Opentype Woes... Crashing when creating EPS

soidjte2 September 2007 · 11:11

I like to open the program we use at work, Multi-Ad Creator, and type my specimens for print in that program (for two reasons: I like using it, and my fonts are for work, so they need to work with this program). However, with one font I have been creating, I have a problem with the program crashing while trying to create an EPS. At first I thought it was a problem with the program, but it appears to be a problem with a few of the number characters in my font. As long as I don't type any of the certain numbers that cause the problem, the EPS comes out fine and Distiller makes a PDF with no issues. I have examined and re-examined the numbers, I cannot find anything different in these shapes than every other glyph in the font. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing these crashes?

Thomas Phinney2 September 2007 · 19:21

Which number characters, which font, from what vendor?

It would be interesting to open the font in a font editor and see if there is anything unusual about those particular glyph outlines - overlapping paths or some such.

soidjte2 September 2007 · 22:02

It's not a commercial font, just something I've been working on. The 2, 3 and 4 all crash Multi-Ad when I make an EPS, although they seem to work in Illustrator CS2 just fine. Creator is usually a pretty reliable program, hence why we use it in our workflow. I see nothing wrong with any of these glyphs in fontlab, for instance, the 4 below.

I am very much an amateur at type design; I will most likely redraw all these characters anyway, but I'd like to figure out what's wrong with these to avoid it in the future.

gargoyle3 September 2007 · 05:56

The arrows in your screenshot suggest that your Postscript outlines are going in the wrong direction. (Quick fix in FLS5: Contour menu > Paths > Set PS Direction.) Also check the outlines with the FontAudit tool if you haven't already.

soidjte4 September 2007 · 09:19

Okay, I tried that and while I'm sure it's beneficial overall, it sadly did not fix the issue with the Creator crash.

Nick Curtis4 September 2007 · 17:00

The blue boxes show where your outlines are missing orthogonal extrema (nodes whose control points are either perpendicular or parallel to the baseline)...

soidjte4 September 2007 · 17:57

Will a lack of node placement at extremes cause crashes as described? I've since learned to do so, just haven't cleaned this one up b/c I have started over on it.

soidjte5 September 2007 · 09:51

oddly enough, I opened this font on my Mac at work and made the .otf there (instead of on my home PC) and it works just fine, with no modifications versus the .otf I generated at home.

Miguel Sousa5 September 2007 · 17:16

Are the Preferences of the two installations (work & home) exactly the same?

soidjte5 September 2007 · 18:03

Unless there are different settings on install for Mac versus PC, they should be identical.

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