Opentype Woes... Crashing when creating EPS
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?
2.Sep.2007 7.21pm
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.
T
2.Sep.2007 10.02pm
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.
3.Sep.2007 5.56am
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.
4.Sep.2007 9.19am
Okay, I tried that and while I’m sure it’s beneficial overall, it sadly did not fix the issue with the Creator crash.
4.Sep.2007 5.00pm
The blue boxes show where your outlines are missing orthogonal extrema (nodes whose control points are either perpendicular or parallel to the baseline)...
4.Sep.2007 5.57pm
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.
5.Sep.2007 9.51am
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.
5.Sep.2007 5.16pm
Are the Preferences of the two installations (work & home) exactly the same?
5.Sep.2007 6.03pm
Unless there are different settings on install for Mac versus PC, they should be identical.