Adobe Font Folio - Look elsewhere for basic fonts for Type 1 transition

Report · Jun 24, 2022

Anyone trying to navigate the transition from Type 1 fonts for hundreds or thousands of documents should be aware that Adobe has suddenly just yanked the ability to purchase Font Folio. After careful research over a couple of months and careful planning to create a cross-reference to transition us from Type 1 fonts (Helvetica, Times, etc.), just the other day I sent final justification to our purchasing department/supervisors. They agreed to purchase.

Today I received an email from Adobe letting me know that "The Adobe sales team unfortunately decided to end sales of Font Folio. Sorry for the inconvenience". BOOM. But heck, the Buy Font Folio information and button are still prominent on the Adobe site.

And Helvetica, Times and many other basic fonts are NOT in the subscription plans. Plus, Adobe can yank a font from your subscription plan at any time, so you may fire up a document one day only to discover you no longer have the font. So now I have to hop around from foundry to resupplier trying to find (and re-justify) each font to purchase, instead of loading the entire purchased library into our Font Server and have them all immediately available.

Inconvenience? This is a disaster. Another one. Between this and yanking the Pantone libraries, Adobe, you're beginning to resemble a certain former phone company. ("We don't have to care. We're the phone company Adobe.") And yes, I posted in Adobe Voice also.

Report · Jun 26, 2022

@quoz wrote:

Anyone trying to navigate the transition from Type 1 fonts for hundreds or thousands of documents should be aware that Adobe has suddenly just yanked the ability to purchase Font Folio.

...Between this and yanking the Pantone libraries,

We have been hearing that Type 1 fonts would be phased out since 2005 and have had time to prepare.

https://blog.typekit.com/2005/10/06/phasing_out_typ/

Can you tell me more about not being able purchase Font Folio? I was able to click the Buy Now button.

https://www.adobe.com/products/fontfolio.html

If you still can't purchase, show a screen shot of the error.

Adobe Help says perpetual licenses are available from FontSpring (in addition to being on Adobe Fonts.)

https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/kb/postscript-type-1-fonts-end-of-support.html

Adobe did not yank Pantone. Instead, Pantone pulled out of Adobe and began charging for their own subscription.

https://www.pantone.com/pantone-connect-for-adobe-creative-cloud

Helvetica is on macOS (which I use) but is available from Linotype. Disclaimer: I have not purchased this since I have Helvetica already.

https://www.linotype.com/1308886/helvetica-family.html

Several type foundries choose to include some of their fonts on Adobe Fonts. Adobe does not "yank" the fonts from your subscription plan, but there have been a couple of times when foundries have pulled out, taking their fonts with them. When you go to Adobe Fonts, you can see if the font is an Adobe Original or if it belongs to a foundry.

https://creativepro.com/more-fonts-are-being-retired-from-creative-cloud/

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-fonts-discussions/foundries-leaving-adobe-fonts/m-p/11110604

I am a user just like you and I do not work for Adobe. All I can do is provide information. I hope this helps.

Jane

Forum volunteer

Report · Jun 27, 2022

Jane, our purchasing department was handling the purchase, as I noted. All I know is:

I had posted an idea in Adobe Voice in April titled: "List of Adobe subscription fonts for Type 1 substitution team project". I asked for a list of Font Folio fonts.
Adobe actually provided the list, which allowed me to move ahead with justification for the Font Folio purchase.
On Friday, I received an email from UserVoice. See attached.
Obviously, this was jarring and sudden. The actual notice is buried here: https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/kb/font-folio-end-of-sale.html
I do see that the Buy button is STILL on the site, so I don't know what is going on. I'm not sure Adobe does. I've asked our purchasing department to pursue it.
All in all, poorly handled.

Report · Jun 27, 2022

Clarification: I had two postings in Voice; I was trying to get lists of both Adobe Font Folio, and fonts available via subscription. The email from Adobe that Font Folio was no longer available went to the Font Folio posting.

