Changing type 1 fonts to Opentype

[Gunnel1]

I have activated fonts on CC for the ones in my documents that are Type 1.  How do I change the Type 1's, it does not seem to be done autmatically since a listing from the PDF shows that that they are still Type 1.

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

There are specific programs which can do that, but often it is not covered by the license agreement and often it might change the font.

But OTF can contain up to 65.000 glyphs, T1 only 255, so it is worthy to license new OTF.

[biowizard]

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. 🙂

[BobLevine]

The dropping of Type 1 was decades in the making and Adobe has warned about it for years. Microsoft and Apple are in the process of ending support as well. 

[biowizard]

Bob, that is perfectly true. But here is the issue: I have an inventory of documents (Photoshop, InDesign, CorelDRAW, Finale, Encore, ...) dating back as much as 40 years in some cases. And while it can be argued that many of them are now, in themselves, "dead" and obsolete, others (especially those relating to music and graphics art) are anything but.

Happily, I have not used a myriad of different fonts with abandon, but have probably concentrated on about a dozen or so of the 650 Type 1 fonts (from Adobe, Bitstream and Corel) that I bought at one or another time, and have installed.

Few, if any, of these documents "need" Unicode, even though I totally understand its benefits - my own commercial software product, BDS-PROLOG, has supported Unicode since the early 2000s.

I just need to be able to open an existing file, created with fully licenced software and fonts, and have it display correctly while I make updates. And without the expense of re-licencing perpertual-licenced software I've already paid, in some cases, hundreds of bucks, for!

[Peter Spier]

As long as your hardware will continue to run your old perpetually licensed software those (legacy) programs that supported T1 fonts will continue to do so and will continue to open your old files and let you edit them. You only have font problems when you move to newer software versions. I remember the days of leaded gasoline and only dialing seven digits for local calls (as I'm sure you do as well), but the world is getting bigger and times are changing and systems are changing to accomodate that.

[biowizard]

Peter, "As long as your hardware will continue to run your old perpetually licensed software" - Aye, there's the rub!

For now, at least, it seems I am pretty secure running Photoshop CS6 on Windows 11, but alas it has already been "dead" for a while now on my (Intel) based MacBook Pro, let alone my newer Apple Silicon model!

I finally decided to buy into the Adobe subscription model for Photoshop a couple of months ago, and frankly, was ambused by the dropping of Type 1 font support! Even if Adobe had been "warning" of this for years, they never warned ME! And so while I love many of the features of the newer Photoshop, at the moment I can't use them on any of my existing artwork that contains text, unless I perform text edits in CS6, then rasterise the text before bringing into PS 25!

Which works for now, but is hardly ideal! 🙂

[Peter Spier]

This is one area where I think PC has a major advantage over Mac -- backward compatibility -- but if you are Mac-centric you are at the mercy of Apple's hardware whims.

Does virtualization work on new Mac hardware to emulate old? I suspect not, but I don't know.

[rob day]

Does virtualization work on new Mac hardware to emulate old? I suspect not, but I don't know.

Hi Peter, I’ve always cloned my OSX startup  to a USB SSD drive, so that I can startup from the clone and test updates before upgrading. Generally that works until Apple changes their processor—when they switched to Intel I could no longer startup from system 9, now the new Silicon machines will not startup on OSX Mojave or earlier.

In 2021 I bought a 2019 iMac—which has more than enough power to run Photoshop and InDesign in production—so I could avoid the forced upgrades for at least the next few years. I think the Adobe print apps are so mature that it’s almost impossible to introduce meaningful features. I can startup from Ventura and run CC2024, but it’s hard to identify a new feature I can’t live without. Obviously that’s not going to work for ever, but the clone lets me assess the updates as they come.

[Peter Spier]

Thanks Rob

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"Does virtualization work on new Mac hardware to emulate old? I suspect not, but I don't know."

