Just the other day
one of the girls in the office had to edit a PDF. She'd opened it in Acrobat, but was confused because a pop-up had appeared saying that some of the fonts were missing. I went over and explained that because the PDF had originally been created on a Mac, she needed to substitute the font "Times New Roman" for "Times" and plain old "Wingdings" for "Wingdings (TT)". I demonstrated how to do this a couple of times, selecting the text that was in the wrong font and changing it to the correct one.

She looked at me as if I'd been speaking Klingon and had just smeared her monitor with excrement for all the good it did. Instead she waited a full day for someone from IT to come and look at the problem, and when he arrived he asked me what to do.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 15:31, 12 replies)

Yeah I don't know how many times I had to show colleagues
how to pdf a quark page, instead of hitting save-as you choose Export-to-pdf, simple as. I still got emails asking me to pdf pages for him everyday!
( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Thu 15 Mar 2012, 15:39, closed)

*typeface
No wonder she was confused.
( wakeupandsmellthebacon, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 15:43, closed)

As I understand it
"Times" and "Times New Roman" are the same typeface, but separate fonts
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 16:23, closed)

My understanding
is that whilst the different point sizes are no longer deemed to be separate fonts, the styles - roman, italic, bold - and weights - ultra thin through to heavy - are all fonts of the same typeface. Times New Roman is a different typeface to Times.
( wakeupandsmellthebacon, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 16:51, closed)

You understand wrong
A typeface is the style of the letters
A font is the digital file the style of the letters is drawn from

www.thefloatingfrog.co.uk/tips-tricks-tutorials/what-is-the-difference-between-a-font-and-a-typeface/
www.will-harris.com/font_vs_typeface.html
typophile.com/node/55962

Acrobat was looking for the Mac font Times, so I pointed it towards the Windows .ttf (True Type Font) file Times New Roman. Which is, essentially, the same typeface, just as Wingdings on the PC and Wingdings (TT) on the Mac are different fonts of the same typeface.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 21:18, closed)

I like it when people refer to doing things in "Adobe".
My story is thuswise: we often have to edit work we didn't do, and thus source the files.

Her: could you edit this? He's left the company but we need it doing.
Me: Sure - do you know what he did it in?
Her: (looks at me like I've just asked if she's up for a quick rape) He did it in his laptop.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 16:00, closed)

"Hi, can you come and
look at my computer?"

"Yes, sure. What's up with it?"

"It's not working"

"OK. What's wrong with it?"

"If I knew that, I could fix it myself, couldn't I?"

"Possibly. Can you describe the problem?"

"There's an error messge keeps coming up"

"OK, and what does it say?"

"I don't know, I cancelled it"

"Right, thanks. I'll be there in 20 minutes"
(username failed moderation, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 16:20, closed)

Just today - bearing in mind that while I have complete access to one of these, the other is run by an external company...
"Can you edit something on the website?"

"Which website are you talking about, the one that ends with '.ac.uk' or the one that ends in 'videos.com'?"

"I don't know, it just needs changing on the website!"

"Which website?"

"Our website!"

*sigh* "Fine, send it over."
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 16:26, closed)

It's small comfort knowing they're ensuring your job security
It hurts, sometimes, holding in the laughter:

Dept director: Where is my window? It just disappeared!
me: Click on the task bar at the bottom of your screen, you've just minimised it (leave as the arguing starts)

I regularly get calls and emails about messages that their computers are infected (That's an ad on the website. Ignore it.) or that they should forward a virus warning to everyone they know. *sigh*
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 17:24, closed)

Just this week I spent 45 minutes listening to my colleagues arguing over a "fault" in the email sending system
and how they could find a way to solve it - at that point I took pity on them and went over to fix it in about 30 seconds (they needed to give the links different name attributes)

I think I actually mentioned job security at that point.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 20:54, closed)

You were talking Klingon.
I trained in chemistry and later in some aspects of law. I've picked up some immunology & molecular biology as well. If I have to deal with kringle domains, what "person skilled in the art" means, granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor, small interfering RNA etc than I'll leave you to deal with the difference between Windows and Mac systems.

But I doubt I'd have to wait for someone from IT once I'd got the idea, just the same.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 3:15, closed)

Maybe ask the person who created it
to embed the fonts next time, eh?
(ubergeekian, Sun 18 Mar 2012, 1:25, closed)