Finale Forum

I asked this question once before but didn't get an answer, so I'm hoping someone can help so I don't have to spend hours retyping lyrics.

On Finale files from about 10 years ago all the lyrics fonts have turned into Chinese, or some font like that. If I select the text and try to change the font, it stays in the wrong font. If I paste the text into a word processor and try to change it the same thing happens. This happens using Finale 26.

Fortunately I have TIFF's of all these files, but if any TIFF needs to be edited I have to re-type the lyrics. Has anyone else bumped into this and come up with a solution?

::: Bill Stevens

Bill, have you let someone else try the file on a different computer?

What is the font? I'd try reinstalling the font, perhaps using an older version if you have one. If possible, attach a 1 page sample.

Hmmm. When I tried to select a small file to upload here the forum had it greyed out, so maybe the file itself is corrupted. It seems odd that so many of those files would have gotten corrupted. Oh well.

::: Bill

Well that's interesting. It looked like it wouldn't upload, then uploaded anyway and looks correct.

::: Bill

Here is an example of the mysterious font problem.

::: Bill

Bill, it opened correctly for me.

Bill I had no problems with it. Try a different computer.

I don't have that lyrics font, Janson Text, but Finale evidently substitutes something else. Perhaps the difference is you do have Janson Text and it's somehow corrupted. Or Mac versus Windows; the Mac seems fraught with font problems with Finale. Rather than changing the font in the lyrics window with the Font pull-down menu, try changing Document Options / Fonts / Lyrics.

Thanks, Motet. I tried that, but on the Mac that only works on text entered after the change.

You're probably right that my Janson font is corrupted and some other font is getting substituted; however, if I change it from Janson to something else, it remains the Chinese font. Fortunately these are mostly very small files of liturgical snippets, so I can retype them in a few hours.

::: Bill

Equally odd is that if I delete the text and replace it using Janson, it works fine. Go figger.

I thought maybe the XML export/import would work, but no dice.

Thanks all for pitching in.

::: Bill

I wonder if you could edit the MusicXML, which I believe is text, and change fonts. Maybe Michael will see this and reply.

The font name in the 5K Blessing file is definitely corrupt:
it lists as "JansonText Janson Text 55 Roman" in Finale. This is probably not the correct font name.

But if you open the font dialog in the lyrics window, copy&paste that font name into the Document->Data Check->Font Utilities and replace it with the correct font name, you can fix it in a few seconds. Here is a screencam video where I converted it to Times New Roman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stu8Oa7GhfM

Jan
Elbsound.studio

Jan,

Thank you so much for that suggestion but alas -- it didn't work for me, probably because I'm on a Mac. But you're still my hero thanks to Perfect Layout.

::: Bill

Bill,

hm, here it also works on macOS. It's even easier as you don't have to copy&paste the font name, but can select the missing font directly in the Utilities tool. Here is the macOS screencam video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3pAWCu7n-M

Jan
Elbsound.studio

Thanks again, Jan. The difference is that when you open that file it looks like Helvetica bold or something like that. When I open it, it is Chinese, which I can't change. I tried to make a screen shot to show you, but of course at 262KB it is too big for this forum.

I ended up just retyping all the lyrics in about 50 files.

::: Bill

But shouldn't the solution be the same - even if it's a Chinese font?
Go to the Font Utilities tool, select the (Chinese) font name that you see in the lyrics window and replace it with another font.

Jan

On Windows, at least, you can't select it from the Lyrics window or its Text drop-down, but you can by going to Document Options / Fonts and clicking Set Font next to Lyrics.

Jan,

Yes, what you wrote makes perfect sense, but in the lyrics window I don't see a Chinese font name, I see Janson. In FontBook Janson looks right and if I create a text document with Janson it works correctly, but in these older Finale files something has gone wonky and Janson comes out as Chinese.

I have corrected all the files (the hard way) so this will have to remain a head-scratcher.

::: Bill