Yes, there are options here. Fusion (and maybe Parallels) can install older Mac OS systems as far back as 10.7 (as well as Server versions of 10.6 and 10.5). So, say you upgraded to a Mac that can no longer run the versions of software that support Type 1, one could import an old Mac system into a VM. It does work. For sh*ts and giggles I was able to get a Snow Leopard Server 10.6 virtual machine running on my iMac (currently at Monterrey). I don't have a Silicon Mac yet so not sure how well these work on those. It was easier to make VMs when everyone was Intel-based.

[Peter Spier]

Thanks Brad

[rob day]

Hi @biowizard ,  There are a number of of relatively inexpensive conversion utilities out there. I mentioned TransType earlier in this thread-- it's easy to use and in my experience there are no text reflows. I think your only other option is to drop back to CC2021. See this thread for more details

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/ende-der-unterst%C3%BCtzung-f%C3%BCr-ps-type-1-f...

[biowizard]

Thanks Rob - FWIW, I have been researching both TransType and Adobe's own command-line tools suite, which includes MAKEOTF.EXE. The latter looks like a very steep learning curve having read much of the user guide, so TransType seems appealing.

[rob day]

TransType let's you download a demo-- there's no learning curve.

[BobLevine]

Well, it's called progress and sometimes the price is inconvenience for some people. While I understand the situation you're in (I'm old time CorelDRAW user myself), I'd say keep an old machine lying around for those old projects, update the smaller more active ones with Opentype and move forward. 

I'm going out on a limb here based on your post that you're a Windows user. That gives you a leg up in this case because Microsoft is far more careful about maintaining backward compatibility. There are some people still running Pagemaker on Windows 11.

That said, nobody including Microsoft or Apple is going to support Type 1 soon. That font format is archaic and as I already pointed out has been for decades. I stopped using them about 15 years ago.

While I agree that Creative Cloud has not fullfilled all of its promises, especially for InDesign users, the Photoshop/Lightroom plan is a no-brainer. The extras alone are worth the cost which hasn't been raised since it was introduced more than 10 years ago.

[biowizard]

BobLevine, mostly what you say, I agree with totally. But then there's this "progress" cult, which believes not just that things should get better (of course, why not?!) - but also (and this is the rub) that old, perfectly good technologies, that cost nothing to continue supporting, have to be dumped.

It's like saying, the latest pop and rock music is so great, let's dump Bach and Mozart. We love modern virtual synths, so lets not make any more acoustic pianos or electric guitars.

Simply, there's space for old, working solutions, alongside newer, "better" ones.

And yes, I am thoroughly enjoying my Photoshop/Lightroom "Photographer" subscription, but I ain't gonna be dumping Photoshop CS6, Photoshop 7, and even Photoshop 4, anytime soon! 🙂

[BobLevine]

but also (and this is the rub) that old, perfectly good technologies, that cost nothing to continue supporting, have to be dumped.

By @biowizard

Who said they cost nothing to support?

And again, what happens when Microsoft and Apple kill that support? Type 1 was developed 40 years ago. Tell me...what other software are you using that is 40 years old?

[Peter Spier]

Perhaps not 40 years, but Office 2000 still does all I need and is much friendlier than the darn ribbon.

[BobLevine]

Windows 11? 

[Peter Spier]

Windows 11? 

By @BobLevine

C'mon. You know me better than that. Win 10.

[BobLevine]

Well, I was expecting you to tell me you were hanging on to Windows 7. 🙂

Seriously, though, I don't think you'd even be able to install that in Windows 11.

[Peter Spier]

Got a Win7 (and probably XP as well) machine stashed away. Word 2000 is running just fine on my wife's new Dell laptop with Win 11. No trouble installing at all, as I recall.

[BobLevine]

Say what you will about Microsoft, but they do seem to care a bit more about backward compatibility than the folks in Cupertino.

[rob day]

that old, perfectly good technologies, that cost nothing to continue supporting, have to be dumped.

But in this case you have a simple, relatively inexpensive upgrade path via file conversion--you can continue to use your Type 1 library as Open Type conversions.