Font question about OpenType Type 1 fonts

[fiddles5]

I saw in InDesign this morning the announcement to discontinue the use of Type1 fonts.  This is very disappointing for a book publishing company with more than 20 years of book files using Adobe Type1 fonts, updating and reprinting will be a nightmare.

I'm also confused. Does this apply to OpenType Type 1 fonts as well?

I have the Centaur MTStd font family, and the font type is: OpenType Type 1 -- does this mean that this font will no longer be supported?  It is a .otf font, but it does say "Type 1" after OpenType.

Can anyone clarify?

thanks!

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

"OpenType Type 1" means that the font format is OpenType (which is now the best font format continuing, but that the character shapes are derived from Type 1 methodology) so no problems with those.

[Mike Witherell · Accepted solution]

OpenType (anything) will still work. Conversions to OTF will work.

Original PostScript T1 font technology began to effectively fade starting about 22 years ago, in 1999, when OTF was introduced. Indeed, it's days were numbered when TrueType was introduced in 1989.

The benefits of robust features like expanded character capacity and *especially* OS stability (crashing) with OpenType far outweigh holding on to a mid 1980s technology. It was a miracle then, but OpenType publishing miracles are even better nowadays.

[fiddles5]

Hi Thanks -- I appreciate both your answers. But we still have book files that were done in 2001 with Postcript fonts, and have already run into updating old fonts (and software) to new technology a few times -- the font algorithms are different enough that it wreaks havoc with page breaks and reflow of text.  So for example a fairly complex 9x12 600-page book that needed about 50 pages updated became a much more time-consuming project. The entire book needed to be reexamined. Every page, every caption, every figure, every cross-reference, and the index.  I'd rather like to avoid having to deal with that!

Thank you for your replies.

[Scott Citron]

I feel your pain when it comes to reexamining older files and Type 1 PostScript fonts. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way around this painstaking task.

[Dov Isaacs]

See the response of @rob day which might resolve your problem.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

If it isn’t a violation of your font’s EULA you will be able to convert T1 fonts to OTF:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/ende-der-unterst%C3%BCtzung-f%C3%BCr-ps-type-1-fonts/td-p/11...

With  FontLab’s TransType, I was able to convert fonts and keep the version number, so there was no need to find and change—the InDesign document recognized the converted font.

[Dov Isaacs]

To add to earlier responses, there really isn't a font type call OpenType Type 1. What you are referring to is more officially known as OpenType CFF, an OpenType format that uses compressed Bezier curves and hinting similar to that used by the original Type 1 fonts, but highly compressed and also providing for all the  additional OpenType features.