Myriad Pro Font Name Conflicts in Windows XP

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

I am trying to use the Myriad Pro family on my PC, and there is a problem in trying to use Myriad Pro Light along with Myriad Pro Semi Condensed. When I open the font files, the window that shows the font and all the information shows the proper font names on the top line in the window. But on the third line that shows "Typeface name" shows "Myriad Pro Light" for both these fonts. As a consequence, the Windows system does not know how to display both fonts separately, and the Semibold font is therefore not available to me. This does not cause on problem on the Mac side...both fonts display and output correctly. Is there an easy way around this, or will I have to repurchase the fonts for the Windows environment?

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Jackie,

Myriad Pro is platform-independent OpenType. If you bought it for your Mac, you can also install it on your Windows machine (as long as your software license allows for more than one installation).

Neil

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

> in trying to use Myriad Pro Semi Condensed ... the Semibold font is therefore not available to me

Is it the semicondensed (light or other) or the semibold bold font you're having issues with? How are you installing these fonts, do you have ATM installed (if so, which version), have these fonts been edited at all?

> When I open the font files

What do you mean by "opening" the font files?

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

Double-clicking the font files opens a preview window similar to what happens on the Mac side in Font Book. The Font FileName is on the top line, followed by four lines of file header information. Although the files are named differently and the display shows the two distinct fonts correctly, the listing after “Typeface name” is “Myriad Pro Light” on both files. I think that this is what interferes with the font menu function in the Windows operating system.

My font folder has the entire font family for Myriad Pro installed, but only Myriad Pro, Myriad Cond, Myriad Pro Light, Myriad Pro Light Condensed, and Myriad Pro Light SemiExt appear in the font menu list (using any application such as Word, etc). I know that the “B” and “I” font control bar buttons will get me extended font listings, but I still don't have access to any “Black” fonts. I have discovered that if I choose Myriad Pro Light and click “B”, what I get is Myriad Pro SemiBold. There’s nothing in the font menu that tells me that....I just tested it against what I get on the Mac side to make that determination.

I have tried accessing these files using Bitstream’s Font Navigator without any improvement.

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

Myriad Pro Black should show up as a separate entry, if you have it properly installed.

* * * * *

Side note on style linking:

As you note in your last message above, you can in fact use all weights of the font, by use of the "bold" button in conjunction with the weights that show up in the font menu in typical applications. The issue has to do with style linking on Windows, and is just a basic fact of life around using fonts in Windows, for the most part. (Some Adobe applications such as InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop bypass the Windows OS font handling entirely to avoid this issue.)

Note that this issue is true for ALL font formats on Windows, and is not particular to OpenType.

See this Adobe Tech Note for more info:
<http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=328508&sliceId=2>

The issue is also discussed in the OpenType User Guide <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/pdfs/OTGuide.pdf>

...and at length in the OpenType readme file <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/OTReadMe.html#Anchor-WindowsIssues>.

I don't know how we can make it more prominent, but obviously by documenting this everywhere we can think of, we're doing our best.

Regards,

T

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks all for your help. What I will apparently need to do is to build a chart that will map the desired fonts to the Windows menu/style button combination. What a pain.... Just a note: I'm not working on the PC side because I want to...

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

Follow up:
I have Quark and InDesign on my PC, and did a test switching back and forth between them to see the Myriad Pro family. InDesign has access to the entire Myriad Pro family, but Quark (which apparently uses the Windows OS font handling) has these that are not available:

Myriad Pro Bold SemiExt
Myriad Pro Bold SemiExt Italic
Myriad Pro Black
Myriad Pro Black Condensed
Myriad Pro Black Condensed&#8200;Italic
Myriad Pro Black Italic
Myriad Pro Black SemiExt
Myriad Pro Black SemiExt Italic
Myriad Pro SemiExt
Myriad Pro SemiExt Italic

The only SemiExt family that shows up on the Windows OS font menu is Myriad Pro Light SemiExt, and using the sytle buttons I get:

Myriad Pro Light SemiExt
Myriad Pro Light SemiExt Italic
Myriad Pro SemiBold SemiExt
Myriad Pro SemiBold SemiExt Italic

There doesn't seem to be a path to the SemiExt fonts listed above or any of the Black fonts.

Is there a way for the Windows OS font handler to access the last ten fonts? The application I actually need it in is Pageflex by Bitstream and not Quark. It is only available as a PC application and uses the Windows OS font handler.

