InDesign CS4 dropping text

[jaycoh]

I'm having the same issues! I'm working on a catalog, originally created in CS3. I open most of these files/sections and the text blocks are there but the text has strangely disappeared. It's very random. The thing that bothers me is that once I re-enter the text and save it as CS4 it's OK.... just for a while. When I come back to the file, maybe weeks later, the text is missing again (not sure if it's the same text though). I don't know that it's a font issue because the entire document uses the same fonts and, in fact, I copy and paste already existing text into these boxes and just retype the missing info over it.... sometimes I don't need to because it's the same.

I've spent hours on the phone with Adobe to no avail. I even spoke with Apple techs with no solution. It's currently in the process of being examined by the next tier techs at Adobe. If I get info, I'll report back.

[pmkprog]

I just found a file that did not have any text missing from boxes. I saved it back to CS3 as an exchange file and then opened the file in CS3. When I did the find font update, nothing disappeared like it had been in CS4.
So, wth?
Hope this helps. It's seems to be CS4 and something with the fonts. Also, I am running on just Leopard, not Snow Leopard.

[jaycoh]

I'm still awaiting a call back from Adobe (they were supposed to call last night). I'm on Snow Leopard. So.... if you save the file, even if it appears to be missing text, as CS3, then open it on a machine with CS3 and update the fonts, it's OK?

The text isn't really gone.... just hidden?

[pmkprog]

No, if you open the document in CS4 and the text is missing from the boxes, when you export out for CS3, the text isn't there. If you open the CS4 file and see all of the text and then export out, the text stays. When you open in CS4 and all of the text is there, when you update the fonts some of the text disappears. Or some of the text is already missing when you open the document.
No matter what, this sure looks like it is a problem with CS4.

[Lukas Engqvist]

I'd be very curious at to what fonts, and versions of fonts are used.
If the fonts used are pre-unicode versions? Or fonts that have symbol encoding. Could it be you are using PC truetype on a mac? It does sometimes work, but with some unpredictable results. There are some fonts thaht are more problematic than others, the standard 32, along Helvetica Neue, Franklin Gothic and Times New Roman. Are we talking standard latin script (ie english or similar)

Also it would be interesting to know do you have Suitcase or some other fontmanager? There was some siilar issue that got us to abandon suitcase several years back, I have heard that it should be stable again, just that I learned to live quite happily without it.

It sound very similar to the font bug in PDF export, where som texts dissapeared unless one foreced reencoding by exporting to PDFx4 or Distilling. That was attributed to symbolic encoding, this sounds very similar.

[pmkprog]

Adobe Type 1 Arial MT.
No font manager, just placed right into the users font folder.
Even made several font cache cleans and still nothing.
The text boxes are completely empty.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Do you have MS office installed? Office likes to put it's own versions of Arial in. Arial MT Type 1 is also one of the fonts that has been alon since before glyph naming was set. It means you can have different versions of Arial where the glyphs are in different order and/or naming. Do you have the atm file in the same folder?
Do you have other versions of Arial in your system Fonts folder?
Using font book do you see any conflicts?
Have you seen if you can validate the font (right click on the font in Fontbook, select validate)?

If you search for ArialMT do you find just the one version? (it used to also exist in Acrobat 5, ie Library:Applicationsupport:Adobe:PDFL:5.0:Fonts, and possibly other places too)

What happens if you swithch to a newer Arial version?
Also do you get the same thing happening if you switch to another font in CS3?

[pmkprog]

The machine is pretty stripped of fonts. I don't think Office is on there at all.

I'll have to check the validation.

As far as the document that I was able to saved back to CS3 that had all of the type showing allowed me to change the font to whatever I wanted in CS3 without any type disappearing. When I changed the type in CS4 some of the text in the boxes disappeared. The text completely vanished from inside the box after the font change.

So it still looks to me like CS4 is the culprit.

[pmkprog]

I just attempted the Arial validation on another machine and the font was valid. It did not show up in CS4 as being available, it was still missing. When I substituted the font some of the text still disappears.

[frailer]

Another suggestion, but not free if you get the Pro version. (The free version still available from Version Tracker, I think).
Download and install Font Explorer Pro. Use it as your font manager. Use its set of cleanup tools under Tools Menu. It keeps all my font problems at bay, including weird font issues with my workflow Clients.