Font Family Menus?

ReginaldV
16.Apr.2008 4.55am
ReginaldV's picture

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?



Ralf Herrmann
16.Apr.2008 6.28am
Ralf Herrmann's picture

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).


j.hadley
16.Apr.2008 9.48am
j.hadley's picture

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?


ReginaldV
16.Apr.2008 10.50am
ReginaldV's picture

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?!?!?!?!?


ReginaldV
16.Apr.2008 1.11pm
ReginaldV's picture

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 ? ? ?


Ralf Herrmann
16.Apr.2008 1.13pm
Ralf Herrmann's picture

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. ;-)


ReginaldV
16.Apr.2008 10.55pm
ReginaldV's picture

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.


Ralf Herrmann
17.Apr.2008 1.53am
Ralf Herrmann's picture

Ralf are you saying I should use the bold - B and Italic - I buttons to get to the other styles.

Yes.


ReginaldV
17.Apr.2008 4.54am
ReginaldV's picture

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.


Ralf Herrmann
17.Apr.2008 5.08am
Ralf Herrmann's picture

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.


ReginaldV
17.Apr.2008 5.38am
ReginaldV's picture

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.


Artur Schmal
17.Apr.2008 6.43am
Artur Schmal's picture

Reginald, don’t forget to delete your fontcaches before testing new fonts.

Best,
Artur


Goran Soderstrom
17.Apr.2008 6.59am
Goran Soderstrom's picture

MS Word.... why is this such a stubborn app?!


ReginaldV
17.Apr.2008 7.07am
ReginaldV's picture

Yes I delete the font caches with Font Finagler and AdobeFnt caches


k.l.
17.Apr.2008 7.30am
k.l.'s picture

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.


ReginaldV
17.Apr.2008 7.58am
ReginaldV's picture

I’ll try your suggestions k.l.

Bols is just a typo - I was using table to fill in the fields


Thomas Phinney
19.Apr.2008 6.31am
Thomas Phinney's picture

“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


k.l.
19.Apr.2008 8.53am
k.l.'s picture

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.


Thomas Phinney
20.Apr.2008 9.34pm
Thomas Phinney's picture

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