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

As Thomas mentioned, the Myriad fonts you can't find (black, semi-extended) should show up as separate fonts. Are you sure you have the black and semi-extended fonts installed? If they're showing up in ID, but not other apps, you may have installed them only to the Adobe fonts folder. Can you see them in all your other apps except for XPress? If so, it looks like an XPress issue and you'd have to ask over at Quark.

By the bye, as far as I'm aware, there are no fonts Myriad Pro Bold SemiExt or Myriad Pro Bold SemiExt Italic. There are, however, Myriad Pro SemiExt Bold and Myriad Pro SemiExt Bold Italic. This is not just a matter of semantics, because it does affect how you find them.

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

Well...the problem was the operator (me). Apparently what confused me most was that some of the fonts were registering but not all....but after rebooting the machine, all fonts are now registering and are available. I thought I had done the reboot thing before crying for help, but obviously not.

By the way, I found the best way for me to map those fonts whose actual names don't show up (e.g. to get Myriad Pro SemiBold, I choose Myriad Pro Light and click the “B” button on the style bar), I created a Quark document on the Mac and set a type sample page with the fonts applied. I then reopened the file on the PC, and can now match the font to what it looks like on the font menu bar in the Quark PC environment. I am sure you could do this in any cross-platform application (Word, etc.)

Thanks everybody for all your help!

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

I should have also mentioned that for Myriad Pro and most other "Pro" fonts, the family-specific style linking info appears in the family-level Readme as well. For example, see near the bottom of the first page here:

<http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/pdfs/readmes/MyriadProReadme.pdf>

Additionally, font-specific style linking info used to be right on the Adobe web page for each font, but somehow got dropped in a recent redesign of the site. It is slated to be added back in, but I don't know how soon that will be live offhand.

Regards,

T

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

a recent redesign of the site.

Don't remind us of of that nefarious event! :(

[Allan_...@adobeforums.com]

This is a problem that I have encounted often, as I work in the variable data printing industry. Most Windows applications can't destinguish fonts that have the same family name (eg Myriad Pro), even if the subfamily name is different (eg bold). I think this may occur when fonts are converted from a Mac, which obviously isn't affected by this. The solution is to rename the fonts using a font editor (CR8type is a good one, ha) before installing them. Rename Myriad Pro (subfamily bold) as Myriad Pro Bold etc.

Allan Murray

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Allan,

I think this may occur when fonts are converted from a Mac, which obviously
isn't affected by this.

Just what are you converting? OpenType fonts are cross-platform compatible and the same for Mac and Windows. This would include Myriad Pro.

Neil

[Allan_...@adobeforums.com]

I have experienced the same thing with True Type fonts, so I am
assuming that its a similar situation. Renaming the Font Family name fixes the problem.

See my article:

Naming typeface families on a PC
<http://cr8software.net/article001.html>

The font is definitly valid, but when you have another font with the same family name it can be a problem in Windows programs.

Allan Murray

[Thomas_...@adobeforums.com]

I do not recommend or support Allan's suggestions above.

(First, note that the issues in question don't apply to most Adobe creative applications, such as InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. They only apply to more typical Windows applications.)

All Windows applications I've ever used CAN distinguish these fonts, and the users access the different fonts by use of bold and italic styling. This is simply how fonts work on Windows! There is no need to edit the fonts. If you look at, for example, Arial and Times New Roman on Windows, each has four fonts with the same family name (NameID 1) and different style names (NameID 2).

If you want to make Windows and Mac documents more compatible you can choose fonts on the Mac more like you would on Windows, by using the styling where a style-linked font exists, and only directly selecting the "base font" within any style linked group.

Yes, you could modify your Windows fonts to break the style links, and make them compatible with Mac fonts being selected separately. If you do that, your documents using the formerly-linked fonts will be incompatible with other Windows users, and incompatible with Mac users who *do* know the right way to make their docs more Windows-compatible.

Regards,

T

Thomas Phinney
Product Manager
Fonts & Global Typography
Adobe Systems

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

I've got to say, Alan, your article just looks to me like a way to drum up business for your font-editing software by perpetuating myths about the way that fonts work on Windows and by potentially confusing and unnecessarily worrying non-typeface savvy users.

