts” checked. (see image) I’ve been using this workaround for several years now.
Enter Dorico. I was excited to use an updated program that would have better access to my system fonts only to find myself massively disappointed. I haven’t been able to access the correct font from the font settings. I can’t type out the correct font name nor can I select it from the list. Nor can I find anywhere that I can access the PDF options so I can tell it to use system fonts instead of document fonts. Because of this, I’m getting font errors when I print to PDF. (see image)
I’m quite sure the PDF looks so bad because the application is not using the correct styles for the font face which causes the font to not embed correctly on the PDF. I used to have this same problem in Finale until I discovered the above workaround to use the correct font style. How can I use these fonts in Dorico? This is somewhat crucial to my workflow.
FYI, printing to graphic PDF option doesn’t appear to work for my file. Nothing happens when I hit the export button. That seems to be the solution that is supposed to fix my font issue, but the export doesn’t work.
Firstly, any font that is active (enabled, registered) on the OS should be available to Dorico. I’m unaware of any issues of system-installed fonts missing from the font selector menu.
However, as you may know, Windows divides font families up into groups of “Regular, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic”. So any other styles – SemiBold, Condensed, Black, Light – are displayed in the menu as separate “fonts”, rather than styles of the same font.
No. That checkbox means that fonts are not embedded in the PDF. The document is relying on the fonts being installed on the system, not embedded in the document. That’s usually a very bad idea, as it means that the fonts won’t display correctly if the fonts aren’t on the computer.
If you use Dorico’s Print mode Graphics Export, then that should produce a standard PDF, with embedded fonts.
What is the font that you’re using. Is it custom-made?
No. It’s Noto Sans, which is a world font available on Adobe and Google fonts. I’m using the Open Type version directly from the Noto world font project website. I would prefer to use the light style, but the regular, bold, italic, and bold italic that is available in Dorico must not actually be the font styles since the PDF doesn’t export correctly, but messes it up completely per my image. Noto Sans does have regular, bold, and italic, but it has so much more than that as well. The font does show up in the list, but doesn’t have the extra styles and doesn’t export correctly. The fix in Finale was to type the actual font name in the font box instead of selecting it from the list and that was a tacky workaround, but it worked. Dorico does not allow me to type the font name, only select from the list.
As I said in my initial post, the graphic export doesn’t work. I select it, and hit the export button and nothing happens. No file is generated.
Regarding using system fonts rather than embedding, I’d be happy with that solution because I can then place the resulting PDF in InDesign, which is its final destination and export a true PDF from InDesign with all the correct PDF settings that Dorico doesn’t allow me to access.
Dorico installs “Noto Sans JP Light” on my computer, and I can use that within Dorico, and it exports to PDF correctly here. I don’t know if that’s the font you’re expecting to use?
If you’re looking for “Noto Sans Light”, then it might be worth checking that it is actually installed. Is it available in other apps, like Word?
You’ve definitely checked the destination folder?
Having worked in print publishing from the early days of PDF onwards, I’d strongly recommend always embedding fonts in every step of the workflow.
Thanks for sticking with me on this, I did go back and looked past Noto Sans in the list and found many of the other styles available and selected the font I actually wanted. Unfortunately, it still didn’t print correctly.
Since you mentioned checking my destination folder, I changed it to my desktop folder and was able to find the PDF generated from the export. Not sure if it wasn’t actually exporting before or was putting it in some hidden folder that a search on Windows couldn’t find. That one does look correct, so I will have to figure out why it won’t export to the actual folder I want the PDF in.
I’d find it very helpful if Dorico allowed me to access my printer settings for specific print needs. I notice that isn’t available for any printer selected in the print section. My usual office network printer has a lot of printer-specific settings (like trays, duplexing, etc) that would be handy to have access to inside the print dialogue if I were to actually print from Dorico.
Thanks again for you help. I’m at least able to get a usable PDF, just not to the folder I needed it in. For now, I can move it. I’ll probably have more questions as I continue with this, but I will try and find answers in help before hitting the forum again. Big learning curb here.
Thanks, but I actually know that. It just doesn’t appear to like the folder I gave it. It’s in a synced Dropbox folder, so maybe it doesn’t like cloud folders. The file never appears when I hit export, so I thought it wasn’t working. When I changed the folder to the desktop, it worked, so it’s a location issue. I’ll figure it out. I appreciate the help. I’m sure I’ll have more questions as I use the software. Going to try and learn it now before I’m in a time crunch.
