Spacebar shows as rectangle with some fonts

[WWDO]

When using some fonts in text boxes in InDesign (e.g.,sansserif), hitting the spacebar for spaces between words, etc. creates a rectangle with a pink background which makes the text difficult to proofread. If I change to
another TT font like Perpetua, the rectangles don't occur when the spacebar is used. I've never seen this happen before and would like to get rid of the rectangles. Is there a specific name for them and a way to opt out of having them appear with the text?

 

[drbgaijin]

I guess you have "Show Hidden Characters" in the TYPE menu turned on.
I don't think it is the spacebar that is giving you the square with the pink background, it is some character that is not present in your font. Maybe you are typing this missing character then a space - so you think that it is the space that is giving you the reaction. When you switch fonts, the new font probably has that missing character...so the box will be replaced by the correct character.
If the page seems Ok apart from the squares...turn off "Show Hidden Characters" and they should disappear,
I am sure Jimoblak will be able to explain this more correctly.

 

[WWDO]

It must be from the spacebar itself because it appears after every word I type in the text and hit the spacebar. If I hit the spacebar 10 times, then 10 rectangles are printed, one after another. I tried turning off hidden characters and nothing happened.

 

[drbgaijin]

Sorry, I don't have any more ideas at the moment.

 

[lvixen]

Does it happen with the same font in another program? If that were the case it sounds like something wrong with the font. I've seen the rectangles show up if you hit a key that doesn't have a character associated with it. Like when you are looking for a special character using Key Caps. The pink background occurs when you don't have the font being used. (At least that's what happened to me, once the font was changed, it was fine.) Sounds like the font needs internally examined. Not much help, sorry.

 

[jimoblak]

It seems very odd that a space character causes this error. I see no reason why any font would not have a space character. The missing character is why a pink area displays. drbgaijin seemed to have the answer.

You may have a bad font. Can you tell the name of the font and who made the font? (navigate to your font folder and double-click on the font to get the properties.) You may have installed a cheap font from a hack font author.

options to fix:

1) use another font

2) quit all all adobe applications and then delete all occurances of adobefnt.lst - this is the font database that adobe apps use. If this font list is screwy, your adobe apps will be screwy.

- - picklefish - -

 

[WWDO]

Thanks for the possible answers. The font is SansSerif and is listed in the folder as a True Type font. I have not installed any other fonts than those that came with Windows XP or any that may have been installed with Photoshop or InDesign. I tried printing a page and the rectangles do print between each word. I tried deleting all occurrances of adobefnt.lst and restarting InDesign but the same thing happened. Perhaps the font file is corrupt. For now I switched to another font and when I get the chance, I will delete SanSerif and try reinstalling it to see if that helps.

 

[jimoblak]

SansSerif seems like a silly name for a font. Sans Serif defines the type of font, as opposed to a serif font.

Could you be referring to the Microsoft Sans Serif font that often appears with a red 'A' icon in C:\windows\fonts?

If the real filename is sserife.fon, then you should never have used this font in InDesign. This font is intended for screen use in the operating system.

- - picklefish - -

 

[WWDO]

The name of the font in the windows font folder is SansSerif and it states it is a True Type font. I tried using it in Microsoft Word and the rectangles do not show up there, but they continue to show and print in InDesign. The font shows up in my list of fonts in InDesign and is not the same as sserife.fon. I don't have time now but will check later if the font is included with XP. I could also email you a copy of the file if you want and you can try it.