Multiple Masters convert to Type 1 fonts

[TomMxEdit]

Hello Community,

I purchased eight MM fonts "back in the day" and am wondering whether Adobe ATM Deluxe or any other program can save the various instances of those fonts as Type 1 Postscript fonts -- i.e. not MM fonts. I seem to recall ending up with a bunch of files with names that contained numbers in them reflecting the weight and width axis.

On one of the utility disks I see a program called Font Creator 3.0. Might this be what is used to do that? Sorry for the Oldbe questions -- I can probably figure this out by experimenting, but if anybody knows directly about doing this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Alternatively, is there another program that can easily save Multiple Master specific fonts to Postscript Type 1 fonts?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

[Test Screen Name]

You may have missed the announcement that type 1 font support is effectively closing down within 12 months if not sooner...

[TomMxEdit]

Hi,

Yes, thank you, I saw that. That is why I am wanting to convert these Multiple Master fonts into fixed Type 1 fonts and then will use FontLab's TransType 4 to port them over to .otf files for my personal use. Now, if there were a way to go straight from MMs to .otf files that would be even better, though I don't believe there was that functionality in ATM and I know that it isn't an option for TransType 4. It is possible to do so by importing the MMs into FontLab Studio 5, but that is a bit of an expensive purchase if I already can do it with the software I have here, such as ATM. I'm only looking for a few instances of each font, not really a full family, so will keep experimenting with the old software to see what format I can save in...

[Stefan_Krapf]

Hi Tom

Did you find a way to convert it in the meantime?

Because I do have some MM fonts too. And now I should convert it to OTF.

Thanks a lot for your answer.

Stefan

[TomMxEdit]

Hi Stefan,

I believe I ended up obtaining the fonts I needed in their modern .otf versions either by purchasing directly from Fontspring or as part of my Adobe CC subscription, which includes Adobe Fonts. Then, on an older computer, using layers on Illustrator and the old MM fonts, I visually matched the new fonts to the particular MM font instance I used in the original document. In cases where new Variable fonts exist, that was somewhat easier. The process was laborious, but it was close enough for my purposes.

You might see if you can find an old copy of FontLab’s TransType Pro 3. It was supposed to be able to translate from MM to .otf, but as I recall, only one instance at a time. TransType 4 no longer works with MM fonts. This from a site online "The company [Adobe] kept selling their existing catalog of Multiple Master fonts until early 2003. At the end of 2004, Adobe stopped offering tech support for those fonts, excepting for customers who owned their Font Folio 9 library. Fortunately a tool like Transtype Pro can convert MM instances to OpenType fonts."

Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. Please let me know if you discover another solution.

Tom

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm hoping Adobe can fill the gaps of what was lost with Type 1 MM fonts via the Adobe Fonts service and the newer OpenType Variable standard.

Back in the 1990's it seemed like Adobe was the only company putting serious resources into developing T1 MM fonts and selling/distributing those kinds of fonts to the general public. Adobe certainly had the most popular T1 MM fonts. Due to the lack of industry-wide support it's no surprise the T1 MM format died out by the early 2000's, even if many type designers still used multiple master interpolation techniques for developing large type families once OpenType arrived on the scene.

The OTF Variable standard is far more successful than the T1 MM standard ever was. Adobe could use the format to "resurrect" some old T1 MM fonts. They've already kind of done that with Kepler 3 (Kepler had a T1 MM font way back then). Adobe could do the same thing with other "lost" T1 MM fonts, such as Nueva, Penumbra, Mezz and several others. Penumbra was pretty unique in that it could morph from Serif to Sans Serif and any point in between.