Font Folio OpenType Edition

[Thomas Phinney]

Press Release Source: Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe Announces OpenType Edition of Font Folio
Monday August 11, 8:12 am ET
New Version Offers the Adobe Type Library in Enhanced Cross-Platform Font Format

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 11, 2003--Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE - News), the leader in network publishing, today introduced a new version of Adobe® Font Folio(TM) featuring the Adobe Type Library in OpenType® format on one CD-ROM. The Adobe Font Folio (OpenType Edition) product contains more than 2,000 fonts in OpenType format, which allows for richer linguistic support and more advanced typographic control in any print, Web or dynamic media project. Adobe also announced the availability of a new special version with a 10-computer license, making it more affordable for small design shops to access the entire Adobe Type Library.

Adobe and Microsoft Corporation created the OpenType font format to improve cross-platform document portability and simplify font management, by introducing one font file that works on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. Creative professionals benefit from extended foreign language support and the inclusion of expert typographic glyphs, such as small caps, old style figures and swashes, in many OpenType fonts.

"The OpenType font format is much more convenient than the old Type 1 or TrueType fonts," said David Blatner, co-author of Real World InDesign, InDesign for QuarkXPress Users and Real World Photoshop. "With Adobe's new Font Folio in OpenType format, I love having large character sets in the same font instead of having to work with a whole array of related font files."

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Font Folio [OpenType Edition] product is available immediately and will be sold primarily through the Adobe store at www.adobe.com, Adobe retail and licensing channels, and includes a standard 20-computer license for US$8,999. License extensions are also available and Font Folio is included in Adobe's transactional and contractual licensing programs. Upgrade pricing from Font Folio versions 8 or 9 to Font Folio OpenType Edition is US$2,499. Adobe is also releasing a special 10-computer license of Font Folio OpenType Edition for smaller design workplaces that is available for US$4,999. International English versions are available where localized versions are not sold.

Full Press Release:
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200308/081103FONTFOLIO.html

Product page: http://www.adobe.com/products/fontfolio/main.html

List of all the fonts is here.

More information on compatibility and differences between the OpenType fonts and their Type 1 counterparts is here. Look in the right-hand column for links to the two cross-reference documents, and the font conversion FAQ.

[_Marilyn_Langfeld_]

Sounds great, Thomas. Especially the reduced price for smaller offices. That makes Font Folio a much more likely purchase for those of us who would like to move to Open Type.

If I were to purchase a few of the OpenType optical families I'd love to own along with several old standards in OpenType, I could easily spend $5000 (that is if I had it to spend!) so the economics makes owning the whole Adobe OpenType library a steal.

[Thomas Phinney]

Hi, Marilyn,

Glad to hear that you find the 10-seat license a nice alternative. That was the plan....

Cheers,

T

[_Raphael_Freeman_]

How about freelancers? I wonder if there was a version that a one-person "company" such as myself could afford?

[_Marilyn_Langfeld_]

I do agree Raphael, but nevertheless the price break is substantial. For example, I just answered a query about a typeface (FF Dax Medium Italic). When I bought Dax I only bought part because it was so expensive, around $1000 for the whole family.

So, think of the value you'll get for the whole OpenType Font Folio for the price of five extended type face families like Dax...

[_Bran_MacEachaidh_]

Fair enough, Marilyn, you do have a point 🙂
But the fact remains that for freelancers or new start-ups, the price is still considerable for licenses that we're never going to be able to use.

Sorry Thomas, I'm not meaning to complain -- Adobe's gesture towards price accessibility is definitely appreciated.
But ... there's always a "but" !! ;-))

[_Raphael_Freeman_]

I think I would put it differently. I am not suggesting that Adobe gives freelancers the entire collection for less money. However, I would offer a smaller collection to freelancers. As a typesetter, I need a set of basic text fonts and then a bunch of more designed typefaces for headers, initial caps and picture captions for example. But I certainly don't have the need for the entire collection. I'm also of the belief that it takes time and experience to get to know one typeface realy well to typeset in it well.

Programs like InDesign already come with Adobe Garamond Pro and Adobe Caslon Pro. I would be most interested in a package that would contain a few full Opentype "book" fonts (ie with all the Opentype goodies) including such faces as Minion Pro and then a bunch of selected more design fonts.

I would be more than happy to pay $1,000 for such a package....

what do other people think?

[_Raphael_Freeman_]

or perhaps a build-up package to the whole things.... so you could have easy Folio basic, Folio plus, Folio advanced or something like that. Each package would be priced at $1,000 and when eventually you bought all 5 packages you would have the entire Folio, but it could be done over a number of years depending on the success of your business.... actually the more I think about it... the more I like it!

[_Guy_Smiley_]

"However, I would offer a smaller collection to freelancers."

Adobe does offer several smaller collections, and for a *lot* less than $1,000.

