How do I use fonts I bought from Adobe back in the floppy days? Are they still usable and how?

[ronw67486321]

How do I use fonts I bought from Adobe back in the floppy days? Are they still usable and how?

I bought the Stone family of fonts from Adobe back in the floppy days and would like to use them today. Do I get any credit for that early purchase? I'm subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud and using it regularly. The floppies were for the old macs and of course are useless today without incurring the expense of a reading and transfer which as far as I know, might not even be legal.

So, what can I do?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Actually, what you bought were licenses for the font with media; you didn't buy the fonts themselves.

That having been said, there are no legal restrictions to your using those old Mac Type 1 format fonts with your current Adobe applications on a MacOS system. Assuming that you have access to a USB diskette drive and can copy the files into a private font directory, you are good to go.

However, note that MacOS no longer natively supports Type 1 fonts at all. Adobe applications continue to support these fonts, but you must put the font files into the private font directories of the applications for them to be recognized. Cross-platform OpenType fonts are currently what are licensed by Adobe, providing not only cross-platform compatibility, but advanced layout support, character sets, etc.

Unfortunately, there is no “trade-in program” for those old Type 1 fonts to license the OpenType equivalents. (After all, you've have those fonts for at least 15 years, if not much longer!)

              - Dov

[ronw67486321]

So, if I want to use those type faces, I have to "buy" them again? Even though I've had them to use for 15 years, in using them I've had innumerable designers ask me what they were and of course, I've directed them to Adobe. If I were to receive a small sum for all those referrals, I might be outside waxing a Bentley instead of emailing a reply to you on my out of date iMac. Oh, well, I guess I'll have to stick with Palatino . . .

You've told me all I need to know; thank you for the reply . . .

Ron Williams

[Dov Isaacs]

Ron,

I absolutely did not say or imply that you needed to “buy” anything at all, at least in order to use the fonts with Adobe applications under recent MacOS versions. Adobe has no plans to discontinue support for Type 1 fonts within its own applications (we rely on our own font rendering engine on all platforms). And I did tell you how to install and access them for those applications.

However, if you want to use the fonts with non-Adobe applications, yes, you need to license the OpenType versions of those fonts since Apple (not Adobe) decided a few MacOS versions ago, to totally stop supporting Type 1 fonts on their operating system. Adobe was not consulted for that decision and there was and is nothing we at Adobe can do about it.

            - Dov

PS:     For what it is worth, although Microsoft continues to officially support installation and use of Windows format Type 1 fonts under Windows, Microsoft no longer supports Type 1 fonts for Office 2013 or Internet Explorer. OpenType CFF fonts are fully supported.

[ronw67486321]

Hi Dov -

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I knew what you meant by "buy" and that's why I used quotes. Yes, license is a better word.

However, I'm still not clear on how I might get access to the fonts on my current versions of Photoshop and Illustrator and all the rest on my subscription to the Adobe classics on my Mac. Is there an additional charge beyond the monthly payments you receive from me? Can I use those fonts across the collection, like on inDesign as well as Illustrator?  I can accomplish all of my "publishing" efforts with what I have from Adobe and have no need to cross platforms. I do so now out of convenience and laziness.

Thanks again.

Ron

[Dov Isaacs]

Ron,

No, there are no additional charges of any type (pun not intended) to use those oldie-but-goodie fonts with current versions of Adobe applications. The challenge is simply to retrieve the files from the diskettes and copy them to the appropriate directories on you Mac such that they may be “seen” by those applications.

Simply copy the font files to the directory Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts on your Mac. You may need to create the Fonts subdirectory if it isn't there already. Restart your Adobe applications and the fonts will be there for you.

         - Dov

[ronw67486321]

Thank you, Dov. That's one of the best replies to a tech question I've

received yet. Onward!

Ron