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Thomas Phinney
Inspiring
August 11, 2003
Question

Font Folio OpenType Edition

  • August 11, 2003
  • 27 replies
  • 16383 views
Press Release Source: Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe Announces OpenType Edition of Font Folio
Monday August 11, 8:12 am ET
New Version Offers the Adobe Type Library in Enhanced Cross-Platform Font Format

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 11, 2003--Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE - News), the leader in network publishing, today introduced a new version of Adobe® Font Folio(TM) featuring the Adobe Type Library in OpenType® format on one CD-ROM. The Adobe Font Folio (OpenType Edition) product contains more than 2,000 fonts in OpenType format, which allows for richer linguistic support and more advanced typographic control in any print, Web or dynamic media project. Adobe also announced the availability of a new special version with a 10-computer license, making it more affordable for small design shops to access the entire Adobe Type Library.

Adobe and Microsoft Corporation created the OpenType font format to improve cross-platform document portability and simplify font management, by introducing one font file that works on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. Creative professionals benefit from extended foreign language support and the inclusion of expert typographic glyphs, such as small caps, old style figures and swashes, in many OpenType fonts.

"The OpenType font format is much more convenient than the old Type 1 or TrueType fonts," said David Blatner, co-author of Real World InDesign, InDesign for QuarkXPress Users and Real World Photoshop. "With Adobe's new Font Folio in OpenType format, I love having large character sets in the same font instead of having to work with a whole array of related font files."

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Font Folio [OpenType Edition] product is available immediately and will be sold primarily through the Adobe store at www.adobe.com, Adobe retail and licensing channels, and includes a standard 20-computer license for US$8,999. License extensions are also available and Font Folio is included in Adobe's transactional and contractual licensing programs. Upgrade pricing from Font Folio versions 8 or 9 to Font Folio OpenType Edition is US$2,499. Adobe is also releasing a special 10-computer license of Font Folio OpenType Edition for smaller design workplaces that is available for US$4,999. International English versions are available where localized versions are not sold.

Full Press Release:
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200308/081103FONTFOLIO.html

Product page: http://www.adobe.com/products/fontfolio/main.html
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    27 replies

    T
    Thomas PhinneyAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 12, 2009
    Please do check the links I posted. There is really quite exhaustive information about Adobe font character sets there.

    I don't want to start a war either, but as the person who was responsible for defining Adobe's character set standards for the last few years, working in Adobe's type group for over 11 years, the last few as the product manager for Adobe fonts and global typography, I am REALLY clear on this question.

    It may be that in some circumstances you are seeing "font locking" or "font fallback" such that the missing characters are being supplied via glyphs from some other font. But I guarantee that there are needed characters for Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian and Romanian which are not present in Adobe's "Std" western fonts. For example, Hungarian needs the O with double acute ("hungarumlaut").

    German, however, is supported by Std fonts (as are French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and many other western European languages).

    Regards,

    T
    A
    Anonymous
    September 11, 2009

    Thank you Thomas for the answer and the very good article!

    After a lot of months of work with fonts I can also tell that for Slovenian language (CE) I need PRO fonts.

    The letter č for example is not present in any STD font.

    _
    _danpink_
    Participating Frequently
    January 8, 2009
    Tom, I don't want to start a war, but I work with InDesign C3 every day in a publication that uses Central and Eastern European words. I assure you that the glyph map for both Std and Pro fonts includes German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, and Romanian character support. I tested it before I wrote the note because I didn't want to embarrass myself.

    It may be InDesign that makes the characters available. Most of them seem to be there in a lot of Adobe Type 1 fonts that are pre-Std and Pro. But anyone working in InDesign C3 (and maybe earlier C series as well; I don't remember) should be made aware that East European non-Cyrillic characters are supported in most Adobe fonts, including BOTH Std and Pro.

    Cheers, Dan
    T
    Thomas PhinneyAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 8, 2009
    "Actually, Standard Adobe fonts *do* support Eastern European characters if you're using InDesign...."

    No, they really don't. That's the very definition of "Std" in Adobe-speak. The only exception would be Adobe's East Asian fonts, which use "Std" and "Pro" in a different way.

    See my blog post here for more details: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2008/08/extended_latin.html

    Cheers,

    T
    _
    _danpink_
    Participating Frequently
    January 6, 2009
    Actually, Standard Adobe fonts *do* support Eastern European characters if you're using InDesign (they all show up in "glyphs"). Just checked it. When it comes to non-Adobe programs (e.g., Word), I can't get Eastern European characters out of Pro or Standard.

    Dan
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    _Boban_Butric_
    Participant
    January 5, 2009
    Potovani Luka, poto sam Vas naao na ovom forumu, a imam identično pitanje, molio bih Vas da mi odgovorite jeste li konačno saznali da li su svi fontovi u Font Folio 11 sa CE verzijom, tj. naim slovima.

    Hvala.

    Puno pozdrava,
    Boban
    T
    Thomas PhinneyAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 27, 2007
    I'm afraid Dan is mistaken (though kudos for trying to help!).

    Adobe's use of "Pro" indicates that the font has support for Eastern European characters for languages such as Croatian, Hungarian and Polish, including the three characters Luka is asking about. So all Adobe's "Pro" fonts have these characters, and none of Adobe's "Standard" fonts have them.

    > What I'd like to know is whether or not Adobe will continue
    > to offer smaller font packages.

    What makes you think Adobe would stop offering smaller font packages? Currently Adobe sells fonts in relatively small packages, and also as single fonts. I can't comment on future packaging plans, but certainly Adobe has done nothing that would suggest an intention to discontinue the sales of individual fonts and small packages.

    Regards,

    T
    _
    _danpink_
    Participating Frequently
    March 27, 2007
    If the other Open Type fonts are anything like the ones that I have now, both the "Pro" and "Standard" fonts will have every character used in every language based on the Roman alphabet --- Polish, Croatian, French, Hungarian, Finnish, Norwegian, et al. You'll find them in the menu under "glyphs." At least, that's the way I access them, because I write in English but need European language characters for names of places and people. BTW, There are several Cyrillic, Arabic, and Asian fonts in the collection. If you've got the money (or a large enough business), it's a great deal.

    What I'd like to know is whether or not Adobe will continue to offer smaller font packages. I have all the fonts I need, but I'd like to update some of them so that all of my most frequently used fonts are Open Type.
    _
    _Luka_Brataevec_
    Participant
    March 27, 2007
    What about the CE version?
    I need fonts with č, , characters. Are all the fonts in the pro version with theese characters? Or only some of them?
    _
    _Jo_DeWald_
    Participant
    May 2, 2005
    Thanks for your help. I figured out where I needed to put the fonts in order for Suitcase to be able to "add" them but not have them automatically activated all at once. Thanks again.

    Joanne
    N
    Neil_Keller
    Known Participant
    April 26, 2005
    Actually, if you have more than a handful of fonts you need a font manager, so you can organize your fonts into useful sets, and then only activate those you wish to use at the moment. You should NEVER have all fonts active -- it taxes your operating system, slows down applications, and creates obscenely long font menus. The exception is if you have little more than the fonts that came with your operating system. Having 2,000 fonts active at once is a recipe for disaster.

    Use your font manager (ATM Deluxe under Mac OS 9.x only; Suitcase; Font Reserve; or Font Agent Pro) to navigate to your fonts them, organize them into sets and activate those you need for your current session. Check with your font manager where to install fonts.

    For Mac OS X, Font Agent Pro is the current favorite, as ATM is not supported. Apple-supplied FontBook is a lightweight that bogs down under the load of moderate to large font libraries.

    Neil
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