RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Andrew says: You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In those cases, numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the mu-to-m error occurs, everything gets multiplied by 1000! Microseconds become milliseconds, microamps become milliamps, micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO WAY TO TELL that the error happened unless there's a LOT of context that happens to look self-contradictory. Yes -- and microliters become milliliters. I was once hired to proofread product inserts for a major PHARMACEUTICAL company . . . yes, those densely-folded tinily-printed single pages tucked inside the box containing your MEDICINE . . . and those inserts were done in Framemaker and printed God knows where and by whom. I found multiple instances of mus becoming ms, and plus-or-minuses becoming plain minuses. These symbols indicated dosages and storage temperatures. The team of contract proofreaders I was part of was this company's last defense against errors in these inserts. Since no one knew why the symbols were getting corrupted, no one had any confidence that our final corrections would make it past the printing process again. Can you imagine? I was not comforted by the remark of a friend of mine with long experience in biotech: Aaah, those inserts are just there to please the lawyers. Nobody relies on them! I most certainly do rely on them. Don't you assume that those, at least, are accurate, when you pull them out of the box for something like, oh, your kid's medicine? Sure, your doctor has told you what dose to give, but still, don't you think that somebody has made sure that that little piece of paper is accurate? And if people take such a cavalier attitude toward these inserts, who's to say that the PDF is any better? To be perfectly honest, most of the inserts we reviewed were for laboratory testing kits, not end-user medicines. Still . . . if you're a guy nervously awaiting the results of your PSA test, wouldn't you like to think that the data sheet accompanying the assay materials is reliable? --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Oops -- PDF should be PDR (Physician's Desk Reference). I should add that all symbols that combined a minus sign with other signs tended to drop the minus sign, so greater-than-or-equal-to became greater than, for example. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
I was just thinking, Well, doctors would probably catch a dosage error that's a thousand times greater than what they expect. THEN I thought, Yes -- they might, but what about an automated system that's had the incorrect values ported into it to begin with? A few years ago, a notorious and tragic medical mistake occurred in Boston. The health reporter for the Boston Globe, a beautiful young woman with young children, no less, was treated for breast cancer. She was erroneously given massive doses of one of her chemotherapy drugs, and no one caught the error. It killed her. The Globe pursued the story mercilessly. One of the resulting improvements to medical practice was a system that would automatically double-check every dosage prescribed for patients. Oh, yes, I thought at the time, this will certainly catch situations in which a doctor's handwriting is illegible and the nurse misreads it, or somebody is simply asleep at the switch and scribbbles down the wrong thing .. . Well, yeah, but what if the data ported into the wonderful new automated system is wrong to being with? Who will guard the guards? Just don't get sick. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Two things for you to check, Nancy: 1. Make sure you have the Windows Symbol font installed. This is used in some magic way by Distiller and it's abcense causes the sort of problem you are seeing. 2. In FrameMaker, check that your Symbol character tag uses the Windows Symbol font and NOT the Symbol Std font. Symbol Std is a private font installed by FrameMaker. HTH Phil Heron -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison Sent: 17 March 2009 21:46 To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: ---Used Framemaker's Save as feature. ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, I've deselected Do not send fonts to printer. I believe this should assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final PDF. This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. NOT GOOD. I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. All suggestions will be very welcome. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as phil.he...@coda.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/phil.heron%40coda.