Trouble with setting an Alternate Font in AutoCAD for Mac 2017

[Anonymous]

Hello Everybody,

I am attempting to help resolve some problems with AutoCAD for Mac 2017. Our office is PC based, but my boss recently switched to Mac and there have been some issues with fonts.

Our office standard text style uses Century Gothic, a windows native font, so it was being replaced on the Mac and causing problems when printing drafts or setting up text. To address this, we purchased and downloaded a version of Century Gothic onto his computer, added it to Fontbook and attempted to use it as the Alternate Font through the application pane of the preferences window. For some reason, using the .otf file, or any of the other True Type fonts listed in the pop-up window doesn't work. When I select any one of these fonts, the program doesn't seem to acknowledge this, failing to close the popup window or give any other sign of acceptance. If I restart AutoCAD after changing this, before I’ve even opened a document, the same pop-up appears, asking me to select an alternate font to replace one that’s missing.

I am able to see the new font I loaded in AutoCAD, and I can change text manually to Century Gothic Std (the mac compatible font name), but I’m really looking to have the problem solved automatically whenever a document is opened.

I have been able to make this function work perfectly if I chose one of the numerous .shx font files that are listed in the pop-up window, but it doesn’t work with true type fonts. I’ve also tried editing the Font Mapping File, but I’m not sure I had the syntax correct, and the changes didn’t take.

I have also contacted our AutoCAD distributor and had long conversations with their tech support staff and the best suggestion they could come up with was just installing the mac compatible font on all the PC’s in the office and then creating a new text style that uses that font for everyone to use. That’s totally fine if it’s the only solution, but it doesn’t exactly make it easier to use previously created documents. Suffice to say, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[maxim_k]

Hi Phil,

At first I want to mention that, according my investigation, Century Gothic font is included as default font not in all Windows localizations, for example in Russian version of Windows there is no such font "by default". Looks like it could be found in all Windows versions only when Microsoft Office is installed.

In macOS (currently) it is available only inside Microsoft Office applications, as it is installed only inside Microsoft Office application bundles  - Word, Excel, Power Point.

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@Anonymous wrote:
...

Our office standard text style uses Century Gothic, a windows native font, so it was being replaced on the Mac and causing problems when printing drafts or setting up text.

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What do you mean by "it was being replaced on the Mac"? Did you copy Century Gothic from windows over Century Gothic on Mac?

What kind of problems with printing and setting up text do you have? Where do you have these problems: inside AutoCAD or in other then AutoCAD applications on Mac?

Looks like the case of the problem you have on Mac side is in the name of the font hardcoded inside font file itself, which differs from the font name on Windows side.

Can you post screenshots:

- of the "Text Style" window in the drawing created on windows side (menu Format -> text Style) with text style based on Century Gothic font selected, like this one:

- FontBook application with Century Gothic font (I mean the font you purchased)  information tab, like this one:

 

 As about an attempt to use an "Alternate Font" or "font mapping" solution - I don't think it is good place to start to troubleshoot the issue.

So I'm waiting for your screenshots.

Maxim

[Anonymous]

Hello, thank you for your response. I'm sorry about creating multiple posts, I just wasn't sure the best way to get help.

Our issues are exclusively in Mac, and arise when opening a document that was created on a PC and contain text set using the Windows version of Century Gothic on those machines. When we open the documents with AutoCAD for Mac, because the identical font is not available, the standard alternate font (simplex.shx in this case) is used to ‘replace’ the font (the text displays as this alternate font, even if it is still listed as Century Gothic and marked with a yellow warning triangle under the Font Menu). The problem this causes is that the text is all formatted based on the parameters of Century Gothic, so when we try to change it or print it out from the Mac, it might not fit on the page or run over onto other elements in the drawing. Now that there is a OSX compatible version of Century Gothic on the Mac, I can use it in any application, including AutoCAD if I select it manually, but also pages, etc.

I did try to take the font file out of windows and load it into the mac, but I believe the file was unreadable, which is why we purchased the new Century Gothic .otf file for the Mac.

