Changing type 1 fonts to Opentype

I have lots of old rohects clients reuse - and now I'll have to redo them all becuase of this change - and hope the hours spent kerning and leading  for specific projects "just work"  Something is wrong here....

By @Paul Kearns

You're absolutely right, something is wrong!

In a few weeks, it will be the 22nd anniversary of the computer world's switch to Unicode/OpenType fonts. The entire computer world — not just Adobe — switched to OpenType in 2000.

Sorry you missed the memo about this!

All of us designers should have migrated our clients to OpenType over the past two decades. All of Adobe's pre-2000 PS fonts were converted to OTF versions, so the swapping is easy and fast. Just activate the OTF versions of your Adobe fonts through Creative Cloud, and use Find Font to swap them out in your file. (Note, it's best to deactivate the old PS/TT versions before you swap in the new OTFs. Fewer font problems.) Leading, sizes, kerning, tracking, etc. should all be retained. There's no doom and gloom.

And by now, we should have thoroughly advised our clients, colleagues, and staff about switching exclusively to OpenType in order to be compatible with newer communication technologies...like the web!

There are tremendous benefits to OpenType versus old PostScript/Type 1 and old conventional TrueType fonts. Here are a few:
 

1. Updated technology.
   I don't believe Adobe has updated any of its PostScript fonts since the late 1990s when it agreed to migrate its entire library to OpenType. So any Adobe PS font used today isn't going to have the latest kerning pairs and other typesetting controls to give the best typographical appearance.
    
2. More glyphs on a single font.
   The original ASCII character system had a maximum of 224 useful glyphs on a single font that included the keys (caps and lowercase) on our keyboards, as well as a partial set of European/Latin languages. Clarification: WESTERN European languages, that is. And no African or CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) or SE Asian languages or ME languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, etc.) either.  Unicode/OpenType fonts, on the other hand, can have any combination of the 64,000+ Unicode glyphs that cover the world's primary languages and dialects, as well as some aboriginal languages. The most commonly used fonts for English-speaking countries have 500-1,000 glyphs … so many more than those skimpy PS fonts. And Unicode is expanding to include millions of glyphs. See www.Unicode.org/charts
    
3. More STEM symbols.
   The original ASCII character set gave us a whopping 3 choices of true fractions: 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4. (Yeowza. I'm so-o-o-o impressed.)  Heaven help those designers who needed to typeset a cookbook listing 1/8 cup of sugar and 1/3 cocoa powder!  Or STEM publishers who needed to set wild fractions like 3/123 or formulas like the Diameter of a Circle = circumference / π (pi).  With OpenType fonts, I can set any formula, fraction, or STEM symbol I need.
    
   Look at what's available in just 3 fonts, Noto Symbols, Noto Symbols 2, and Noto Math: See the complete Noto Sans and Serif library at https://fonts.google.com/noto 
    
   You can safely delete your old TrueType and PS/Type 1 fonts for Symbols, Dingbats, Wingdings and Webdings. Their glyphs were all assigned to Unicode codepoints so one or more OpenType font will have the dingbat you need.
    
4. Alternate glyph designs.
   Decorative swashes, true small caps, ligatures...they're in OpenType fonts.
    
5. Cross-Platform compatibility.
   Oh please don't make me relive the days before OpenType, when we would import a word processing file from Windows and loose so many of the characters … blank spaces, tofu blocks, smiley faces, whatever … were substituted for the missing glyphs from old TrueType or PostScript fonts. OpenType fonts, on the other hand, can be installed on Macs and PCs. They use the same font file so there are no more missing glyphs.
    
6. Cross-Media compatability.
   Unicode/OpenType fonts are required for:
   • HTML  - Web
   • HTML - EPUB
   • Accessible PDF and other document formats (Word, PowerPoint, etc.)
   • Multi-media
   • Smartphone apps

As a designer, I can't live without OpenType/Unicode fonts. I DON'T want to go back to the pre-2000 days of glitchy fonts and lousy typesetting and the straightjacket of having only 224 glyphs on a font. I want all the cool stuff, too.

I want to create for all media, not just print.

And I want it accessible.

Welcome to the new millennium, 2000.

Er … I mean 2022!

Thanks much, I didn't know that.  One wonders: if Type 1 is so old and rusty, why does PDF still conert to them (secretly 🙂  )

Yes, I meant that. But it seems that when I activated CC fonts, the Type 1 ones disappeared from the Find Font dialog.   I assume this means that the occurences of Type 1's were replaced automatically?

I don't need 65,000 glyphs in (say) Cloister Black, Sonata or Cheq! I just need to be open existing documents for editing or adaptation, and my original set of 200-plus glyphs will be all I need! Mediaeval Monks didn't write in Unicode, and last time I checked, most Classical Music uses only a few Scores of Shapes and Symbols, while a Chess Set only contains 6 Types of Piece, in one of two colours, each of which may be on one of two colours of Square. 🙂