Why Visio 2003 does not support non-TTF fonts?

[Michael Byrnes]

Why does Visio 2003 not support OTF, Type 1 fonts, etc.?

In the process of publishing a large book with Word and Excel both sharing
the same fonts, but Visio comes along and I have to use different fonts.

 

[Martin Liversage]

Why does Visio 2003 not support OTF, Type 1 fonts, etc.?

I was really shocked when I discovered this. I mean, there must be more than
just a few users using out there using type 1 fonts (PostScript) and Visio
together. If they upgrade to 2003 they will suddenly discover that old Visio
files looks "funny" and that they cannot continue using whatever fonts they
have been using. I think this is a really bad move by Microsoft.

As far as I can see TrueType and OpenType fonts are supported, but type 1
fonts (PostScript) fonts are unavailable. It is pure speculation on my side,
but in Tools::Options::View there is a text quality setting where you can
choose to use either ClearType anti-aliasing, anti-aliasing or aliased text.
Maybe Visio 2003 has it's own font renderer for some technical reason and
they choose not to implement support for type 1 fonts. Strange though, since
Windows XP has built-in support for type 1 fonts.

This fact is badly documented, but in the help topic "Troubleshoot printing"
I came across this piece of information:

"Text in my drawing looks different than it did in previous versions of
Microsoft Office Visio."

"You may have opened a drawing created in a previous version of Visio that
uses printer fonts, which are not supported in this release of Visio. Visio
substitutes the closest font supplied by Microsoft Windows. Try changing the
font in your drawing to an available TrueType, OpenType, or PostScript
font."

This is confusing since a "printer font" in Office is a PostScript font
which is a type 1 font. But if "PostScript" is removed from the list of
supported fonts it makes sense.

So unless Microsoft fixes this major flaw in Visio 2003 you should not
upgrade if you plan to use any type 1 fonts. Or alternatively you can get
try to get a TrueType or OpenType version of the font (I recently saw Adobe
announce an OpenType version of Font Folio). It is probably also possible to
convert a type 1 font to TrueType, but this is a perhaps a not so good
solution. After all, you may be using a type 1 font because you get good
printing results on you PostScript printer, and since any other application
is perfectly capable of using the type 1 font you will probably keep both
versions on you computer adding to the amount of fonts you need to manage.

Grrrrrrr

 

[Randall Arnold]

I'm discovering more and more functionality removed from Visio 2003-- things
I didn't see during the beta or I'd have brought them up. I don't get it.
Why REMOVE working, needed features???

Makes no sense to me.

Randall Arnold

 

[Daniel L. Belton]

It seems like each Visio release that MS puts out has more and more
functionality removed from it. I still find version 5.0c to have the best
functionality and it's also in a much smaller package. Seems like MS could
learn a few pointers for writing code from the companies that they buy
out...

 

[Randall Arnold]

I hear you. I'm still sold on the program, and continue to recommend it,
but I'll also express my displeasure with MS over this unfortunate trend.

Randall Arnold

 

[Daniel L. Belton]

I would not give up using Visio for anything... It is a really great
program, and has the features that I need and want to use all in one
package. However, I think the problem is because MS is trying to integrate
it into their office package, and they are causing Visio to suffer big time
because of this. Visio is now a bloated package that has less functionality
than previous versions. In my opinion, Visio should be totally seperate
from the office suite. MS keeps trying to add programs to the office suite
to try and make customers think the 500+ price tag is cheap, but in reality
they are only killing decent products.