I did also receive a list of subscription fonts, with the caveat that "This list will quickly become outdated". The fluxuation of subscription fonts was part of our reason for pursuing Font Folio, along with the need have physical fonts to upload to our font server for our entire team so we can set up per-project sets for a smoother transition. We did our research, determined what we needed, justified it, and our purchasing department was setting it up when Font Folio was rescinded. Obviously things do not move quickly at a larger company, so we're looking at significant delays if we now must switch to per-foundry research, re-justification and purchase orders.

Report · Jun 27, 2022

As I clarified on the UserVoice post, the list will become outdated because we are constantly adding fonts, not subtracting them.

Report · Jun 27, 2022

@Molly Doane

Thank you for the clarification.

I was just about to ask @Sil.C about the conflicting information on the Buy Button for Font Folio and the announcement that the team decided to end the sales of Font Folio. Now that you've answered here, though, I realize she would have tagged you. Can you address this for @quoz ?

~ Jane

Report · Jun 26, 2022

"Helvetica, Times and many other basic fonts are NOT in the subscription plans"

Even if you had Font Folio, these fonts "no longer exist" as they were restructured and renamed e.g. HelveticaLTStd, so you would have had to do a "manual" find/replace to update any old documents anyway. A minor inconvenience, but at least you had a way. That being said, like Pantone withdrawing, the fonts contained in the Font Folios were part of an existing licensing agreement with the foundries which no longer exists, hence they can longer sell them. You can blame Adobe, Linotype, Berthold or whoever, but these "free" "basic" fonts are no longer free. No printer comes bundled with them any more as well. On the Mac side, they drooped the Type 1 versions of the "Basic" font sand switched to Truetype versions more than 20 years ago (which caused enough problems), but there is no such default set in Windows. I get that Linotype, Monotype, etc want to make money off their own version of cloud fonts, but still, I feel your frustration.

Report · Jun 27, 2022

Yes, we're aware of the need to manually replace, but at least the font names were the same in the Font Folio package, and we created our path forward with the list that Adobe provided of Font Folio fonts that we planned to purchase. We WERE planning ahead. The suddenness of receiving an email on June 24 "Sorry you cannot purchase this as of June 1" threw a monkey wrench into all of it, forcing us to spend more unproductive time reassessing a plan we thought was solid.

Report · Jun 27, 2022

"the font names were the same in the Font Folio package"

No, they weren't (aren't). Any OpenType versions of existing fonts were already renamed from the start (2003).

Here's a sample list of Helvetica from the Font Folio catalog. Yes, they WERE based on the same Linotype outlines, so you could safely F/R the Type 1 for the OTF version with minimal chance of reflow, but they already had new internal Postscript names. Not all fonts in the Folio were like that though. Some of the Adobe original fonts, for example, were slightly updated/redesigned/rekerned when they made OTF versions, especially when they upgraded them to the Pro set, so there were some that caused considerable reflow.

Report · Jul 05, 2022

Hi Brad. What I meant by "same names" was Font Folio had an Open Type Helvetica, a Times Roman, Frutiger, Univers, etc. I understand size, kerning, tracking will not be identical, but it would have given our team single-purchase base collection of closely-named fonts, loadable into our font server, and a static foundation for a cross reference for our substitution project. Hence my post title.

A note that fonts can and do disappear from the subscription collection (attached).

Report · Jul 05, 2022

@quoz wrote:

A note that fonts can and do disappear from the subscription collection (attached).

It was also mentioned in this thread on June 26 with links to other discussions. You'll see it if you scroll up, but here is a screenshot:

Jane

Report · Jul 05, 2022

"Hi Brad. What I meant by "same names" was Font Folio had an Open Type Helvetica, a Times Roman, Frutiger, Univers, etc."

Indeed it did, albeit recrafted as HelveticaLT Std, etc. Yes, one still had to do a manual find/replace, but they were essentially the same outlines licensed in the Type 1 versions.

Linotype used to have a CD collection of their own... all of the fonts they had on the Adobe Font Folio were there; Not sure if they still do. Any links I searched for now are falling silent (They seem to be reorganizing their product line (e.g. their font manager Font Explorer (which has been mine for many years) has been announced as EOL as of 2023 and won't be updated after that).)