Question

I’m making an ExtendScript script which goes through all the fonts used in an InDesign document and alerts their name. Here is the code

var usedFonts = app.activeDocument.fonts;
var nbUsedFonts = usedFonts.length;
var i;
for (i = 0; i < nbUsedFonts; ++i) {
  alert(usedFonts.item(i).name);
}

For certain fonts however, the script crashes (Object is invalid) when I access their name property. The only attribute I can access for all fonts without crashing is the isValid attribute, which allowed me to determine that those fonts for which I couldn’t access the name property all had isValid === false, whereas all fonts for which accesing name didn’t cause a problem had isValid === true.

What surprises me is that if I manually place my cursor in the text where one of the problematic fonts is used, its name appears the the normal font chooser or whatever it’s called.

Why can’t I access the name property for some fonts returned to me by app.activeDocument.fonts?

Note:

Here are some of the problematic fonts:

• Electra LH, Italic
• Electra LH, Bold Small Caps & Oldstyle Figures
• Electra LH, Oldstyle Figures
• Ocean Sans MT, Light OsF

These fonts work without problem:

• Ocean Sans MT, Light Italic OsF
• Ocean Sans MT, Semibold SC
• Ocean Sans MT, Light SC
• Ocean Sans MT, Light
• Electra LH, Small Caps & Oldstyle Figures
• Electra LH, Cursive
• Electra LH, Bold Oldstyle Figures

Answer 1

The problem may come from fonts missing, you may try to check for these first, and see if it solves your problem:

var usedFonts = document.fonts;
for(var i = 0; i < usedFonts.length; i++){

    if(usedFonts[i].status != FontStatus.INSTALLED){
        //You can't rely on font.name if the font is missing
        var fontName = usedFonts[i].fontFamily+" "+usedFonts[i].fontStyleName;
    }else{
        var fontName = usedFonts[i].name;
    }
}