Font Family Menus?
Hello
I have a font family with 8 weights - light, regular, medium, bold, with italics. The fonts are all named using the system found at this link:
http://groups.msn.com/fontlab/tipsandtricks.msnw?action=get_message&mvie...
Everything works fine in Adobe applications, such as InDesign, Illustrator on the mac and PC. In these programs all the weights are under the same name and are ordered from light to bold, however, when testing the fonts in windows applications, such as Word, big problems!!!
Not all the weights appear in the font menus.
Is there a solution to this problem, or is it just that OpenType fonts don’t work in applications like Word?
What do other people use as a solution to the problem?
















16.Apr.2008 6.28am
Just follow the linked tutorial correctly, then it should work. Seems like you did something wrong. In apps like word you should see your font in the menu broken down in sub families (My Garamond Lt/My Garamond Rg).
16.Apr.2008 9.48am
We recently experienced some similar problems with some weights of an extended family not appearing in Office 2008/mac applications. Worked fine everywhere else and was set up as prescribed. Is your situation limited to Word 2008 or have you seen it in other versions of Word/Office?
16.Apr.2008 10.50am
Thanks j.hadley
The problem occurs on Microsoft Office X for Mac and Microsoft Word 10.0 on the PC - I have followed to instructions in the link I posted to the letter and I still keep getting the same problem.
Help?!?!?!?!?
16.Apr.2008 1.11pm
If anyone can help this how the menus are looking
Adobe apps both Mac and PC - Everythings working fine here
Microsoft Word Office X Mac
And finally the problem child, Word 10.0 on the PC (Vista) - Any Suggestiions ? ? ?
16.Apr.2008 1.13pm
Well, they other styles won’t be in the menu but are available with the buttons for Bold and Italic. That’s the whole idea of this name treatment. ;-)
16.Apr.2008 10.55pm
Ralf are you saying I should use the bold - B and Italic - I buttons to get to the other styles.
I never use Word, I’m using it now for testing means.
17.Apr.2008 1.53am
Ralf are you saying I should use the bold - B and Italic - I buttons to get to the other styles.
Yes.
17.Apr.2008 4.54am
Well I feel slighlty stupid now - but it’s starting to make more sense.
My problem now I understand that is I can’t access the Medium or Medium Italic weights in Word.
The example file shows this.
And I’m using this for my own family.
The only thing I can see that might be causing a problem is the font names in the Fonts Panel ( Window > Panels > Fonts ).
The Medium Italic and Bold Italic seem to be missing the end of the file names - I don’t know why this is, or if this will cause problems.
17.Apr.2008 5.08am
My problem now I understand that is I can’t access the Medium or Medium Italic weights in Word.
Sure you can. The medium weights will be available when you choose the light style and press the Bold button.
This is correctly set up in your table.
Since you have 8 styles it’s easy to break this down to two families with 4 styles (reg/ita/bold/bold italic) each.
17.Apr.2008 5.38am
Ralf,
I realise that’s the way it should work but it’s not.
To test the fonts I made copies of them and replaced the uppercase A with shapes, so the light weight has a square and the medium a circle. When I test in Word the light weight with the bold option still shows the square in the light weight.
I’ll check all my naming again, but I’m sure it’s right.
17.Apr.2008 6.43am
Reginald, don’t forget to delete your fontcaches before testing new fonts.
Best,
Artur
17.Apr.2008 6.59am
MS Word.... why is this such a stubborn app?!
17.Apr.2008 7.07am
Yes I delete the font caches with Font Finagler and AdobeFnt caches
17.Apr.2008 7.30am
A typo in the last line of your table:
Long Family = Reg New | Long Style = Bold Italic (not Bols Italic)
In RegNew-Rg.vfb, change the Full Name to “Reg New” (without “Regular”).
In case that you generate TT-OTFs, also omit the “-Rg” in the PS Font Name of this font.
I’m not sure if the Fonts panel just cuts off too long names since I never use it. Just in case, you might check if you have spaces in the PS Font Names.
You should also fill in Mac Name — same as Full Name.
But there are two exceptions to “same as Full Name” with the styles whose Style Name is “Regular”: In RegNew-Rg.vfb it should be “Reg New Rg”, and in RegNew-Lt.vfb it should be “Reg New Lt”, so that it is the same as the Font Name.
Not sure if this addresses the problem.
17.Apr.2008 7.58am
I’ll try your suggestions k.l.
Bols is just a typo - I was using table to fill in the fields
19.Apr.2008 6.31am
“In case that you generate TT-OTFs, also omit the “-Rg” in the PS Font Name of this font.”
Why?
It’s actually a little-known rule for the PostScript FontName that there should always be a hyphen and a “style” after that. Omitting this for the “regular” can actually cause problems in some situations (notably for Type 1 fonts with more than one font in the family, in Adobe app font menus).
Regards,
T
19.Apr.2008 8.53am
An earlier test was: Install a TT OT family on both Windows and MacOS machines, create a document in Freehand/Win, open it in Freehand/Mac. If there is “Regular” present in TT OTFs, Freehand/Mac cannot find the font.
BUT: Reading my descripting and older emails again, I have a suspicion that in the problematic test fonts there was a “Regular” not only in the PS Font Name but possibly also in the Full Name. Then it would have been the Full Name causing the cross-platform font identification problem! Hope I can repeat this test (much) later — no Freehand on my current Windows machine.
If what I suspect is true, I should re-phrase: If you generate TT OTFs, “Regular” is not required in PS Font Name, as can be seen in MS’s own TT fonts.
20.Apr.2008 9.34pm
That sounds highly plausible. And I’m not sure it’s required in OT-CFFs, but I would personally not omit it if I could help it. Definitely required in Type 1.
Regards,
T