Typographic features used in Styles disappear randomly?

Question

Hi there. I've been making a document in Pages '08 with paragraph styles that involve typographical features (from Typography under the gear menu in the Fonts panel; e.g. uppercase numbers, swash caps, etc.). It all works great, except that occasionally when Pages isn't open, somehow the typographical features get reset to the defaults. All the fonts and sizes and everything stay the same, but the typographical features die. Just recently I exported a PDF of the document, which retained the typography styles, but just recently they were removed in the actual document (they also don't show up in the Quick Look preview at this point). I have to go back and add them all manually. This has happened multiple times. What's going on? Can I prevent this from happening again?

Answer 1

Hello Tom
As the components of a Pages documents are files with no resource fork, the mode of transfer can't be the culprit as far as the OP may open the doc.
The only drawback is that on some medias the structure of the Package is not recognized (this is why zipping it is a good practice). But in such a case, the Index.xml.gz file is unavailable and the doc don't open … which is not the described behavior.
The typographical attributes are described this way in the Index.xml file:
<sf:anon-styles>
<sf:paragraphstyle-ref sfa:IDREF="SFWPParagraphStyle-10"/>
<sf:characterstyle sfa:ID="SFWPCharacterStyle-7" sf:parent-ident="character-style-null">
<sf:property-map>
<sf:atsuFontFeatures>
_<sf:mdata sfa:ID="NSMutableData-0" sl:b64data="AA4ABA=="/>_
</sf:atsuFontFeatures>
</sf:property-map>
</sf:characterstyle>
<sf:layoutstyle-ref sfa:IDREF="SFWPLayoutStyle-17"/>
<sf:characterstyle sfa:ID="SFWPCharacterStyle-8" sf:parent-ident="character-style-null">
<sf:property-map>
<sf:atsuFontFeatures/>
</sf:property-map>
</sf:characterstyle>
<sf:paragraphstyle sfa:ID="SFWPParagraphStyle-52" sf:parent-ident="paragraph-style-32">
<sf:property-map>
<sf:atsuFontFeatures>
_<sf:mdata sfa:ID="NSMutableData-1" sl:b64data="AAEACgAEAAE="/>_
</sf:atsuFontFeatures>
<sf:fontName>
<sf:string sfa:string="MyriadPro-Regular"/>
</sf:fontName>
</sf:property-map>
</sf:paragraphstyle>
<sf:characterstyle sfa:ID="SFWPCharacterStyle-9" sf:parent-ident="character-style-null">
<sf:property-map>
<sf:atsuFontFeatures>
_<sf:mdata sfa:ID="NSMutableData-2" sl:b64data="AAoABA=="/>_
</sf:atsuFontFeatures>
</sf:property-map>
</sf:characterstyle>
<sf:layoutstyle-ref sfa:IDREF="SFWPLayoutStyle-14"/>
<sf:characterstyle sfa:ID="SFWPCharacterStyle-10" sf:parent-ident="character-style-null">
<sf:property-map>
<sf:atsuFontFeatures>
_<sf:mdata sfa:ID="NSMutableData-3" sl:b64data="AAoAAw=="/>_
</sf:atsuFontFeatures>
</sf:property-map>
</sf:characterstyle>
<sf:layoutstyle-ref sfa:IDREF="SFWPLayoutStyle-10"/>
</sf:anon-styles>
My guess is that in this kind of entry:
<sf:mdata sfa:ID="NSMutableData-3" sl:b64data="AAoAAw=="/>
the string sl:b64data=… is specific to a machine (linked to available fonts).
If I am right, it may be described as a design flaw.
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 9 octobre 2008 16:25:08)