Digital Workshop

This is driving me crazy!

I'm using Opus Pro 5 Developer Version, preparing a lecture on the use of Typefaces and Fonts when making amateur Movies. Consequently, any one 'page' can have up to 9 typefaces displayed on it.

After a short while of working, suddenly a typeface will change - for example, from Arial to Times Roman. This happens in particular when applying emphases - such as BOLD ITALIC. Applying Bold, or Italic - Arial stays as Arial. Apply bold and Italic - and the face becomes a non-italicesed Serif font. On other pages, typefaces will also then have changed - so, I have the silly situation where the word 'Garamond', previously set as a Garamoind face, suddenly turns into Old English.

I think this happens when the 'last used' list at the top of the typeface selector becomes too long.

The workaround seems to be to shut down Opus and re-open it - then things are fine for ten minutes or so. It is making authoring incredibly tedious and difficult.

This may only appear when a number of typefaces are used on one page, or in a publication - a condition that should not normally be met, with good design of course. But in this instance, showing all the faces is an essential part of the discussion.

Mike
I'd like to have a go at replicating your problem but first, I need to know if you have all the different fonts etc in the same text boxes or do you have different text boxes for each kind of font etc?
Please advise
Cheers
Graham

Hi Mike

What you are reporting "rings a bell," but it's been a while. More recently, when trying to add custom fonts for hypertext, I've had this type of issue: the customized (new) hypertext fonts would not hold their formatting and change unannounced and unbidden. I finally used hotspots instead of hypertext to maintain the fonts and colors needed in a recent project. Currently, I stick to using the default hypertext fonts to avoid the issues associated with customization.

By the way, which version of XE are you using? I think some of the issues were remedied in newer service releases, though the hypertext issue remains, last I checked.

Kind Regards,

Thanks for the responses.

First - I have both situations - different fonts in the same text box, and fonts in their own text box, within one frame. When just showing the variety of fonts of a specific category, they're in the one text box - these are the ones that cause the most problem. When arranmging one folt to 'become' another, I used different text boxes within the one frame. That set only gave a problem on one occasion - as far as I noticed anyway.

As for the latest version - I think I may not have yet installed the SR2 release: I must check that out (its on the other 'non-internet' machine).

My gut feeling is that it is somethng to do with a 'buffer over-run' type problem - not that I fully understand how or why. Reason I think that is, once the problem occurs, simply exiting and going back into Opus cures it immediately (ie, clears any 'buffers'). It seems to happen - though I haven't done a thorough empirical test - when there are too many names in the list of 'last used typefaces' at the top of the typeface selector list. When that happens, it can be impossible to even correctly select a specific typeface - ie, choose Arial, you get one next to it or very close to it in the listings.

As I mentioned in my first post, using more than two or three different typefaces on a page is usually regarded as poor design. Thus, for normal applications the problem shouldn't arise at all if design moires are followed. (Fonts of course are the variations - normal, bold, italic, different point sizes etc - of a typeface, and are what in general should be used to provide the required 'variety' and emphases). However, this particular 'publication/lecture' is the exception, as it is all about the use of different typefaces as applied to Movie titling. Hence ... it is crammed with different faces for explanatory purposes on almost every page.

Hi Mike

This sounds like an issue that the DW support team may wish to weigh in on. The hypertext issue also affects font (in)stability for drop-down boxes, as well.

The service release I was referring to was not for Windows XP, but rather for Opus itself. The latest is 5.5 and can be downloaded from the DW site, if you haven't already done so.

Kind Regards,

Yes, just downloaded Opus SR2 and installed it so I now have 5.5.

The 'last used fonts' list seems to lose fonts - first in first out - when the list gets to a certain length. I could well be wrong, I haven't examined it properly, (but I will do).

I'm currently looking to see if there's a way to have text 'flow' round a graphic, as in dtp programs. Can't find a way to do that at the moment ... perhaps there isn't a way

Mike,

in regards to DTP.

Have a look at Fred's demo at the following link.

viewtopic.php?t=1649

I had similar probs in the past. Fonts in Opus XE generally behave often not the way as they use to behave in other applications. Exporting to flash makes these things worse. Fonts in a flex publication often don't look like they look in Opus itself.

I would appreciate if some work would be done on fonts for the release of Opus XE 6.

T.

I can't find any 'kerning' capability either.

Lack of kerning and text flow (and self-changing fonts) seems a bit odd to me, in a program that is essentially an 'authoring' tool with superior benefits and capabilities to, say, PowerPoint, and offering 'desktop publishing' for PC and DVD. Is there anything in the pipeline for these authoring 'tools'?

Just a thought. Every time I use Opus I am amazed at the incredible power it has tucked away. I sometimes wish I had more uses for it!!