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_Tageldinho_
Participant
April 18, 2008
Question

Difference between Mac and PC Fonts in Adobe

  • April 18, 2008
  • 6 replies
  • 8473 views
I recently was asked to do some research in purchasing a Mac since we plan on doing more of our design work in house. One of my manager's concerns is that our designers currently use Mac when designing anything for our website. I currently have CS2 installed (will upgrade to CS3 soon), and it does not contain the Gill Sans Light Font, which is the main font our designers use.

My question is, if I purchase this font from Adobe, is there any difference at all between the fonts if I were to alter some of the words on Illustrator or any other application on my PC as opposed to if our designers did it on a Mac?

So basically I'm asking if I purchase and use the same Gil Sans Light font on my PC to alter something would it be exactly the same as if they did it on their Mac? I just think it may not be practical to purchase a Mac for this sort of reasoning if purchasing the font and just upgrading the software would yield the same results.

Thank you.
-Adam
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    6 replies

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    _Dominic_Hurley_
    Participating Frequently
    April 21, 2008
    Just to add one comment: since your initial post asked if there was any difference at all between the fonts on *any other application* on your PC, be aware that some Windows and Mac apps were not able to access every single glyph in a Type 1 font, and the ones they could access were different (eg, on Windows, you could access a fraction or two but not all the ligatures, and on Mac it was the opposite). I haven't kept up with this aspect seeing as I've moved to OT fonts and use mainly Adobe apps (which can access all glyphs), but maybe Dov can spell out if this is still an issue with the current OSs and apps.
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    April 18, 2008
    Your designers now have the opportunity to learn something new! :-)

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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    _Tageldinho_Author
    Participant
    April 18, 2008
    See that's what I thought but our designers suggested otherwise. But looking online I couldn't find anything saying that the display of the two fonts would be different.

    Thanks again for all the help.
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    April 18, 2008
    If your designers were using Type 1 fonts from Adobe (the Windows users using the Windows version of the font family and the Macintosh users using either the Macintosh version or the Windows version of the same font family - Adobe applications on the Macintosh can use the Windows Type 1 format), the results with Adobe applications should be identical. I cannot vouch for what happens with fonts from other font foundries. I would hope that they would be at least as careful as we are with making sure the Windows and Macintosh versions match.

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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    _Tageldinho_Author
    Participant
    April 18, 2008
    Thanks Dov! Yes, I meant to say purchasing the font license, sorry!

    Sorry, I am still a bit new to some of this stuff. So if our designers by some chance were using Type 1 fonts would their be a noticeable difference? Or is it just the formatting but the display is the same? If I were to open an Illustrator file with a Type 1 Mac Font used would it give any sort of problem?

    Thanks again,

    -Adam
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    April 18, 2008
    If you license the OpenType versions of the fonts, there is no difference whatsoever between Windows and Macintosh. There is no Windows or Macintosh-specific versions; it's one font file used for both systems. For the older Type 1 fonts, there was a difference in the file formats between Macintosh and Windows, but the fonts were logically the same.

    By the way, Adobe does not sell any fonts; it sells font licenses!

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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