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Participant
April 29, 2005
Question

Poss. Fontographer update with Adobe-Macromedia Merger?

  • April 29, 2005
  • 3 replies
  • 843 views
I've been a graphics software customer of both Adobe and Macromedia for a long time (in Adobe's case, over a decade). Fontographer -originally distributed by Altsys and then acquired by Macromedia- has languished since the summer of 1996. I have an older PC I keep alive just to keep this application running. FOG 4.1.5 glitches out on newer WinXP systems with more than 512MB of RAM.

Anyway, I still like FOG and prefer it in a number of aspects to FontLab. I think it would be great if Adobe could give this once-great but now comatose application some attention. Obviously, Fontographer lacks OpenType TT and OpenTypePS capability. There are a number of other productivity improvements (auto-glyph importing, etc.) I would like to see as well.

FontLab has lots of modern features, such as the ability to create OTFs. Still, I don't like how that program "feels" in its operation. It's a bit on the clunky side. Ultimately, any font designer is going to want smooth interoperability with Illustrator or have the app work much like Illustrator or Freehand. FOG does a lot of that. It's just a 9 year old program badly in need of an update.

I would figure as important as type is to Adobe's business, perhaps Fontographer might be a title they may have more justification to update. I don't think Macromedia gave a hoot about it.
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3 replies

Inspiring
December 2, 2005
FontLab has released their first Fontographer update. Check it out at http://www.fontlab.com/Font-tools/Fontographer

T
Participant
May 17, 2005
it is a shock that fontographer-the friendly easy use- gone to fontlab
i hope they upgrade it keeping that simplicity..specially the drawing tools..
Inspiring
May 2, 2005
For most of us at Adobe, it's business as usual until the merger/acquisition is final. Tempting though it might seem, we aren't giving a lot of thought to these possibilities until the deal is closed, which is months away. Until then, none of us will be in a position to comment on this sort of thing.

Regards,

T