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. _ This e-mail has been sent by CODA Ltd or one of its subsidiaries (CODA GB Ltd or CODA Group International Ltd). The information in this message is confidential and may be legally privileged. It may not be disclosed to, or used by, anyone other than the addressee. If you receive this message in error, please advise us immediately. Internet emails are not necessarily secure. CODA does not accept responsibility for changes to any email which occur after the email has been sent. Attachments to this email may contain software viruses, which could damage your systems. CODA has checked the attachments for viruses before sending, but you should virus-check them before opening. CODA Ltd: Registered in England 5861419 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB CODA GB Ltd: Registered in England 3909530 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB CODA Group International Ltd: Registered in England 3938996 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Arthur, what is this logical printer of which you speak? Do you mean the driver called Adobe PDF that appears in my printers list, even though there is no physical Adobe PDF printer? Thankee. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Yes. Set the Adobe PDF, which is a logical printer (because there isn't a physical printer), as your system default (or get the plug in that does that for you). Art Campbell art.campb...@gmail.com ... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl. -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Nancy Allison ma...@verizon.net wrote: Arthur, what is this logical printer of which you speak? Do you mean the driver called Adobe PDF that appears in my printers list, even though there is no physical Adobe PDF printer? Thankee. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campb...@gmail.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Speaking of logical things, at my very first tech writing job, as I set off on this long, winding, and slightly peculiar road, my boss told a story about an engineer who was tired of being interrupted in his very own patch of cube land. So, he stretched a string across the opening of his cube and hung a sign that said Logical Door. Nobody bothered him. Now, he was in the engineering department, and thus surrounded by fellow geek soulmates. Someone like me, however, would probably have interrupted him to ask what it meant . . . . OK, back to work. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Heh, reminds me of the IT department of the hospital where I used to work. They had a sign on the door that read Intel inside, Idiots outside. Time proved that...well...it wasn't exactly true. Roger Shuttleworth London, Canada -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison Sent: March 18, 2009 11:00 AM To: Art Campbell Cc: framers Subject: Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf Speaking of logical things, at my very first tech writing job, as I set off on this long, winding, and slightly peculiar road, my boss told a story about an engineer who was tired of being interrupted in his very own patch of cube land. So, he stretched a string across the opening of his cube and hung a sign that said Logical Door. Nobody bothered him. Now, he was in the engineering department, and thus surrounded by fellow geek soulmates. Someone like me, however, would probably have interrupted him to ask what it meant . . . . OK, back to work. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as roger_shuttlewo...@tvworks.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/roger_shuttleworth%40tvworks.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Which version of Frame are you using? If you are using FM 8 or above, you could follow Andrew's advice and use Unicode characters with a Unicode Symbol font, which would be the ideal solution. But if you are on FM7.2 or earlier, you would need to ensure that Symbol font is available to the distiller (is in its path/ is embeddable), as others mentioned. Thanks, Stuti FrameMaker Developer -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Warren Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:59 AM To: 'Nancy Allison'; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf Nancy Allison wrote: My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. Nancy: Don't ever do that. If you really need an omega, get it within a non-Symbol font by following the advice near the end of the following rant, which is a slightly-edited copy of something I posted a couple years ago to the techwr-l list... Using the Symbol font to produce an omega is bad, but not likely to kill anyone. With omega/W: If you're viewing the document in a web browser that's been configured to use your favorite fonts rather than the fonts specified by the document, the omega symbols become Ws. Google ignores font information in its text searches, so when it indexes a page, it sees (and displays in search results) a W wherever there's a Symbol-font omega. If your browser isn't configured to use your own fonts, the omegas will probably look fine there... But as soon as you cut-and-paste from the browser window to another application, like Frame or Word, the omegas become Ws. If you send the document through an email system that strips HTML, the omegas become Ws. If you send it to a printer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. If you view it on a computer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. In most of these cases, the font information is permanently lost once the document's omega symbols become Ws. They never