[D__McCahill]

The trouble with this idea is ... what fonts do you put into each package. When I was doing textbooks, my font collection was skewed heavily to oldstyle and transitional serif fonts. <br /> <br />Now I do mainly web work, and am heavily into sans serif and display fonts. <br /> <br />While a $1000 package would be great if it had the 200 fonts you really wanted, it would be terrible if you found that it only had 100, and 50 others were in package #2 and #3 had most (but not all) the other 50. Thus you need $3000, and a bit more for the extras. <br /> <br />(Not that I am suggesting Adobe start selling fonts for $5 each ... just an example ... although if you want to, Thomas, we won't complain.<G>)

[Thomas Phinney]

What about Type Basics OpenType Edition? That has a pretty nice set of OpenType fonts, many of which are well-loaded with OpenType goodies, for only $99.

http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_1902.jhtml

Cheers,

T

[_Raphael_Freeman_]

I wasn't aware of this package, but to be honest, it only includes 3 fully Opentype fonts, 2 of which I already have because I have InDesign. I would be looking for a more comprehensive package of fully featured OpenType fonts (Palatino only has sc and osf for example).

I think I will buy the basics package however, because it has Chapparal Pro and Myriad Pro which are good complementary fonts, but of course I am going to run into the snag that Adobe aren't keen on people in Israel purchasing their products....

[Dov Isaacs]

Mah zeh?

What do mean by "Adobe isn't keen on people in Israel purchasing their products?" Please contact me off-list with specifics and I would be glad to assist you and others remove any obstacles of this sort. Certainly there is no intent to make purchases difficult for Israelis or anyone else for that matter.

- Dov

[Thomas Phinney]

I suspect that he means that we don't offer direct e-sales with downloading to Israel, and that's the only way this font package is available. In fact, currently we only offer it in USA, Canada, western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. (I think that's the list.)

That aside, I am puzzled by the phrase "It only includes 3 fully OpenType fonts." As far as I'm concerned, all the fonts in the package are "fully OpenType."

Regards,

T

[_Raphael_Freeman_]

by fully opentype, I mean that it includes full set of ligatures, superiors, sc, osf, etc.

regarding sales, I can't even buy one font and products such as Acrobat 6 are not available to us here.

I'm curious as to what we are allowed to buy (apart from specific ME products)...

[Thomas Phinney]

I can't speak to other products, but although you can't get Adobe fonts directly from Adobe, our authorized reseller Veer sells worldwide, with direct download of your licensed fonts.

http://www.veer.com/products/type/adt/

They don't seem to have Type Basics OpenType Edition up yet. This should be fixed within a few weeks.

T

[_Cristian_Secara_]

The fonts included in the Font Folio OT Ed. do cover at least the WGL4 codepage range ?

Thanks,
Cristi

[_KlausNordby_]

I'm just me. I sure cannot afford the 5,000 bucks for 10 licenses, nor do I or any other single-person company _need_ alll those 10 licenses. When you buy one font, you get 5 licences - that's quite ample for us single-person operations. So why not release a "midget" CD with 3-4 licences for, say, 2,500? That I could perhaps justify. And I doubt Adobe would lose any money on that offer, either.

[Thomas Phinney]

Cristian: Only a few Adobe type families have the same codepage and language coverage of MS's WGL4 character set. These include Myriad Pro, Minion Pro and Warnock Pro. However, all Adobe's fonts with the Pro designation cover at least codepages 1250 (Eastern Europe), 1252 (Latin 1), 1254 (Turkish) and 1257 (Baltic).

Klaus: Actually, some of our royalties have minimum payments, and they don't go down when it's one license instead of twenty.

T

[_Jason_La_]

I was looking through a friend's copy of Font Folio OT and I noticed that Univers, a font that I've grown to like, was present, but it had a different name. Instead of being plain old Univers, it was Univers LT Std.

Can anyone explain to me what thd difference is? Thanks.

[Dov Isaacs]

There are two differences in this case.

An explicit decision was made by Adobe not to name the OpenType equivalent to the existing Type 1 fonts with the same name. The mian reason is that there are in some cases subtle design and metric changes as well as the possibility that the operating system's font services might interpret OpenType font metrics a bit differently than Type 1 fonts. We didn't want a situation in which a user switching from a Type 1 font to an OpenType font simply by switch fonts with the exact same name could yield document reflow. Users can phase in an OpenType font while still continuing use of the old Type 1 font version.

Adobe OpenType fonts are labelled either as "Pro" or "Std". The "Pro" fonts have much larger character sets including possible additional alphabets, extended ligatures, swash characters, small caps, old style numerals, symbols, dingbats, and/or other alternative characters. The "Std" fonts typically have a much small character complement, i.e. Western Latin plus a few characters, similar to the Type 1 font version although usually adding a Euro character (that character has become more valuable of late compared to the Dollar character!)

The "LT" in the font name designates that the font is part of the "LinoType" library.

- Dov

[Neil_Keller]

The unfortunate part about using "LT" to represent Linotype is that traditionally, LT has meant "Light" [weight].

Neil

[Dov Isaacs]

... or "Less Tar" as opposed to "MT" for "More Taste" or "MonoType" ...

- Dov (the non-smoker)

[_Jason_La_]

One more question, guys. Is ATM Deluxe included with Font Folio OT Edition? Is it even needed if you're running Win2k, WinXP, or OS X?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

ATM Deluxe is not compatible with OS X, nor is anything else needed for font rendering in OS X. OS X also comes with FontBook, though many pros prefer to use a different font management utility like Font Agent Pro, Font Reserve or Suitcase.

I have no clue about Windows.