Font Substitution Issues
Let's say you use a non-standard font, and that is any font that is not commonplace within PowerPoint or the Windows and Mac operating systems.
Next, open this presentation with the non-standard font on another computer which does not have the font installed, and PowerPoint provides no info regarding the missing font. In fact, it just uses another font to display the same text.
Why does it do so? There are multiple problems here:
1. The recipient has no clue that one font was substituted with another.
2. The font used as the substitute font cannot be identified.
3. Worse, open the presentation on two systems that don not have the font. PowerPoint will then choose two different fonts on those systems. Are we understanding this behavior pattern?
I've written a workaround to identify the substituted font at http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/learn/textandfonts/find-substituted-fonts.html -- but then this is not the solution!
Geetesh Bajaj
shared this idea
4 comments
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Markus S
commented
Same opinion here: The user should be informed about the original and the replacement font.
Furthermore even if the "save fonts within the PowerPoint" was selected on the windows source presentation file, on the mac it looks always completely different.
that information window could at least help a lot. -
John Pease
commented
Totally agree - PowerPoint should include a warning when opening a file that it is substituting a font or fonts and highlight what font has been used to replace the non-system font.
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Anonymous
commented
There should be a warning when saving AND when opening a file with missing embedded fonts!
In the the window
FILE > Informations > (right) Vaues/extended Values > Tab: Content > "used fonts"
there should be an additional nfo, like "(embeded)/(standard font windows)/(local)" for every font.
I guess also a list of standard Microsoft and Apple fonts could provided there to support "normal" users. -
Tom
commented
I have this problem all the time. I design slides for my courses and when I am delivering them in my client's premises I normally use their equipment and computers which, of course, don't have some of the fonts I used. If I only use them for titles or in a few instances then I usually convert them to images. But that is not the solution!!!