switch back, even if the document is subsequently viewed in a system which CAN display HTML or the Symbol font. The W-instead-of-omega problem isn't limited to web pages; I see it ALL THE TIME in published datasheets, application notes, user's manuals, trade journal articles, etc. Fortunately, the error is easy to spot, since the erroneous W usually makes no sense, and the intended meaning can generally be deduced from the context. However... If you use the Symbol font to make ANOTHER Greek letter, the mu, you really MIGHT kill someone: The Greek letter mu is often used in engineering and scientific writing to represent the prefix micro- (one millionth). In the old days, before we all had access to fancy computer typefaces, typewritten documents would use the lowercase u instead of mu, since the two letters look very similar. Lowercase 'u' means 'mu' means 'micro-' was a universally-understood convention (among engineers and scientists, anyway): usec = microseconds, uF = microfarads, uA = microamps... Even uP = microprocessor. No one was ever confused by this, and all was well until some pedantic dumbass noticed that he could make the unit names in his documents correct by using the Symbol-font mu instead of the lowercase u that we'd all been happy with for decades. The result, of course, is the same as for omega, with one small but fatal difference: Omega maps to the W character, which almost always looks like an error (e.g., 4.7kW, 1/8-watt resistor) but mu maps to the m character, which is the symbol for the prefix milli- (one thousandth). Since m-for-milli can be reasonably used almost anywhere that mu-for-micro can, it NEVER looks like an error! You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In those cases, numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the mu-to-m error occurs, everything gets multiplied by 1000! Microseconds become milliseconds, microamps become milliamps, micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO WAY TO TELL that the error happened unless there's a LOT of context that happens to look self-contradictory. Since it's so hard to identify the mu-to-m error, it's difficult to know how prevalent it is, but I'd guess that it happens at least as frequently as the omega-to-W error that I see everywhere. There are actually a few places where a mu-to-m error would be obvious, and I often see it there... Like, for instance, in the US Navy's NRaD Writing and Editorial Guidelines: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064appb.html It contains a list of abbreviations that includes both micro- and milli- units. It's obvious that a mu-to-m error has occurred, since the list shows m for both sets of units. I no longer approve documents that use the Symbol font
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Andrew says: > You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In > those cases, numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the > mu-to-m error occurs, everything gets multiplied by 1000! > Microseconds become milliseconds, microamps become milliamps, > micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO WAY TO TELL that the > error happened unless there's a LOT of context that happens to look > self-contradictory. Yes -- and microliters become milliliters. I was once hired to proofread product inserts for a major PHARMACEUTICAL company . . . yes, those densely-folded tinily-printed single pages tucked inside the box containing your MEDICINE . . . and those inserts were done in Framemaker and printed God knows where and by whom. I found multiple instances of mus becoming ms, and plus-or-minuses becoming plain minuses. These symbols indicated dosages and storage temperatures. The team of contract proofreaders I was part of was this company's last defense against errors in these inserts. Since no one knew why the symbols were getting corrupted, no one had any confidence that our final corrections would make it past the printing process again. Can you imagine? I was not comforted by the remark of a friend of mine with long experience in biotech: "Aaah, those inserts are just there to please the lawyers. Nobody relies on them!" I most certainly do rely on them. Don't you assume that those, at least, are accurate, when you pull them out of the box for something like, oh, your kid's medicine? Sure, your doctor has told you what dose to give, but still, don't you think that somebody has made sure that that little piece of paper is accurate? And if people take such a cavalier attitude toward these inserts, who's to say that the PDF is any better? To be perfectly honest, most of the inserts we reviewed were for laboratory testing kits, not end-user medicines. Still . . . if you're a guy nervously awaiting the results of your PSA test, wouldn't you like to think that the data sheet accompanying the assay materials is reliable? --Nancy >
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Oops -- PDF should be PDR (Physician's Desk Reference). I should add that all symbols that combined a minus sign with other signs tended to drop the minus sign, so "greater-than-or-equal-to" became "greater than," for example.
