How do you name a Regular Caption Subhead Display OTF Family

[_Richard_Latimer_]

Given:

MyFont Regular
MyFont Caption Regular
MyFont Subhead Regular
MyFont Display Regular

which all have the same weight, width and style, what values do you supply for Postscript and TTF names to cause the operating system and apps to see these fonts as individual fonts and as members of one family.

I have in mind the Adobe Pro Optical OTFs which show up in a font menu under one family name, with the individual typefaces appearing in the families' sub menu.

[Thomas Phinney]

First, our own standard for naming these would be to simply go with:

MyFont Regular
MyFont Caption
MyFont Subhead
MyFont Display

Note that today they will only show up together on a single font menu in Adobe apps that use our core font engine, and in Mac OS X cocoa apps that use appropriate cocoa APIs.

The name that has to be the same is name ID 16 for Windows platform (which only exists where it's different from name ID 1), and name ID 1 on the Mac platform.

If you're using the FDK, this is controlled by the "f=" entry in the menu names DB.

So, for MyFont Display:

F=MyFont
S=Display
C=MyFont Display
C=1,MyFont Display

Regards,

T

Thomas Phinney
Program Mgr., Western Language Fonts
Adobe Systems

[_Richard_Latimer_]

Thanks for the info, but I don't get it.

If a family can only have four members (regular, italic, bold and bold italic) per the name table specification for name ID 1 (Font Family) how will the OS tell our four regular fonts (MyFont Regular, MyFont Caption, MyFont Subhead and MyFont Display) apart?

Won't they look like four Regular fonts from the MyFont family to the OS?

Won't the OS enable only one font and disable the other three?

[Thomas Phinney]

Nope, because the OS uses the compatibility names (name ID 1) which are different for every one of these fonts. These are the "c=" and "c=1," entries.

T

[_Richard_Latimer_]

I'm sorry. I can't make it work. I have tried all possible combinations of names and it just doesn't work.

Do the large Adobe Pro Optical families work in the Font Panel of Mac OS X?

riggle

[Thomas Phinney]

So I'm told, by those who've tested it. I must admit I don't use OS X myself.

The FDK setting of the "preferred" family and subfamily are what determines how OT fonts show up in the Font Panel of OS X.

More technical version:

Mac OS X uses the Mac platform/encoding of name IDs 1 and 2 to determine this; the FDK sets the MAC versions of name IDs 1 and 2 the same as Win name IDs 16 and 17.

T

[_Richard_Latimer_]

FWIW, I just purchased the Bulmer Std OTF package (10 fonts). Only 9 of them show up in the Mac OS X Font Panel. The missing font is Bulmer Std Regular. I have version 10.2.3 of Mac OS X.

What now?

richard

[Thomas Phinney]

Hmmm. Not good. Having just rechecked the menu names for the Bulmer Standard family, I suspect this is an OS X bug. I can report it to Apple (and you should feel welcome to do the same).

I take it the Regular works and shows up fine in other applications that don't use the new system fonts panel, right?

T

[_Richard_Latimer_]

Yes, the Bulmer Standard family works in both InDesign and the Mac OS X Character Palette, altho the listing orders are different in both apps. InDesign lists them Display, Regular, Italic, Italic Display, then the Bolds. The listing in Character Palette is truly random.

I have sent Apple a notice via the Mac OS X Feedback form including a note that the Character Palette does not seem to respond to a notification that a font has been deleted (you can't empty the Trash until a Restart).

I have also asked for help in Apple's Cocoa Programming forum because the Font Panel is part of Cocoa, but I did not get a response.

I have also sent a message to the Apple Mac OS X Fonts Tools support team asking where I should seek support for fonts under Mac OS X, but it is the holiday season and I haven't received a response yet.

I don't know what else to do.

What I need is a bigger gun. Assuming that all of Adobe's large font sets will be affected in the same manner, and considering the possible marketing ramifications for Adobe, I'm hoping you are it (the big gun I mean).

richard

[Thomas Phinney]

Richard,

I can (and will) add this to the Apple/Adobe issues list.

T

[_Richard_Latimer_]

Further adventures:

The Bauer Bodonie Std package sorts to the bottom of the Mac OS X Font Panel family listing, after Zapfino and Apple Chancery (which also sorts peculiarly).

The Trump Mediaeval Std package shows up as four separate families in the Mac OS X Font Panel:

Trump Mediaeval LT Std
Trump Mediaeval LT Std Bold
Trump Mediaeval LT Std BoldIt
Trump Mediaeval LT Std Italic

All four show up as Regular in the typeface column.

With the Didot LT Std package:

Select All Text in an app that uses the Mac OS X Font Panel
Choose Helvetica Regular for the font
Choose Didot LT Std for the font

Your text is now formatted with Didot LT Std Headline instead of Didot LT Std Roman, i.e., the font substitution algorithm doesn't make very good choices.

While the peculiar and anomalous functioning of the Mac OS X Font Panel is certainly not the responsibility of Adobe, it would be helpful to the consumer if Adobe's testing included an actual test of the fonts in the Font Panel, or, if Adobe can't guess (since there doesn't seem to be any documentation available) how the Font Panel operates, it seems prudent to warn a consumer that the Adobe OTF library is handled in a peculiar manner in Mac OS X Cocoa apps.

richard

p.s. Still no word from Apple about where I can discuss or get help with font problems. It would seem to me that since DTP played such a large role in the success of Apple's Mackintosh that they would be more attentive.