Using Macintosh Fonts on Windows (really dumb question, in my view)

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
October 21, 2021
2 replies
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I'm preparing to meet some users and I'd appreciate some confirmation on the following, with regards to fonts.

So, I'm on Windows and receive an InDesign document "Packaged for output", with Links and Fonts.

You see me coming...
Here is the content of the Fonts directory in Windows Explorer :

Let's not get "bogged down" into Licensing and font "types" (I can see DFONT and PS T1 fonts in this listing). I'm only interested in the possibility from a technical point of view : can InDesign directly access / use (parse) the fonts in this Directory at all? Without requiring me to use some kind of third party "font conversion" utility? Hope this is not considered a "taboo" question...

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Peter Spier

In brief, no.

The only fonts that work cross-platform in both directions are OpenType and Windows TrueType.

Randy Hagan

Community Expert

As Peter said, no. Those Mac-based PostScript and TrueType fonts are effectively useless to you.

Even worse, if you remap those fonts to the Windows equivalents, and the job has tight copyfit, line breaks are going to change and you should closely proof the entire job to ensure that it still reads cleanly and matches the Mac-generated job you were given. By my experience, the font metrics generally pack tighter on the PC/Windows side, so you will likely find that long text threads come up short in the layout as well.

As much as I'm going to hate retiring all my old PostScript and TrueType fonts, the move to OpenType is all for the best.

Randy

Roger BretonAuthor

Legend

For the record...

I tried experimenting with various "approaches".

First, forget about InDesign being able to parse the Mac PS T1 fonts directly, as Randy noted above, even if the "fonts" are sitting in the expected, "Fonts", folder. InDesign still sees the fonts as "Missing". Strike 1.

Second, I tried to transcoded the received Mac T1 fonts to PC T1 *.pfb fonts, and dump them in the expected, "Fonts", folder. InDesign still does not recognize the fonts upon opening the InDesign document? Strike 2.

Third, at that point, using the transcoded PC T1 fonts (or fonts transcoded to OpenType PFF format, the two work equally well), there is no choice but to remap all the fonts one by one, painstakingly, in the Missing fonts dialog box. Strike 3.

I still wonder what would happen (ignoring licensing issues) if the fonts were transcoded on the Mac side to PC T1? And manually substitued in the Fonts folder : would InDesign on Windows have a better chance of recognizing the fonts upon opening the document on the PC?

This is sadly something I can't try because my Mac is way too old for anything...

Thank you Peter and Randy for your kind help today.

rob day

Community Expert

I still wonder what would happen (ignoring licensing issues) if the fonts were transcoded on the Mac side to PC T1?

Hi Roger, Seems like the better approach might be to convert the Type 1 fonts to OpenType. You could look at FontLab’s TransType 4, which works great on my OSX Type 1 fonts—there is a Windows version.

https://www.fontlab.com/font-converter/transtype/

It keeps the font’s version number so I was able to make conversions and old documents would automatically find the OTF conversions:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/ende-der-unterst%C3%BCtzung-f%C3%BCr-ps-type-1-fonts/td-p/11874314