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
I was just thinking, "Well, doctors would probably catch a dosage error that's a thousand times greater than what they expect." THEN I thought, "Yes -- they might, but what about an automated system that's had the incorrect values ported into it to begin with?" A few years ago, a notorious and tragic medical mistake occurred in Boston. The health reporter for the Boston Globe, a beautiful young woman with young children, no less, was treated for breast cancer. She was erroneously given massive doses of one of her chemotherapy drugs, and no one caught the error. It killed her. The Globe pursued the story mercilessly. One of the resulting "improvements" to medical practice was a system that would automatically double-check every dosage prescribed for patients. "Oh, yes," I thought at the time, "this will certainly catch situations in which a doctor's handwriting is illegible and the nurse misreads it, or somebody is simply asleep at the switch and scribbbles down the wrong thing .. . " Well, yeah, but what if the data ported into the wonderful new automated system is wrong to being with? Who will guard the guards? Just don't get sick. --Nancy
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Two things for you to check, Nancy: 1. Make sure you have the Windows Symbol font installed. This is used in some magic way by Distiller and it's abcense causes the sort of problem you are seeing. 2. In FrameMaker, check that your Symbol character tag uses the Windows "Symbol" font and NOT the "Symbol Std" font. Symbol Std is a private font installed by FrameMaker. HTH Phil Heron -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison Sent: 17 March 2009 21:46 To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: ---Used Framemaker's "Save as" feature. ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, I've deselected "Do not send fonts to printer." I believe this should assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final PDF. This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. NOT GOOD. I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. All suggestions will be very welcome. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as phil.heron at coda.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/phil.heron%40coda.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. _ This e-mail has been sent by CODA Ltd or one of its subsidiaries (CODA GB Ltd or CODA Group International Ltd). The information in this message is confidential and may be legally privileged. It may not be disclosed to, or used by, anyone other than the addressee. If you receive this message in error, please advise us immediately. Internet emails are not necessarily secure. CODA does not accept responsibility for changes to any email which occur after the email has been sent. Attachments to this email may contain software viruses, which could damage your systems. CODA has checked the attachments for viruses before sending, but you should virus-check them before opening. CODA Ltd: Registered in England 5861419 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB CODA GB Ltd: Registered in England 3909530 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB CODA Group International Ltd: Registered in England 3938996 Registered Office: Methuen Park, Chippenham SN14 0GB Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Arthur, what is this "logical printer" of which you speak? Do you mean the driver called "Adobe PDF" that appears in my printers list, even though there is no physical Adobe PDF printer? Thankee.
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Yes. Set the Adobe PDF, which is a logical printer (because there isn't a physical printer), as your system default (or get the plug in that does that for you). Art Campbell art.campbell at gmail.com "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Nancy Allison wrote: > > Arthur, what is this "logical printer" of which you speak? > > Do you mean the driver called "Adobe PDF" that appears in my printers > list, even though there is no physical Adobe PDF printer? > > Thankee. > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campbell at gmail.com. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. >
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
OK, I set Adobe PDF as my default. Same results. However, someone pointed me to a document that worked correctly. The ONLY difference I can see between that doc and mine is that the writer did NOT create a Frame character tag called Symbol that applied the Symbol font (Symbol, not Symbol Std). Instead, he evidently went to the Format/Fonts menu and applied Symbol (not Symbol Std) directly from there. The characters I created that way survived the translation to PDF. (So did the characters I cut and pasted from the correct doc into mine. So evidently the Distiller font settings are not the issue.) Any thoughts as to why this made a difference? Thanks one and all -- what a nasty problem. --Nancy
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Speaking of logical things, at my very first tech writing job, as I set off on this long, winding, and slightly peculiar road, my boss told a story about an engineer who was tired of being interrupted in his very own patch of cube land. So, he stretched a string across the opening of his cube and hung a sign that said "Logical Door." Nobody bothered him. Now, he was in the engineering department, and thus surrounded by fellow geek soulmates. Someone like me, however, would probably have interrupted him to ask what it meant . . . . OK, back to work. --Nancy
