Farnham Font

[LesleyGK]

I hope someone can help. I downloaded Farnham font family from the Adobe library for use in a published book. When the book was collect for press, the font appeared as 'AdobeFnt20.lst' file. Now, a year later I need to reprint the book but the font is missing and no longer available in the Adobe libary. When I click on the 'AdobeFnt20.lst' file it says there is no App to open the file? I assumed when I sent the book to press that this was how fonts supplied by Adobe looked. Now I have a big problem as my main font is missing.

Please help!

[Test Screen Name]

A file called adobefnt20.lst may appear but it isn't a font. It's just a list of the fonts you have. 

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

The Farnham font family was never part of the Adobe Font Library, but it was for some time offered as part of the Adobe Font Service. This font family is from the Font Bureau foundry.

Regrettably, Font Bureau decided to stop licensing use of this font family via the Adobe Fonts service. (This was not Adobe's decison!) If you need continued access to this font, you must license it from Font Bureau via one of its commercial outlets. You might try https://store.typenetwork.com/foundry/fontbureau/fonts/?name=farnham.

[LesleyGK]

Thank you so much for responding to my post and providing some clarity - much appreciated.

I am still a little confused. What is the difference between the Adobe font library and the Adobe Font service? I pay a monthly subscription and downloaded the font in good faith from   https://fonts.adobe.com. Is there a way to know which fonts will be there permanently. This is a costly mistake for me and one I don't wish to make again.

[Test Screen Name]

Any font might come or go, like books in a library or tracks on Spotify.  The PERMANENT way to get Adobe fonts and a selection of other fonts is to purchase a license to Font Folio. That's around $9000. This is why Adobe Fonts subscriptions, for all their limitations, are quite attractive.

[Dov Isaacs]

Up until a few years ago, Adobe directly licensed fonts to the public from a vast library of fonts including not only the Adobe Originals (fonts designed by Adobe's own type designers including Adobe Garamond, Adobe Caslon, Minion, Myriad, etc.), but also fonts from the Linotype, Monotype, ITC, and other high quality foundries. These fonts are still available for direct licensing from Adobe as the Adobe Font Folio 11.1 product (see <https://www.adobe.com/products/fontfolio.html>). This product supports only conventional desktop usage and not any web usage whatsoever. It is also fairly expensive! Adobe no longer directly licenses the individual fonts in the Font Folio product. The Adobe Originals can be licensed for conventional desktop usage via its partner FontSpring at https://www.fontspring.com/foundry/adobe. Other fonts in the Font Folio product must be licensed through the original font foundries (although FontSpring does have some of those fonts as well).

The Adobe Font Service provides access to a large collection of fonts, although you don't have direct access to any “downloaded” font file. The fonts are accessible to applications requesting their use after you activate the font, but you don't see any font file that you can explicitly see or keep on your system (or send or package). Such fonts can be embedded in PDF and ePub files, though. And most are licensed for indirect use on the web for web page display (accessed via Adobe serving out such web fonts on demand).

Exactly what are you paying a “monthly subscription” for (i.e. what product)? I was under the strong impression that we no longer have separate subscriptions to the Adobe Font Service, but rather, such access is included with subscriptions to other Adobe products such the Creative Cloud, Acrobat, and/or individual Creative Cloud applications (such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.).

In terms of what fonts are permanently available, at this point, the only fonts you can fully count on for such access are fonts labelled as Adobe Originals. Fonts from other foundries are subject to those foundries continuing to participate in the Adobe Font Service.

[SteFas]

Don't participating font foundries have firm contracts with Adobe that prohibits (or makes it costly), for them to simply remove thier fonts from Typekit? Dissappearing fonts are indeed a major issue. I suspect the backstory is long and full of legal marketing finesse, and beyond the scope of this community.

[Test Screen Name]

"Don't participating font foundries have firm contracts with Adobe that prohibits (or makes it costly), for them to simply remove thier fonts from Typekit?" Who'd sign up for that? "We the undersigned allow Adobe to sell, or not sell, our fonts at any price they please, forever, and pay us whatever they please..."

I suspect it just never occurred to the people brokering this fabulous new service that the consequences of a font disappearing are rather more serious than the consequences of (say) a track disappearing from Spotify; that it can generate huge, unbounded, or ruinous, costs for the people who have standardised.

[LesleyGK]

I'm a freelance designer and sent a large 400pp hardback cookbook to press a year ago. I have now to make some adjustments for the reprint and don't have the font! I will have to pay the fees for the font myself as the client has already paid for the book design. Feel v dissapointed in Adobe and will think twice about using their fonts for a project like this again.

[LinSims]

As Dov explained above, this was not an Adobe decision but a decision by the font foundary. If you have an issue with the font foundary pulling the font from Adobe, talk to the font foundary.

If you want to guarantee the font you use through Adobe is always available, use only the Adobe fonts.

If you want to guarantee that the font you use, that is supplied by another font foundary, is always available, purchase a license from the font foundary and make sure you pay attention to their legal use guidelines.