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J
JWatjen
Participant
December 19, 2009
Question

Font transfer issue..

  • December 19, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 3250 views

Hello, I tried finding another thread that might help me with this but I barely know how to explain so thanks for any assistance.  I transfered the StoneSans family from my old Dell laptop to my new laptop (Latitude E-6500) via a ext. h-drive and when I try to install them I get the "cannot install. Files are invalid or corrupt" message for all.  1 thing that looks odd to me is the fonts are one file on the other PC but they split into 2 on the new (.pfm and .PFB).  It looks like the PC recognizes them because it shows the red lowercase "a" icon but can't install.  I tried ATM and still nothing.  They're not damaged because I uninstalled them on the old PC and reinstalled and they work fine.  Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Jeff

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    1 reply

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    December 21, 2009

    Type 1 fonts for Windows consist of two files, a .PFB file containing the font's outlines and basic font metrics and a .PFM file containing additional font metrics required for application text layout plus pair kerning information. Thus for a particular font, you should have a file named XXXXXXXX.pfb and a file named XXXXXXXX.pfm where XXXXXXXX are identical text strings.

    You don't indicate how you “transferred” the fonts from one system to another, but unless you copy both the .PFB and .PFM files, you will not be successful. You also don't indicate how you are installing these “transferred” fonts on the new system. Typically, you would use Windows Font Control Panel to do this, pointing at the directory with the .PFM file. If you have the .PFM file and don't have the corresponding .PFB file, you will get an error.

    Note that ATM (Adobe Type Manager) is a program that was discontinued by Adobe years ago and is no longer supported. Do not attempt to install or use it on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server, or any 64-bit version of Windows.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    J
    JWatjenAuthor
    Participant
    December 21, 2009

    Thanks for the response. I transferred the files by copying them on to an

    external h-drive and then I tried installing them in the control panel/fonts

    folder by pointing at the hard drive directory. I then copied them to my

    desktop and pointed there. Both the .PFB and .PFM files are there and look

    exactly the same as they do on my other laptop where they install/work

    perfectly fine.

    Thanks for the heads up on ATM. I downloaded it as a last resort but it did

    nothing to help. I saw a post on another site from a couple people having

    similar font issues on a new Dell laptop and the only "solution" I saw was

    something about rolling back to a previous video driver but that doesn't

    make a lot of sense to me, especially with a brand new laptop but nothing

    surprises me anymore. I use these fonts for Indesign CS3 and do not want to

    re-purchase them. It seems that I've installed them exactly how they need

    to be installed but it still throws the invalid/damaged files error.

    Should copying fonts from one PC to another be this complex or is it common

    to have these issues?

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    December 21, 2009

    As stupid as it sounds, that video driver issue is very real. It was interfering with the font mechanism. A good number of users reported that this was indeed the problem plaguing their systems.

    As to installing an old version of ATM, if you have now uninstalled it, you have already corrupted your OS support for Type 1 fonts. You either need to reinstall Windows or download and run the “updater” from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1553 which will fix your system.

              - Dov

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