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Heh, reminds me of the IT department of the hospital where I used to work. They had a sign on the door that read "Intel inside, Idiots outside". Time proved that...well...it wasn't exactly true. Roger Shuttleworth London, Canada -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison Sent: March 18, 2009 11:00 AM To: Art Campbell Cc: framers Subject: Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf Speaking of logical things, at my very first tech writing job, as I set off on this long, winding, and slightly peculiar road, my boss told a story about an engineer who was tired of being interrupted in his very own patch of cube land. So, he stretched a string across the opening of his cube and hung a sign that said "Logical Door." Nobody bothered him. Now, he was in the engineering department, and thus surrounded by fellow geek soulmates. Someone like me, however, would probably have interrupted him to ask what it meant . . . . OK, back to work. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as Roger_Shuttleworth at tvworks.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/roger_shuttleworth%40tvworks.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Which version of Frame are you using? If you are using FM 8 or above, you could follow Andrew's advice and use Unicode characters with a Unicode Symbol font, which would be the ideal solution. But if you are on FM7.2 or earlier, you would need to ensure that Symbol font is available to the distiller (is in its path/ is embeddable), as others mentioned. Thanks, Stuti FrameMaker Developer -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Warren Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:59 AM To: 'Nancy Allison'; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf Nancy Allison wrote: > My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. > > To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which > applies the Symbol font. Nancy: Don't ever do that. If you really need an omega, get it within a non-Symbol font by following the advice near the end of the following rant, which is a slightly-edited copy of something I posted a couple years ago to the techwr-l list... Using the Symbol font to produce an omega is bad, but not likely to kill anyone. With omega/W: If you're viewing the document in a web browser that's been configured to use your favorite fonts rather than the fonts specified by the document, the omega symbols become Ws. Google ignores font information in its text searches, so when it indexes a page, it sees (and displays in search results) a "W" wherever there's a Symbol-font "omega". If your browser isn't configured to use your own fonts, the omegas will probably look fine there... But as soon as you cut-and-paste from the browser window to another application, like Frame or Word, the omegas become Ws. If you send the document through an email system that strips HTML, the omegas become Ws. If you send it to a printer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. If you view it on a computer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. In most of these cases, the font information is permanently lost once the document's omega symbols become Ws. They never switch back, even if the document is subsequently viewed in a system which CAN display HTML or the Symbol font. The W-instead-of-omega problem isn't limited to web pages; I see it ALL THE TIME in published datasheets, application notes, user's manuals, trade journal articles, etc. Fortunately, the error is easy to spot, since the erroneous "W" usually makes no sense, and the intended meaning can generally be deduced from the context. However... If you use the Symbol font to make ANOTHER Greek letter, the "mu", you really MIGHT kill someone: The Greek letter "mu" is often used in engineering and scientific writing to represent the prefix "micro-" (one millionth). In the old days, before we all had access to fancy computer typefaces, typewritten documents would use the lowercase "u" instead of "mu", since the two letters look very similar. "Lowercase 'u' means 'mu' means 'micro-'" was a universally-understood convention (among engineers and scientists, anyway): usec = microseconds, uF = microfarads, uA = microamps... Even uP = microprocessor. No one was ever confused by this, and all was well until some pedantic dumbass noticed that he could make the unit names in his documents "correct" by using the Symbol-font "mu" instead of the lowercase "u" that we'd all been happy with for decades. The result, of course, is the same as for "omega", with one small but fatal difference: "Omega" maps to the "W" character, which almost always looks like an error (e.g., "4.7kW, 1/8-watt resistor") but "mu" maps to the "m" character, which is the symbol for the prefix "milli-" (one thousandth). Since "m-for-milli" can be reasonably used almost anywhere that "mu-for-micro" can, it NEVER looks like an error! You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In those cases, numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the mu-to-m error occurs, everything gets multiplied by 1000! Microseconds become milliseconds, microamps become milliamps, micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO WAY TO TELL that the error happened unless there's a LOT of context that happens to look self-contradictory. Since it's so hard to identify the mu-to-m error, it's difficult to know how prevalent it is, but I'd guess that it happens at least as frequently as the omega-to-W error that I see everywhere. There are actually a few places where a mu-to-m error would be obvious, and I often see it there... Like, for instance, in the US Navy's NRaD Writing and Editorial Guidelines: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/pub
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: ---Used Framemaker's Save as feature. ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, I've deselected Do not send fonts to printer. I believe this should assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final PDF. This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. NOT GOOD. I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. All suggestions will be very welcome. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
