Custom fonts w/ Cloud publish

[Peter W Flint]

I have custom fonts used for branding that are not being properly mapped to title blocks when using cloud publish. First screen shot is local, second is cloud. The differences seem to be either in size or line weight. What are best practices/things to keep in mind when using custom fonts or other custom settings in cloud publish?

 

Cheers

 

PWF

[Pat Stanford]

If this is basically just a logo that happens to use letters, what about converting it to an image instead of fighting with the text of Cloud Publish. That will also prevent any issues of the fonts not being properly embedded in and created PDFs and not printing/displaying properly on the client end.

[E|FA]

Have you made sure the version of the font uploaded to your VW cloud folder matches the one on your local machine?

[inikolova]

@Peter W Flint, 

 

If you are on Mac, there is a known issue observed when a file created by a Mac version of Vectorworks is opened and Published by a Windows version of Vectorworks. Since the Vectorworks running on the Cloud is Windows-based, the issue is seen. I would recoomend you use an image, to ensure the Cloud will produce the correct results in the title block. However, I would also recommend you keep an eye on other scaling issues like that in other elements of your pages. The isssue is not specific to title blocks. You can also try using another font with a similar appearance to see if that helps in any way.

Also, check your email to see if you get an email that custom fonts were mapped to Arial. It does look to me like your original font is getting mapped to Arial. If you have used a font converter to convert a Mac font family into idividual fonts (.otf and .ttf) it is possible that the Vectorworks on the cloud can't recognize your custom font. In the past, I have been able to fix custom fonts like this by using a free font editing tool called FontForge. If you need further help, plese don't hesitate to send me a personal message and let me know about specific fonts that are not working and I will try to help you.

 

Best regards,

Iskra Nikolova

[Christiaan]

7 hours ago, inikolova said:

If you are on Mac, there is a known issue observed when a file created by a Mac version of Vectorworks is opened and Published by a Windows version of Vectorworks. Since the Vectorworks running on the Cloud is Windows-based, the issue is seen.

 

Will this be fixed?

[Peter W Flint]

17 hours ago, E|FA said:

Have you made sure the version of the font uploaded to your VW cloud folder matches

The fonts are pulled from the same folder VW uses to call fonts locally. I began exploring this after receiving the email Iskra mentioned about missing fonts.

 

18 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

what about converting it to an image instead of fighting with the text of Cloud Publish

Practically, I'm not opposed to this, the current set up was the result of being very new to the software and running into resolution issues between exporting from gd software, drawing, web publish, and printing that I have probably grown out of. This however, only resolves the issue illustrated with the logo, and not the alignment and/or wrapping issues in the other fields

 

Philosophically, I think a product that asks for a significant investment from its users should work as it is advertised.

 

@inikolova Thank you for the detailed response, I agree the font looks like it is being mapped to Arial but I am not getting a notification about missing fonts. I did receive those emails in my initial experiments and have since included fonts in my cloud folder per VW Cloud docs: "Place the font file anywhere in Vectorworks Cloud Services". Based on re-reading, I can confirm they are .ttf files but I am unsure if they were converted in the process of uploading to cloud folder. One is custom that I built using a tool similar to fontForge and the other imported from Google fonts, then both installed as system fonts. I am pretty sure I pulled them directly from Font Book to upload to cloud. 

 

I will explore a little more as time allows and reach out if I discover anything.

 

PWF

[inikolova]

12 hours ago, Christiaan said:

Will this be fixed?

The filed issue currently has a Vectorworks 2024 as a fix version, so I hope it will be fixed by then.

[Rick Berge]

The "bug" Iskra's post refers to is that Fonts of the same name might have different appearance (different font metrics) across the different platforms. (As an example, this article.) Not just VW, but Word, web pages, or any kind of document can suffer from this issue. In Peter's case, we need someone to investigate why Arial is getting substituted on the cloud in this particular case.

[inikolova]

@Rick Berge Thanks for chiming in. I was not sure if Peter's issue was due to font platform differences or because his custom font is getting mapped to Arial. I will try to research some more and find out if font mapping is the culprit in his case.

[inikolova]

3 hours ago, Peter W Flint said:

Philosophically, I think a product that asks for a significant investment from its users should work as it is advertised.

I agree with you. The issue you are seeing is likely due to some specific properties of the font you are using. I will do more research and try to help with your specific situation.

[Peter W Flint]

@inikolova If it’s helpful the font in the contact fields is Yantramanov, available at fonts.google 

[inikolova]

@Peter W Flint,

I investigated this in more detail and here is what I think is the cause of your problem.

During file generation, the cloud server searches for fonts using the following priority:

1. Cloud server system fonts

2. Current font mappings in your cloud preferences

3. Custom fonts that you have uploaded to cloud storage

 

It looks like the Yantramanav font you are using is currently mapped to Arial in your cloud font mappings.

 

To fix this, you need to delete these font mappings from your Vectorworks. In the Vectorworks preferences; on the Display tab, click the Edit Font Mappings button, and delete these mappings. Quit Vectorworks to save the font mapping preferences. After this, open the Vectorworks Cloud Services settings and click the SYNC button to sync your local mappings to the cloud.

 

Go to https://cloud.vectorworks.net/portal/account/ and make sure these font mappings have disappeared.

After this, the Cloud Publish should be able to give you the expected result.

 

Please let me know if this doesn't help.

 

Best regards,

Iskra Nikolova

 

[Peter W Flint]

@inikolova

 

Thanks. That resolved the issue. 

 

PWF

 

 

[Peter W Flint]

I suspect that in prior iterations the fonts were automatically re-mapped to Arial by default, and I missed the bit about prioritizations. @Rick Berge gem of an article, thx.

 

PWF

[inikolova]

@Peter W Flint,

 

I am glad you are now getting the proper result! Yay!!!

I think the reason why you had these mappings on the Cloud was that you had them in your local Vectorworks mappings. You probably opened a file that contained these fonts before you had them installed on your machine. And when you submit a job to the cloud, your local mappings are automatically synced to the Cloud.

 

Best regards,

Iskra Nikolova