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Adobe fonts question

Guru ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Hey guys,

i layout a lot of scientific/medical documents. I was wondering if there is a way to find Adobe fonts that have full collections of glyphs, particularly: math and Greek? I often find I need to make a character style with Arial for Greek letters since the font may not have it.

thanks

jonathan

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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FWIW: MathType equations will only work for InDesign versions that support PostScript Type 1 fonts.

Why? The used fonts are not embedded in the placed or pasted EPS files.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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You didn't let us know what platform you're working on. If you're on a Macintosh, it's pretty easy to find which fonts you have installed have the glyph you need using the Character Viewer. See the article I wrote for InDesign Secrets / Creative Pro a few years ago (still works):

 

https://creativepro.com/find-font-glyph/

 

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Guru ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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thank you. i am on a mac. i have editors and writters on PC, we are using adobe fonts so everybody can have the same fonts install. they all have access to indesign to edit things themselfs. We can't buy fonts due to licensing, would like adobe font options?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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I haven't yet found an Adobe font with all the math symbols or foreign word characters. I typically have to glyph with Microsoft-included fonts and symbols such as TNR, Arial Unicode MS, Cambria Math, even Lucida has some options. I'd like to know if there are Adobe fonts with a full set of characters that I've missed, too.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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What about Source Sans Pro and Source Sans Serif?
(Both free Google typeface families.)

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Jonathan said: "We can't buy fonts due to licensing, would like adobe font options?"

 

Hi Jonathan,

do you mean licensing costs? Then I would only use Google Fonts that are not variable ones.

You get the font files from that repository and you'll get no surprise if font foundries that now work with Adobe quit their contracts in the future. That happend a couple of years ago.

 

You have to invest some time to inspect downloaded fonts because Google does not provide an overview of the full range of glyphs for a particular font, I think. Hm. For Greek you could do a filtered list for example:

https://fonts.google.com/?subset=greek-ext

 

Ok. Math symbols is a different issue. But you can help yourself if you type all math symbols from Arial Unicode using the Glyphs panel in InDesign and copy the result to the Google Font's Custom Preview Text field like that ( don't know if that link will work ) :

https://fonts.google.com/?subset=greek-ext&preview.text=%2B%3C%3D%3E%7C~%C2%AC%C2%B1%C3%97%C3%B7%CF%...

 

Illustrated the process from my German InDesign in three steps:

 

MathSymbols-Arial-Unicode-GlyphPanel.PNG

MathSymbols-Arial-Unicode-GlyphPanel-2.PNG

MathSymbols-Arial-Unicode-GlyphPanel-GoogleFontFilter.PNG

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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When I went to fonts.adobe.com to view Adobe fonts I also could not see any display of glyphs available in the Adobe fonts. Apparently, you'll have to do some experimentation by syncing some and then looking at the fonts using the Character Viewer utility I mentioned above to see what glyphs are available.

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Guru ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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thank you Steve. will look it over

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Guru ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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hi, thank you for the feedback. yes, the licensing cost is an issue. i work in publishing makign journal clubs and font management/licensing is an issue.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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My studio works on tons of STEM-govt materials that require a lot of math symbols.

We can't live without the Noto series of fonts from Google Fonts:  https://www.google.com/get/noto/ .

  • Most of the world's languages have dedicated fonts (and more will be forthcoming),
  • Most have a fairly robust character set, including many math symbols,
  • Noto's 2 symbols fonts complete the math symbols.
  • Dingbats galore.
  • And emojis.
  • Noto Sans and matching Sans Serifs in a complete set of weights.

 

Use a font manager like Linotype's Font Explorer X (mac and win) to see the glyph sets, kerning pairs, etc.

  • Basic Noto Sans has 2187 chacters and 18,679 kerning pairs (yeowza!).
  • Noto Sans Symbols has 561 characters.
  • Noto Sans Symbols 2 has 1049 characters.

 

All Google Fonts can be embedded into PDFs, EPUBs, and other digital media without additional licensing fees.

 

I can't design today's digital (and accessible) materials without Noto.

 

Source Sans/Serif is also a great Google font family, but has limited weights, smaller character set (1296), fewer foreign languages, and only the basic math symbols.

 

The absolute best math font is Arial Unicode MS, a special version with 30,000+ characters. But Microsoft lost its license/contract with Linotype to distribute it with Windows and MS programs a few years ago and that old license can no longer be installed on computers. But you can purchase it from Linotype at https://www.linotype.com/817676/arial-unicode-ms-regular-product.html

 

But remember, most commercial font foundries today are giving you a cheap desktop font (view it on your computer screen and print it to your personal desktop printer), but you'll pay additional licensing fees to embed it into PDFs, EPUBs, and other digital media.

 

And those licensing fees are charged per font weight, per document/ per edition of the document, and per year. One foundry quoted a government client $40,000 per year for a set of 4 weights of a font that looked very close to Times New Roman (says this former typesetter). So close, we swapped the font with TNR and saved taxpayers a few bucks.

 

We blog about this every year or so: https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2019_12-06/font-licenses.shtml 

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer & Technologist for Accessible Documents
|    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Bevi,

1000 likes would not be enough for your article you linked to!

 

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Aw, blush!

Spread the word, Uwe.

This issue with fonts is going to hurt designers and publishers, especially the insanely strict licensing restrictions.

 

I create intellectual property (IP) and completely support the foundries' need to protect their IP (their copyrighted font designs).

 

But this is greed  -- pure and simple price gauging. Think of all the fonts used every day in countless documents posted to and downloaded from websites. That's endless ca-ching, ca-ching (money money money).

 

We now recommend all our clients and students use open source fonts exclusively in their materials, like Google fonts. Check your licensing requirements before downloading and installing any font.

 

At this time, Adobe Fonts allow for embedding into PDFs and other digital files. But as what happened a couple of years ago, those fonts you have today can be eliminated by the licensee (not Adobe) and removed from  Adobe Fonts...just as you need them to make edits to your design.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer & Technologist for Accessible Documents
|    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

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Community Expert ,
Jul 29, 2021 Jul 29, 2021

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"Spread the word, Uwe."

Will do. Your article will be a must-read in the curriculum for the next semester beginning in September.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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Community Expert ,
Jul 29, 2021 Jul 29, 2021

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Fantastic!

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Community Expert ,
Jul 29, 2021 Jul 29, 2021

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Your article and info here is so valuable. I've just sent it to a bunch of people. Thank you for all you do in this arena, Bevi!!

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Community Expert ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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Hi Steve,

it's not that Google Fonts is not able to provide an overview of glyphs of a particular font.

The issue is that not all glyphs are shown in that overview. Let's look after the GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO glyph in Noto Sans for example. It's simply not listed:

 

NotoSans-GlyphOverview-GlyphsAreMissingInList.PNG

 

But Noto Sans from Google Fonts indeed has that glyph.

Here installed and accessed through a Document fonts folder with InDesign:

 

NotoSans-MathSymbols-1.PNG

 

And thank you very much for your article you linked to!

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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