I usually write these tips to show you something terrific that InDesign can do. This tip is to help you avoid a problem that InDesign 2 has created. Type a lowercase letter “n” and then a tab and then some text. Now, let’s pretend you want that letter “n” to be the equivalent Zapf Dingbat character (a filled-in square). For the past fifteen years in desktop publishing you would select the “n” and apply the Zapf Dingbat typeface.
If you do that in InDesign 2, you will get a pink space indicating a missing font or non-supported letter. The reason for this is that Adobe is adhering to strict unicode character mapping. The square box in Zapf Dingbats is not the same character as the letter “n” in the original font.
So, how do you change the letter “n” to the proper Zapf Dingbat character? One way is to select the letter “n”, then apply the Zapf Dingbat font, and then type in the letter “n” again. Cumbersome, but it works. Or, Adobe has created a secret keystroke. Hold Cmd-Opt/Ctrl-Alt” as you apply the font and you will override the unicode mapping.
Ah, terrific, you say. Problem solved! Well, not really. Let’s say you create a character style that applies the Zapf Dingbat font; reduces the point size; and adds a baseline shift. (This creates a very nice, small, square bullet.) Sadly, if you try to apply the typeface using a character style, you still get the pink space. And you can’t use the secret keystroke to override the behavior. You have to apply the style sheet and then retype the letter “n” to get the correct character.
But it gets even worse. For years I have used Find/Change to change “n^t” into a Zapf Dingbat or character style. But that doesn’t work in InDesign 2. What you have to do is type “n^t” in the Find what field. Then, on the document page, create the proper character in Zapf Dingbats. Next, copy it, and then paste it into the Change to field. This will give you the proper unicode value of <EO6E>. Then you can add the “^t” and do the Find/Change to the character style as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1: Use the unicode values to apply a Zapf Dingbat to text in Find/Change.
What bothers me about all this is that Adobe has turned on a switch to support unicode that will help enormously for those who need to convert type from Roman language fonts to other languages such as Greek. But for most people like me, this causes more problems than it solves.
Read more On the Move to InDesign tips here.
Read more by Sandee Cohen.
This article was last modified on March 10, 2025
This article was first published on March 27, 2002
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