You say this is a problem that you have "encountered often" but you don't give us any actual example of it. Like Thomas, I've not had a problem with Windows recognising properly constructed fonts, and the only issue I'm aware of is due to having two fonts with the exact same name active at the same time. Of course, badly put together fonts or fonts edited by those who are not sure of what they're doing can cause problems (on PCs and Macs) but the answer is not more editing but avoiding such fonts in the first place.

To this end, I note your comment about an "impatient client [who] wants their document produced using Futura Condensed, and [who is] adamant that the fonts worked fine for their designer (who converted the fonts from Mac to PC just for you)". Not only is such forwarding of fonts almost certainly a breach of the font's license but such a workflow (having clients converting fonts from Mac to PC) is not one that professionals would recommend. Rather than advocating more editing, why not just tell people to use OpenType fonts?

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Alan,

I have to agree with both Thomas and Dominic that your link is both misguided and self-serving. I also agree with Dominic about the legal issues with lending fonts to other users (this is a form of software piracy). I know Windows-based designers who simply start with good quality fonts and do not have the problems you imply are rampant.

If there are more objections to the half-truths you are perpetuating, your link will simply be removed.

Neil
Forum Host

[He...@adobeforums.com]

As I understand it, MS products (e.g. Windows, Word) can only
recognize 4 specific style variations within a given font family -
namely regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. I'm not sure how it
recognizes the variants - whether by style name or internal flags or
some other differentiation.

Some font families have been produced with a single family name and
dozens of different styles such as light, black, outline, condensed,
etc. etc. This works fine on Macs, but the variations aren't
recognized by Windows.

I can't speak for ancient history, but certainly ALL of Adobe's
current offerings are well-named to work perfectly under both Windows
and MacOS.

And yes, bad conversions, whether legal or not, have bad results.

I'm not sure how this presentation relates; he also uses some
terminology that's somewhat different from what I'm used to:

http://groups.msn.com/fontlab/tipsandtricks.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=2843

- Herb

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

> This works fine on Macs, but the variations aren't recognized by Windows.

This could be misleading to some. If you mean to say that the other variants won't be listed under the main font name, then you're right, but some might take it to mean that these fonts won't be recognised by Windows period. And that's just wrong.

I acutally prefer having variants listed under the family name rather than as separate fonts (as per Macs). And, by the once popularity of Type Reunion, I gather many Mac users also liked to have it this way. Windows only real problem is that it doesn't list all variants under the family name.

[He...@adobeforums.com]

"Windows' only real problem is that it doesn't list all variants under
the family name."

Well, Windows has more real problems than that! But that's besides the
point :)

When properly named, the only variants that aren't listed by Windows
apps are specifically Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic, because
applications provide buttons for them.

Some applications, such as Corel Draw, disable the buttons for any
font family that doesn't provide the appropriate font file. Hmm..
wonder what it does if there's a bold italic but no bold or italic ...
will have to test that. Some day.

MS Office applications, Corel Word Perfect, and similar applications
let you use the Bold and Italic buttons even if the appropriate font
file is absent, producing a typographically disgusting faux bold and a
terrible oblique, respectively. The worst part of this is that
there's no way to tell it not to, and there's no way to determine
whether the matching files are installed.

- Herb

[Allan_...@adobeforums.com]

To borrow Adam Twardoch's example (in the thread that Herb linked to above):

| Long Family | Long Style | Short Family | Short Style |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| My Garamond | Light | My Garamond Lt | Regular |
| My Garamond | Light Italic | My Garamond Lt | Italic |
| My Garamond | Regular | My Garamond Rg | Regular |
| My Garamond | Italic | My Garamond Rg | Italic |
| My Garamond | Semibold | My Garamond Lt | Bold |
| My Garamond | Semibold Italic | My Garamond Lt | Bold Italic |
| My Garamond | Bold | My Garamond Rg | Bold |
| My Garamond | Bold Italic | My Garamond Rg | Bold Italic |
| My Garamond | Condensed | My Garamond Cn | Regular |
| My Garamond | Condensed Italic | My Garamond Cn | Italic |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |

I belive that on a Mac system you could have one family name (Long Family) for all of the fonts above, but on a PC you need to use three seperate family names (Short Family) because MOST PC apps only allow you to access the 4 variations (regular, bold, italic, bold italic).

My point was that if you have fonts that are not named properly for PC use (they are NOT rampant, but they DO exist). And you really need to use that font in MS Word. Then the ONLY solution is to rename the family names.

