Font mapping Simplified Chinese not working

Question

Hi, 
 I am trying to map some fonts for Chinese in IDML file type, but I'm afraid it's not working as it's supposed to be. Or maybe I'm doing or understanding something wrong? 
 Here's what I do: 
 Project Settings > File Types > IDML > Font mapping 
 The way I understand it, this should map the Akkurat Mono LL of my source file to Microsoft YaHei in my target file. Idem with Akkurat LL Light and Microsoft YaHei Light. 
 However, when I open the generated Chinese IDML file in InDesign, it looks like this:

What am I doing wrong? 
 Any help appreciated! :) 
 
 Kind regards, 
 Katharina 
 
 Trados Studio 2024 SR1 18.1.2.6370 
 InDesign: 20.5 x64

Paul · Answer

I can't be 100% on this but, I think this might be occurring because the font you mapped doesn&rsquo;t actually support Chinese characters, or the mapping didn&rsquo;t apply as expected. Trados only swaps the font name in the IDML; it doesn&rsquo;t ensure the new font has the right glyphs. When InDesign opens it, you get boxes because it&rsquo;s still referencing a Western font. 
 
 This article might he helpful as I think this is more of an InDesign issue than a Trados one: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/native-american-symbols-displaying-as-squares/m-p/12858168 
 In short: check that Microsoft YaHei is installed, make sure the mapping matches exactly, and confirm the IDML actually uses that font when opened in a text editor.

Paul · Answer

Katharina Schuhmann

ok -I had to mess around a little to figure this out. I could reproduce your problem trying various scenraios, so I checked inside the Resources/Fonts.xml which you can find if you unzip the IDML and looked at the font name being used for the source. What I found is that initially I used the name of the font as I saw it in my fonts. so I used this:

IBMPlexMono-Regular

That got me this:

Screenshot showing text in a pink-highlighted box with references to InDesign, Adobe Myriad Pro, Minion Pro, and Adobe Fonts.

When I looked in the Font.xml InDesign used it was this:

IBM Plex Mono

Like this:

	<FontFamily Self="di140" Name="IBM Plex Mono">
		<Font Self="di140FontnIBM Plex Mono Regular" FontFamily="IBM Plex Mono" Name="IBM Plex Mono Regular" PostScriptName="IBMPlexMono-Regular" Status="Installed" FontStyleName="Regular" FontType="TrueType" WritingScript="0" FullName="IBM Plex Mono Regular" FullNameNative="IBM Plex Mono Regular" FontStyleNameNative="Regular" PlatformName="$ID/" Version="Version 2.3" TypekitID="$ID/" />
	</FontFamily>

So I removed the custom font settings and added them again with the correct name. Then when I recreated my project and ran it through my TM the target file looked like this:

Screenshot displaying text in Chinese discussing InDesign, missing fonts, Adobe Myriad Pro, Minion Pro, and font replacement options.

So this seems to be all about using the correct name for the font exactly when you create the mapping. Maybe you can check as I suggested before?

Paul · Answer

Katharina Schuhmann 
 I don't think you can do this without manually editing the font faces in the target IDML. The reason, after looking a bit seems to be because of three layers of control: 
 
 Windows : Groups faces by internal family. Single faces can only appear separately if the font&rsquo;s internal family name is edited. 
 InDesign / IDML : IDML references AppliedFont (family) and optional FontStyle. You can&rsquo;t define new faces in IDML; it must point to installed fonts. 
 Trados Studio : Font mapping runs on Save Target and is family-based, not style-aware. So:
 
 Akkurat Mono LL -> Microsoft YaHei works; 
 Akkurat Mono LL SemiBold -> Microsoft YaHei Bold does not unless that SemiBold is exposed as a distinct family.

In short... Windows controls which fonts exist, IDML only references them, and Trados can only swap family names, not individual faces or weights unless they have been added as unique fonts (with distinct internal family names.) 
 So you can see in the default source font lists that Studio picks up where there are variants you could map to and if you map to these they all work as you already know. 
 It would require an enhancement request (ideas site is a good idea) to support this as you need... perhaps this will help by way of the example I tested with:

All 14 IBM Plex Mono that I imported files share the same internal family name (&ldquo;IBM Plex Mono&rdquo;), so Windows merges them into one family entry.

The Windows Fonts UI shows only the family and a few representative styles. It does not list every face even though all are installed. 
 
 Trados Studio&rsquo;s font mapping is family-based, not face-aware. So it would require an enhancement that could enumerate installed fonts via the full OpenType API instead of relying on Windows&rsquo; simplified family list that only displays this in Studio: 
 
 InDesign, however, reads the full OpenType metadata directly (including usWeightClass and style records), so it correctly exposes all 14 faces such as Thin, Light, SemiBold, and their Italics.

So in short... an enhancement would be needed for Studio to read full OpenType metadata and map family + style.

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Font mapping Simplified Chinese not working