Fonts no longer supported in illustrator 20222

That was an informative 75 minute presentation. But what I got from it was that, basically, Type 1 font support is being killed off because of Harfbuzz? How is that going to be incorporated into Illustrator, InDesign, etc? What sort of functions is it going to provide to benefit users? Some of us have hundreds or even thousands of existing archive documents that make use of Type 1 fonts. I can understand the needs of making it easier to sell software on a global basis. But there has to be some kind of safety net for us long-time users who still have a lot of vintage Type 1 fonts.

This sort of nonsense pretty much has me convinced the only safe, long-term way to store information or artwork is by physically printing it out on paper and storing that. Adobe Illustrator has, so far, been very good at opening old AI and EPS files, even going back to the first versions of Illustrator. But now we're going to see Pantone spot color fills blacked out (for reasons that only seem stupid) and any text set in Type 1 fonts is just going to get deleted from the document. I'm already pretty angry at other software vendors for ending support for early file versions of their application formats (CorelDRAW is a big offender).

We're already on the hook as it is with Adobe's applications being software as a service. When Adobe and other companies get into spats that break file-open/import compatibility that turns into a giant problem. I shouldn't have to worry about archived files that are 10 or 20 years old suddenly being broken or even unable to open. It's not practical to tell users to go update that big pile of archived files before the next version of Illustrator drops. Some serious attention needs to be paid to this category.

I'm a big film fan, but I have to say that it's a lot easier for restoration experts to perform a restoration on an old film that was produced entirely with analog tools. If the movie was made with digital tools then all sorts of liabilities enter the picture. Consider the movie "Jurassic Park." The CGI work was done mostly on Silicon Graphics computers running the IRIX OS. Applications like Alias Power Animator and Softimage were used in post production. SGI and those apps are dead. Maya is the only thing left with DNA from that time. If some executive decided they needed a new restored version of "Jurassic Park" in native 4K they would probably have to re-create all the CGI work from scratch because it would likely be a horrible task trying to rescue and re-use the original modeling and animation data.

I wouldn't expect this sort of thing to affect mainstream graphics software since both the Windows and Mac operating systems as well as Illustrator itself has been around since the 1980's yet are still actively maintained. But now we see stuff as basic as fonts being broken. That's not good. The Pantone thing is bad enough (and really anger inspiring). Having the Type 1 thing happen in the same period of time is just adding insult to injury. It has me asking what's next? The Dolby versus Adobe spat didn't bother me so much because I didn't have all that much a need to encode 5.1 audio out of Premiere Pro. But Pantone spot color fills and Type 1 font support are far more mainstream items.