A couple things are (or may be at work). First, it sounds as if your Adobe PDF logical printer is not set as the system default. Which means that it's possible for Frame to access other fonts that aren't available to the Distiller, for instance if a printer with its own hard fonts is in use. If that's the case, FM can see the symbols the hard printer has on board, but Distiller can't touch them because they're not really on the computer. Variations of this can be: the font that you're using for symbols isn't in the Available Fonts path for Distiller, or it isn't properly installed, or the license prohibits it being embedded. But the first easiest thing to check is to make sure that the logical printer is set as your system default. If it already is, then you'd need to check the Distiller settings for font locations, the font file itself and so on. But I'd bet on the default printer not being set correctly. Art Art Campbell art.campb...@gmail.com ... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl. -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Nancy Allison ma...@verizon.net wrote: My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: ---Used Framemaker's Save as feature. ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, I've deselected Do not send fonts to printer. I believe this should assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final PDF. This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. NOT GOOD. I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. All suggestions will be very welcome. --Nancy ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campb...@gmail.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Nancy Allison wrote: My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. Nancy: Don't ever do that. If you really need an omega, get it within a non-Symbol font by following the advice near the end of the following rant, which is a slightly-edited copy of something I posted a couple years ago to the techwr-l list... Using the Symbol font to produce an omega is bad, but not likely to kill anyone. With omega/W: If you're viewing the document in a web browser that's been configured to use your favorite fonts rather than the fonts specified by the document, the omega symbols become Ws. Google ignores font information in its text searches, so when it indexes a page, it sees (and displays in search results) a W wherever there's a Symbol-font omega. If your browser isn't configured to use your own fonts, the omegas will probably look fine there... But as soon as you cut-and-paste from the browser window to another application, like Frame or Word, the omegas become Ws. If you send the document through an email system that strips HTML, the omegas become Ws. If you send it to a printer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. If you view it on a computer that doesn't have the Symbol font, the omegas become Ws. In most of these cases, the font information is permanently lost once the document's omega symbols become Ws. They never switch back, even if the document is subsequently viewed in a system which CAN display HTML or the Symbol font. The W-instead-of-omega problem isn't limited to web pages; I see it ALL THE TIME in published datasheets, application notes, user's manuals, trade journal articles, etc. Fortunately, the error is easy to spot, since the erroneous W usually makes no sense, and the intended meaning can generally be deduced from the context. However... If you use the Symbol font to make ANOTHER Greek letter, the mu, you really MIGHT kill someone: The Greek letter mu is often used in engineering and scientific writing to represent the prefix micro- (one millionth). In the old days, before we all had access to fancy computer typefaces, typewritten documents would use the lowercase u instead of mu, since the two letters look very similar. Lowercase 'u' means 'mu' means 'micro-' was a universally-understood convention (among engineers and scientists, anyway): usec = microseconds, uF = microfarads, uA = microamps... Even uP = microprocessor. No one was ever confused by this, and all was well until some pedantic dumbass noticed that he could make the unit names in his documents correct by using the Symbol-font mu instead of the lowercase u that we'd all been happy with for decades. The result, of course, is the same as for omega, with one small but fatal difference: Omega maps to the W character, which almost always looks like an error (e.g., 4.7kW, 1/8-watt resistor) but mu maps to the m character, which is the symbol for the prefix milli- (one thousandth). Since m-for-milli can be reasonably used almost anywhere that mu-for-micro can, it NEVER looks like an error! You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In those cases, numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the mu-to-m error occurs, everything gets multiplied by 1000! Microseconds become milliseconds, microamps become milliamps, micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO WAY TO TELL that the error happened unless there's a LOT of context that happens to look self-contradictory. Since it's so hard to identify the mu-to-m error, it's difficult to know how prevalent it is, but I'd guess that it happens at least as frequently as the omega-to-W error that I see everywhere. There are actually a few places where a mu-to-m error would be obvious, and I often see it there... Like, for instance, in the US Navy's NRaD Writing and Editorial Guidelines: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064appb.html It contains a list of abbreviations that includes both micro- and milli- units. It's obvious that a mu-to-m error has occurred, since the list shows m for both sets of units. I no longer approve documents that use the Symbol font for any purpose. I now insist that micro- be either spelled out or represented by the lowercase u, and ohm either gets spelled out or omitted (4.7k resistor or 4k7 resistor are both well-understood in my industry to mean 4.7 kiloohm resistor). Every once in a while, someone actually needs a real micro or ohm symbol in his document. In those cases, I'm okay -- barely -- with the use of the micro (U+00B5, ALT-0181) and ohm (U+2126, ALT-8486) or omega (U+03A9, ALT-0937) characters from whatever regular font he's using. Of course, when those Unicode characters get stripped by an ASCII-only email system, or the document's converted to a font that doesn't contain
