Best option for upcoming loss of support for Type 1 Fonts

[CmdrTomalak6330]

Hi. I'm simply looking for opinions on best options for how to handle the loss of Type 1 Font support coming in January 2023.  Adobe support seems confident that any unsupported fonts will be easily covered by their 'suggested' fonts.  Personally, I'm skeptical but paying for new licences for updated fonts might also be an issue financially.  I've got approximately 25000 customer files all using Helvetica font family that will all lose support.

Should I trust Adobe's suggested font replacement or bite the bullet and pick up an updated license for Helvetica?

[Monika Gause]

That's weird, since people have already reported fonts not working anymore.

I would not rely on anything. Maybe the date is near the end of January, but it can be turned off anytime. I don't know any precise date, but maybe someone else has more precise insight.

[CmdrTomalak6330]

Well, either that or my boss has more pull with Adobe than I gave him credit for. 😉

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm running the latest version of Illustrator and can still select Type 1 fonts in the fonts menu. The "a" icon for Postscript fonts has a tiny "!" exclamation point icon next to it. Opening old documents using Postscript fonts brings up a warning in a blue box at the bottom the screen, similar to the warnings about Pantone color use.

My bigger concern is when (or if) Microsoft stops Type 1 font functionality at the operating system level. I assume that would just affect Windows 11. I'm still running Win10 Pro on my Alienware notebook at home and haven't been itching to put Win 11 Pro on it.

Here's the thing, many of us long-time users have thousands of documents containing type objects styled using Postscript Type 1 fonts. It's pretty unreasonable to expect anyone to manually open each of those old archive documents, change the fonts used in the document to TTF or OTF and then re-save them. It's even more impractial to expect anyone to update a giant pile of archived files before Postscript Type 1 font support is removed. Graphics applications like Illustrator and InDesign need to at least have the capability to recognize the Type 1 fonts used and give the user a change to swap fonts when opening one of these old files.

This issue with font formats being rendered obsolete and support ended for them is yet another variable among many variables proving that long term storage of documents in any digital format is a very risky proposition. It's ridiculous to think a printed hard copy is going to be safer over a period of decades. But that seems to be the truth.

[Ton Frederiks]

There is more info here:

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

Applications will warn you and give the option to replace the font. Older apps will still support Type 1 fonts when installed. And of course PDF is a better way to store your documents for long term storage than paper and will support Type 1 fonts for display and print.

[Bobby Henderson]

PDF has a problem of not being an edit-friendly format. Illustrator-generated PDFs can be an exception to that (when the Illustrator editing capability option is checked). As least the PDF format isn't tied to just one specific graphics application. In the unlikely scenario that Adobe went out of business a user would still be able to view and print PDF files. The Illustrator AI format is popular enough that various rival graphics applications have import filters to support it as well as EPS.

Corel is a company which, IMHO, appears to be doing more things to seal its fate. The past few versions of CorelDRAW cannot open or even import CDR files made prior to version 6. For a long time version 3 was the cut-off point. Then they just decided to move the goal posts. What's next? Make it impossible to open CDR files made before version 10? The current version of Illustrator can open an AI file made in the very first version of Illustrator. Plus you can save down as far as Illustrator 3 format (the farthest back CorelDRAW will save anything is version X5). Unlike the Illustrator AI format, the CDR file format is hardly supported at all by rival graphics applications. Currently, Inkscape is the only draw-type application I know of that has a CDR import filter. Several years ago for a very brief period Illustrator had CDR import capability, but the import filter was so unstable that it was removed.

Corel is doing things to penalize its longest time users while the company is still in business. A lot of sign companies, embroidery companies and other niche graphics operations have used CorelDRAW as a key piece of software for more than 30 years. If Corel tanks completely many of the CDR files those companies have archived could be made worthless. It would be like having a bunch of old Freehand files. But in the case of Freehand if you have install discs you can run it on an old computer or install it in a virtual machine environment. The past several versions of CorelDRAW require activation to install.

[furzle]

My type 1 fonts suddenly stoopped working as of YESTERDAY! Mar 13 2023. It must've had to do with the latest illustrator update. I thought i was in the clear that they worked as long as they did, but apparently not. I was in a major panic so i tried reinstalling the previous illustrator version. phew. that worked, I can open and edit files.

However, not a long term solution.

As an in-house designer with all branding and all collateral materials created with very old, very wacky fonts, and the need to use and revise all the materials all the time, they are just not replaceable with any current style of font.

I have hunted high and low. so, I'm going to cave in and try the TransFont option.

Before I go and waste 100 bux...Has anyone tried it? how well does it work? Does it make the fonts useable for typing in text blocks? how about opening older docs, how bad are the adjustments?

thanks!

[Bobby Henderson]

TransType 4 by FontLab Ltd is arguably the best font converter application. It can do a lot more than just convert Type 1 fonts into OpenType. Version 4 is a fairly recent release and works with Win 11 and OSX (both Intel and Apple Silicon CPUs). On the TransType 4 page in the FontLab Ltd web site there is a link to the users manual where you see closely how the application works.

[Met1]

Let us know how you get on with TransFont please...