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Font question (GOTHAM)

Explorer ,
Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

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Dear Representative,

In FM10. I was instructed to use a font called "gotham book" for my body text. I bought gotham-book.otf and gotham-book.ttf and put them in the FM folder FMINIT\Fonts. I have been using the font but the text looks off to me, horizontally stretched or something. I did a little research on the font and I see there are 3 names for what seem to be the same font, "Gotham Regular", "Gotham-Book" and "Gotham Book"; are any one of these three considered the official font while the other two are unofficial copies? Also, do I need both the otf and ttf files?

Thanx for any help you may provide,

-William

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Advocate , Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

If you have the OTF version, you don't need any of the others and should

uninstall them. Having more than one version installed-- OpenType (OTF),

TrueType (TTF), or PostScript (PFM)-- can lead to confusion in software

programs. The result can be that all show up in the font dropdown lists

and you don't know which to choose, or only one version shows up in the

list and it is not the one you want. Or you could end up mixing multiple

incongruent versions of the fonts.

Further, Gotham Regular, Gotham

...

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Guide ,
Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

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William,

You need only the otf version of the font. The ttf version is redundant. Some fonts name the normal face "regular" and some fonts name it "book." So, eliminating the ttf version will likely clear up the multiple names.

Van

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Community Expert ,
Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

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Van, is there any chance there could also be a problem if the same font name, but different metrics, is in both FMINIT\Fonts and the system fonts folder?

Which might have a further corner case if the same font name exists as OpenType and/or TrueType and/or Type1.

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Advocate ,
Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

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If you have the OTF version, you don't need any of the others and should

uninstall them. Having more than one version installed-- OpenType (OTF),

TrueType (TTF), or PostScript (PFM)-- can lead to confusion in software

programs. The result can be that all show up in the font dropdown lists

and you don't know which to choose, or only one version shows up in the

list and it is not the one you want. Or you could end up mixing multiple

incongruent versions of the fonts.

Further, Gotham Regular, Gotham Book, and Gotham-Book may all have very

different metrics. Just because the names are similar does not mean they

are the same font. Each font foundry styles its fonts differently to set

themselves apart, and to avoid copyright violations of the same font

made by other foundries. These fonts, though they may have the same

name, can be very different in appearance and the number of glyphs they

contain. Just look at the many, many variations of Garamond that are

out there. *You will do well to go back to the person who instructed you

to use the font to find out which foundry's version they use and where

to buy it.* Or else, you could merely be using a similar font, but not

the right one.

I would note, too, that you probably don't just need your Gotham Book

typeface. You probably also need Gotham Italic, Gotham Bold, and Gotham

Bold-Italic. (I'm just guessing at the names of these fonts.) Otherwise,

you will not be able to include true italic, bold, or bold-italic text.

You want to avoid using the bold and italic styling buttons in

FrameMaker, as they may create pseudo-italic and pseudo-bold styles,

rather than embedding a true font. (That is, they artificially slant or

thicken the type on screen, but without having the font actually

installed on the system, cannot embed it in a PDF. This leads to big

surprises.) FrameMaker lists pseudo-styles as "obliqued" and "bolded" in

the font properties dialogues. Note the "ed" on the end of those words,

which is FM's way of signifying that they are faked, and should be avoided.

Regarding the text looking not quite right on screen. It could be

because you have the wrong foundry's version of the font. It could be

because you used obliqued or bolded text, instead of true italic

(oblique) or bold fonts. You might also check the

"DisplayUsingPrinterMetrics" setting in maker.ini. By default it is set

to "Off," which makes the type look best on screen at small sizes, but

makes the line ends not show properly. Most change it to "On," which

makes the lines end where you expect, but makes the kerning of the font

appear to be wrong. In any case, this setting changes the appearance of

type on screen (at small sizes), but does not affect proper printing.

Finally, as a side note, I would question the use of Gotham Book as a

body text font. Studies show that using a sans serif font for body text

greatly reduces reader comprehension. Sans serif fonts are best reserved

for headlines. So I'd recommend a serif font for body text. Check out

this table from pg. 47 of Colin Wheildon's excellent book, /Type &

Layout/

<http://www.amazon.com/Type-Layout-Communicating-Making-Pretty/dp/1875750223>:

Comprehension Level

Good

Fair

Poor

Serif body type

67

19

14

Sans serif type

12

23

65

Values are listed as percentages of readers in the sample.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 30, 2012 Jan 30, 2012

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You want to avoid using the bold and italic styling buttons in

FrameMaker, as they may create pseudo-italic and pseudo-bold styles,

rather than embedding a true font. (That is, they artificially slant or

thicken the type on  screen, but without having the font actually

installed on the system, cannot embed it in a PDF. This leads to big

surprises.) FrameMaker lists pseudo-styles as "obliqued" and "bolded" in

the font properties dialogues. Note the "ed" on the end of those words,

which is FM's way of signifying that they are faked, and should be avoided.

One historical surprise was that Frame could only do these variations on Windows if the print path was PostScript (a real Ps driver, ADISTIL PPD, PDF pseudo-driver, etc.).

Run Frame with a PCL or EscP driver for the default printer, and get a font-not-found dialog.

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