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which applies the Symbol font. I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: ---Used Framemaker's "Save as" feature. ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, I've deselected "Do not send fonts to printer." I believe this should assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final PDF. This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. NOT GOOD. I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. All suggestions will be very welcome. --Nancy
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
A couple things are (or may be at work). First, it sounds as if your Adobe PDF logical printer is not set as the system default. Which means that it's possible for Frame to access other fonts that aren't available to the Distiller, for instance if a printer with its own hard fonts is in use. If that's the case, FM can see the symbols the hard printer has on board, but Distiller can't touch them because they're not really on the computer. Variations of this can be: the font that you're using for symbols isn't in the Available Fonts path for Distiller, or it isn't properly installed, or the license prohibits it being embedded. But the first easiest thing to check is to make sure that the logical printer is set as your system default. If it already is, then you'd need to check the Distiller settings for font locations, the font file itself and so on. But I'd bet on the default printer not being set correctly. Art Art Campbell art.campbell at gmail.com "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Nancy Allison wrote: > > My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. > > To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which > applies the Symbol font. > > I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: > > ---Used Framemaker's "Save as" feature. > > ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, > I've deselected "Do not send fonts to printer." I believe this should > assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. > > Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final > PDF. > > This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is > directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. > NOT GOOD. > > I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of > phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. > > In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them > into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. > > All suggestions will be very welcome. > > --Nancy > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campbell at gmail.com. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. >
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Nancy, And if what Art suspects is true, you can get another very handy FrameMaker plugin, SetPrint, which can be configured to set the default printer, when in Frame, to the Adobe logical printer, while your system default printer can be whatever physical printer you have. You can download SetPrint from http://www.sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm. -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Art Campbell Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 5:49 PM To: Nancy Allison Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Omega symbol becomes W in pdf A couple things are (or may be at work). First, it sounds as if your Adobe PDF logical printer is not set as the system default. Which means that it's possible for Frame to access other fonts that aren't available to the Distiller, for instance if a printer with its own hard fonts is in use. If that's the case, FM can see the symbols the hard printer has on board, but Distiller can't touch them because they're not really on the computer. Variations of this can be: the font that you're using for symbols isn't in the Available Fonts path for Distiller, or it isn't properly installed, or the license prohibits it being embedded. But the first easiest thing to check is to make sure that the logical printer is set as your system default. If it already is, then you'd need to check the Distiller settings for font locations, the font file itself and so on. But I'd bet on the default printer not being set correctly. Art Art Campbell art.campbell at gmail.com "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Nancy Allison wrote: > > My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega. > > To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which > applies the Symbol font. > > I've created PDFs from this file in two ways: > > ---Used Framemaker's "Save as" feature. > > ---Printed to .ps file and opened it in Acrobat Distiller. In this case, > I've deselected "Do not send fonts to printer." I believe this should > assure that the Symbol font is sent to the printer. > > Either way, the Omega character is turned back into a W in the final > PDF. > > This is also happening with the Symbol +/minus sign (the plus is > directly over the minus) -- it is transformed into a plain minus sign. > NOT GOOD. > > I'm sure this problem is as old as the hills, but I have Googled lots of > phrases and have not found a good treatment of this subject. > > In the short term, I'm creating .gifs of the symbols and importing them > into the text as graphics, but that is time-consuming and clumsy. > > All suggestions will be very welcome. > > --Nancy > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campbell at gmail.com. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as dspreadb at yahoo.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/dspreadb%40yahoo.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Omega symbol becomes W in pdf
Nancy Allison wrote:
> My document uses some special symbols, like the Omega.
>
> To create it, I type W and then apply a Symbol character tag, which
> applies the Symbol font.
Nancy:
Don't ever do that. If you really need an omega, get it within a non-Symbol
font by following the advice near the end of the following rant, which is a
slightly-edited copy of something I posted a couple years ago to the techwr-l
list...
