Expert: Tom Rouze - 7/29/2005

Question
I recently switched to Illustrator (CS2) on Windows XP from Corel Draw 9. When importing Corel Files, Illustrator is not properly reading installed fonts, specifically, fonts such as Adobe Caslon (and variants) and Trajan (to name two). Now, I've noticed that the name of the font that comes up in Illustrator (alerting me that a font is missing) is slightly different from the actual font as it appears in my directory (such as ACaslon-Regular, when in fact, the name of the font is Adobe Caslon Pro). But even substituting this closest match won't work in all cases, causing unwanted design changes, considerable down time for alteration, and inconsistency as far as our logos and other materials are concerned, given that I can never seem to get these designs to appear exactly as they did before. Is it possible that Adobe changed these fonts over the years? I previously had Pagemaker, but that was from five-years ago, plus Corel Draw (from the same time period). This is my first real upgrade since then. Is there anything I can do to rectify this situation? Given these problems, I'm not even sure if reinstalling Corel Draw 9 again will solve it, simply because the same fonts will come up again and again. What can I do?

Answer
Hello Michael,
I'm not familiar enough with Corel Draw to make a determination if that's the problem.  I don't believe that Adobe made any changes to their fonts but I guess anything is possible.  I personally haven't run into this.  A simple suggestion is reinstall the fonts on your PC.  A type manager may help.  It might just be a situation where Illustrator doesn't know where to find the font on your computer.  I know it's not much but I hope it helped a little.
Thank you,
Tom