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Participating Frequently
April 7, 2015
Question

How to access full font families?

  • April 7, 2015
  • 2 replies
  • 3229 views

I'm trying to access the full range of a given typeface- Adobe seems to only offer a ridiculously limited amount of variations per font...

Thoughts?

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    2 replies

    Participating Frequently
    April 7, 2015

    It looks as though just about any font is limited, so that is why I didn't specify a font family.

    But as an example, Bodoni 72 offers only three weights

    book

    book italic

    bold

    This is really limited. Sometimes I can see more are offered, but only for web design use.

    I would rather have fewer font styles to choose from, but be able to access the full range of each.

    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    April 7, 2015

    Ironically, Adobe itself doesn't license any “Bodoni 72” font family.

    “Bodoni 72” is generally available as ITC Bodoni Seventy-Two™ and can be licensed from ITC Bodoni Seventy-Two™ - Webfont & Desktop font « MyFonts.

    Yes, there are limited weights and styles for this particular font family, but it should be noted that as can be surmised by the font family name that includes “72,” this particular set of typefaces was specifically designed for use in large headlines and headers (as in 72pt) where the assumption was made that there was much less of a need for more weight and style variants. ITC also produced ITC Bodoni Six (as in 6pt text) for captions and footnotes as well as ITC Bodoni Twelve (as in 12pt text) for more conventional text typesetting.

    These other ITC Bodoni families may be licensed at the same site or through other vendors. Adobe itself doesn't license any of the ITC Bodoni typefaces.

    If you still feel limited, you might explore the offering of other Bodoni families (i.e., not the ITC offering).  You should also be aware that in the case of many of these older typeface families, the digital offerings in terms of styles and weights directly reflected those styles and weights that were actually available as metal type.

                - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    Participating Frequently
    April 7, 2015

    Thanks Dov.

    I've noticed this seems to be the case with most of the fonts.

    Futura is another example- but they seem to all be like that.

    I understand its a "free" bundled thing- but its just very limiting.

    Unless I'm missing something here- maybe there is an option

    to expand on what can be downloaded?

    Thank you!

    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    April 7, 2015

    What font family and what “variations” of same do you actually have in mind? We can't give you any meaningful response or “thoughts” without knowing specifically which font family offered by Adobe is somehow missing particular styles or variations.

                 - Dov

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