The Community for Architects, Landscape & Lighting Designers

Fonts in VW

Has anyone else (PC users especially) had a problem in VW where your fonts appear as block text and not as they really are supposed to appear? This only happens when the GDI+Aliasing is turned on in the VW preferences. The support on VW web site states to simply turn off GDI. This is not treating the problem, but the symptom.

I prefer to have this feature (GDI) turned on since it makes the screen resolution clearer and deletes some jagged lines that occur between redraws, but the font I use does not appear as it should which makes it difficult to edit. The font is an architects hand lettered font made by Adobe (Graphite Std Wide from www.myfonts.com). When I print (not export to PDF) to either Adobe PDF or to my printers, the font appears correct. This is annoying and I would prefer have my screen appear the way it will appear when it prints for easier editing. I am currently using Windows 7, but it was occuring under Windows XP too.

Any suggestions for fixing this? Does anyone else use a unique font that doesn't do this, preferably a good architectural hand lettered font? BTW this started happening late in 2009 under VW2009 after some Windows update one day.

Tags: Fonts, GDI, aliasing, architect, resolution, screen

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Permalink Reply by James W. Larson on February 1, 2010 at 8:38pm

I would suggest trying to stay with True Type Fonts, they seem to behave the best with Vectorworks. Attached is a collection of Architectural True Type Fonts that someone posted earlier. They seem to work fine under VW and Windows.

Attachments:

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Permalink Reply by Lee Calisti on February 2, 2010 at 6:49am

James,

Thanks for the response. I have those fonts, in fact the Architxt font is one I have used for many years up until some Windows XP update came by in 2008 or 2009 (my suspected culprit) and then everything changed. When I use that font, it appears on the screen correctly with the GDI+imaging function turned on in the VW preferences. However when I print to a PDF, the result is a blank page. If I print to my laser printer, the drawing comes out, but there is no text. Exporting it to PDF does the same result, no text, just drawing. BTW these issues do not occur in other applications (i.e. Word, Excel). The fonts work fine apart from VW.

The Open Type font "Graphite Std Wide" that I bought and preferred works fine on all counts except as I said before, shows up as a simple Block Text on the screen when the GDI+imaging function is selected. That makes editing text difficult because the font width is different and it becomes annoying to fuss with it, much less wasting precious time.

I have had a series of similar issues with other fonts that I still like to use, mostly true type. They appear on the screen correctly. However, to get them to print correctly I have to temporarily turn off the GDI+imaging function and then print. Again, time and frustration to "make" things work when they should on their own.

My current success seems to be with a font from www.fonts101.com, called "Frank the Architect". It is a free font, it just can't be resold. If you are an architect like me that used to do hand drafting and hand lettering, you probably have opinions and preferences about the look of hand lettering. Therefore, we all will like or dislike the various hand lettering fonts available. This one is growing on me. I don't like using a block font on construction drawings personally. They look too sterile. BTW I also use VW rendering styles on drawings too to make them look less sterile.

Does anyone else have my strange font issues? Any other suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by James W. Larson on February 2, 2010 at 8:27am

How are you creating your .PDF's. Are you exporting to PDF in Vectorworks or are you printing to a .PDF program like PDF995?
I have had problems with text not printing when exported to .PDF.

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Permalink Reply by Lee Calisti on February 2, 2010 at 8:33am

I have Adobe Acrobat 9 on my machine. So I am using that to "print" to PDF's. When I "export" to PDF's using VW's export feature, they appear on screen OK to me and print OK in my office. But I send my drawings out most of the time and the copy center that prints them for me can't get them to work. The text in the exported PDF's comes out as nonsense. The lines come out fine. So I have to go with what works without really understand why.

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Permalink Reply by Cris Dopher on February 6, 2010 at 10:34am

This is common problem. Not all fonts can be embedded in a PDF due to permissions settings. Adobe Acrobat will only embed such fonts as are public, not purchased.

One workaround is to PDF from within VW by using the Export function or to use Mac's built-in print to PDF function. All of these end up with different kinds of PDFs. One of them might be able to embed the font as vectors, not a font itself. I'm still trying to find perfect solution to this.

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Permalink Reply by Cris Dopher on February 6, 2010 at 10:31am

I have been having this problem only with the Technic font, though City Blueprint and Tekton Pro (similar fonts) show up just fine. I am NOT turning off GDI - I'd rather switch fonts. Actually... I'd rather the problem got fixed. :D

Cris Dopher

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Permalink Reply by Lee Calisti on February 6, 2010 at 12:07pm

Cris,

Thanks for the reply and its good to know I am not alone with this problem. I have decided to switch to the "Frank the Architect" font as I mentioned above. I actually really like it better than the font I had been using for the past year. It seems to work in all cases (GDI on or off, export or print to PDF). I agree the screen is miserable with the GDI turned off. But again, instead of learning to cope with it, I wish VW would figure a way to fix it. We should be able to use whatever font we prefer.

Lee Calisti