Using the Symbol font to produce an omega is bad, but not likely to kill anyone.
With omega/W:
If you're viewing the document in a web browser that's been
configured to use your favorite fonts rather than the fonts
specified by the document, the omega symbols become Ws.
Google ignores font information in its text searches, so when
it indexes a page, it sees (and displays in search results) a
"W" wherever there's a Symbol-font "omega".
If your browser isn't configured to use your own fonts, the
omegas will probably look fine there... But as soon as you
cut-and-paste from the browser window to another application,
like Frame or Word, the omegas become Ws.
If you send the document through an email system that strips
HTML, the omegas become Ws.
If you send it to a printer that doesn't have the Symbol font,
the omegas become Ws.
If you view it on a computer that doesn't have the Symbol font,
the omegas become Ws.
In most of these cases, the font information is permanently lost once the
document's omega symbols become Ws. They never switch back, even if the
document is subsequently viewed in a system which CAN display HTML or the
Symbol font.
The W-instead-of-omega problem isn't limited to web pages; I see it ALL THE
TIME in published datasheets, application notes, user's manuals, trade journal
articles, etc.
Fortunately, the error is easy to spot, since the erroneous "W" usually makes
no sense, and the intended meaning can generally be deduced from the context.
However...
If you use the Symbol font to make ANOTHER Greek letter, the "mu", you really
MIGHT kill someone:
The Greek letter "mu" is often used in engineering and scientific writing to
represent the prefix "micro-" (one millionth). In the old days, before we all
had access to fancy computer typefaces, typewritten documents would use the
lowercase "u" instead of "mu", since the two letters look very similar.
"Lowercase 'u' means 'mu' means 'micro-'" was a universally-understood
convention (among engineers and scientists, anyway): usec = microseconds, uF =
microfarads, uA = microamps... Even uP = microprocessor. No one was ever
confused by this, and all was well until some pedantic dumbass noticed that he
could make the unit names in his documents "correct" by using the Symbol-font
"mu" instead of the lowercase "u" that we'd all been happy with for decades.
The result, of course, is the same as for "omega", with one small but fatal
difference:
"Omega" maps to the "W" character, which almost always looks like an error
(e.g., "4.7kW, 1/8-watt resistor") but "mu" maps to the "m" character, which is
the symbol for the prefix "milli-" (one thousandth).
Since "m-for-milli" can be reasonably used almost anywhere that "mu-for-micro"
can, it NEVER looks like an error!
You thought NASA's metric-vs-English mistakes were boneheaded? In those cases,
numbers were off by a factor of 4.45, but when the mu-to-m error occurs,
everything gets multiplied by 1000! Microseconds become milliseconds,
microamps become milliamps, micrometers become millimeters... And there's NO
WAY TO TELL that the error happened unless there's a LOT of context that
happens to look self-contradictory.
Since it's so hard to identify the mu-to-m error, it's difficult to know how
prevalent it is, but I'd guess that it happens at least as frequently as the
omega-to-W error that I see everywhere.
There are actually a few places where a mu-to-m error would be obvious, and I
often see it there... Like, for instance, in the US Navy's NRaD Writing and
Editorial Guidelines:
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064appb.html
It contains a list of abbreviations that includes both micro- and milli- units.
It's obvious that a mu-to-m error has occurred, since the list shows "m" for
both sets of units.
I no longer approve documents that use the Symbol font for any purpose. I now
insist that "micro-" be either spelled out or represented by the lowercase "u",
and "ohm" either gets spelled out or omitted ("4.7k resistor" or "4k7 resistor"
are both well-understood in my industry to mean "4.7 kiloohm resistor").
Every once in a while, someone actually needs a real "micro" or "ohm" symbol in
his document. In those cases, I'm okay -- barely -- with the use of the
"micro" (U+00B5, ALT-0181) and "ohm" (U+2126, ALT-8486) or "omega" (U+03A9,
ALT-0937) characters from whatever regular font he's using.
Of course, when those Unicode characters get stripped by an ASCII-only email