I think you are probably dead on about the different names between the Office originated font and the mac .otf file I installed from the internet. It was one of the first things I thought of, and I tried changing the name of the font file, but it still registers as Century Gothic Std both in Fontbook and AutoCAD. 

[Anonymous]

I guess my captions did not get uploaded, but the photos are in order as follows:

The Windows Style editor that shows the office standard text style all our documents utilize "century2". This text style uses a windows based version of Century Gothic

The mac equivalent Style editor again showing century2 and the missing windows font.

The FontBook application with information on the mac version of Century Gothic I downloaded and added, called Century Gothic Std.

The view I see in autocad for mac when I go to edit text set using century2 and the missing windows font. Notice the presence of Century Gothic Std, which I can use if I manually change the font for every text box.

This is the view of the Application Pane in the Preferences window, where you can see the Alternate font set up. This is what is used to 'replace' the font that is set in Century Gothic from windows. The functionality works great, but I can't set it to use the Mac Century Gothic I've added to the computer, or any other .ttf or .otf font for that matter. Does it only accept .shx fonts?

[maxim_k]

>>>>Does it only accept .shx fonts?

Probably. Not sure, never tried myself.

So main problem, I believe, is in Font name.
I only cannot understand why Century Gothic font from Windows doesn't work on Mac, because it should work.
For now you have two options to solve the problem :

- find font for Mac with the same internal name as in Windows and install it on your Mac.
- change internal font name of the purchased Century Gothic font with some font authoring software, for example - FontForge. You can change internal font name with this software and then compile new font, then install it on Mac.

Maxim

[maxim_k]

Forgot to add:
- yellow triangle near the font name in AutoCAD means that the font is missing and was substituted.
- if you are using MTEXT to create text in the drawing, then changing font for text style will not change the font of Mtext objects automatically, you need to edit each Mtext object manually or use AutoLISP routine to automate this task.

And another question : can you attach one of your drawings created on Windows side? You can leave I'm it only some of the text objects, I'll look at it.

Maxim

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to the Autodesk Community and thank you for posting your question here in the AutoCAD for Mac forum!

I'm sorry to hear you're running into this issue. I helped another customer with this same issue about a week ago, with the very same font (Century Gothic).

Here's what we did to get it installed and working:

• Copy the Century Gothic TTF file from the Windows machine to the Mac.
• Open the TTF with Mac Fontbook and install it.
• Verify that it shows up inside other applications on the Mac (MS Word, for example).
• Copy the TTF into the AutoCAD for Mac package (Resources > Fonts > TTF folder), as described in this article: How to add a custom font file to AutoCAD for Mac.

Could you try this workflow, step by step, and let me know if it works for you?

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[maxim_k]

On Mac there is no need to copy TTF font to Fonts folder inside AutoCAD application if TTF font is installed on MacOS level. It will work with AutoCAD.
Plus OP wrote in the first post here:
"Our office standard text style uses Century Gothic, a windows native font, so it was being replaced on the Mac and causing problems when printing drafts or setting up text". Unfortunately he didn't explain what kind of problems he had.

Maxim

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi @Anonymous,

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did any of the advice that @maxim_k or I provided work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[Anonymous]

@maxim_k in that first screenshot, how on earth did you strip your list of font families back to only one font? I'm trying to do that here. See my own screenshot attached - my top of the screenshot shows my Autocad Text Style Editor with four different entries for a font called 'Tungsten', but thenat the bottom of the screenshot is my actual Autocad folder where the fonts are located and you can see there's no 'Tungsten' files there...

Any help cleaning this up would be appreciated.

James

[maxim_k · Accepted solution]

Welcome to Autodesk Forums!

Hi James,

You can strip the font list by starting to type first letters of the font name in the search field below the font list.

>>>there's no 'Tungsten' files there

Looks like this font is installed on your Mac on System or User level. Try to find it in FontBook application.

Maxim

[kirley24]

You just solved something we were trying to fix for days!!!

Mac and PC font files don't always transfer.  This was a HUGE help thanks!!