Allan Murray.

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

> When properly named, the only variants that aren't listed by Windows apps are specifically Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic, because
applications provide buttons for them.

True up to XP, but not so for Vista. But I don't see what you're getting at - this point hasn't been in dispute.

> MS Office applications, ... let you use the Bold and Italic buttons even if the appropriate font file is absent, producing a typographically disgusting faux bold and a terrible oblique, respectively.

I don't know about all the apps you cite, but in Word you can tell when the font is being faked by checking the info in the font dialogue (in my old version, it says the font style is being imitated for display). DTP apps I've used in Windows typically grey out options for unavailable variants in font dialogues. But faux fonts are a Windows-only phenomenon, so I don't really see the relevance of this either.

>My point was that if you have fonts that are not named properly for PC use (they are NOT rampant, but they DO exist).

Then to my mind you should have used a real example in your discussion - an example of a font from a professional foundry.

> And you really need to use that font in MS Word. Then the ONLY solution is to rename the family names.

No, it's not the only solution. You just select the font through the font dialogue. Please give us an example where it's simply not possible to access a font in Windows without editing the font name. Sure, not all variants will appear under the family name (even in Vista), but they are all accessible. If someone doesn't know how to selct a font variant in Windows, I certainly wouldn't send them off to edit that font.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

As has been said, renaming properly designed fonts is very bad practice.

Neil

[boblevine]

> Some applications, such as Corel Draw, disable the buttons for any
> font family that doesn't provide the appropriate font file.

Corel was ahead of the curve on that. It was, as far as I know, the
first Win application to not allow faux fonts.

Bob

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

Wow....I didn’t know I would start up such a passionate discussion!

So here is how I finally took care of the issue......

The issue begins with the Open Type “Pro” families...having too many choices to classify each to its own font ID. Each is indeed recognized by PC applications...but the FONT NAMES are not recognized by the Windows OS font handling utility. Using cross-platform applications show this up. If you use products from the Adobe Creative Suite....all the font names show up in the font menu just like they do in Mac OSX – because Adobe apps do not utilize the Windows font handler. Any other apps – Microsoft suite and Quark for example – use the Windows font handler and the font menu appears to ignore certain fonts....but it is actually not true.

What I did was to create a Quark document on my Mac and set a line of type for each font style, kind of like a font sample sheet. What I discovered when I opened that document in Quark PC is that the fonts did appear and print properly. When I looked at the font menu, I found that Myriad Pro Semibold showed up in the menu as Myriad Pro Light – STYLIZED AS BOLD. I then discovered that all the fonts that I thought were missing indeed just showed up as stylized versions of another font style name.

For PostScript RIPs, it is usually a no-no to stylize fonts. But I double-checked the output by producing a press-optimized PDF and the Preflight check did not produce a red flag for stylized fonts.....valid file for PostScript output! I tried this with other Open Type “Pro” fonts with the same success. I haven’t come across any problems with True Type fonts, but if those fonts DO work on your Mac, I would recommend trying this same approach....assuming you have copies of an application that you can open in both platforms.

So....MY recommendation for identifying the menu names is to create a document on the Mac side and set a line of type for each font style assigning that style to that line, then reopening the document in the PC version and seeing the font menu name mapping structure.

Hope we can all be friends now...

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Jackie,

When I looked at the font menu, I found that Myriad Pro Semibold showed
up in the menu as Myriad Pro Light – STYLIZED AS BOLD.

It is, to say the least, counterintuitive for any type-savvy designer.

For PostScript RIPs, it is usually a no-no to stylize fonts.

In the distant past when I did this with a Mac XPress file, the RIP output killed all styles. I was never shown a proof, and I didn't find out until millions of copies of the ad I created were on the newsstand!

Neil

[Jacki...@adobeforums.com]

ooooh....not good.

Gotta have proofs!

Most of what I job out goes as press-optimized PDFs to help guard against that, but I've been burned in the past with these as well....so I always require proofs....

Counterintuitive font management for sure....but what ya gonna do?

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Jackie,

This incident predated widespread use of PDFs. I think Acrobat was at version 1 or 2 at the time and no one I knew could figure out what the heck the application (and its various, vaguely named components) were all about. We spent a fortune on color separated film and Matchprints for much of our other work.

...which brings back a funny story. One of the houses we used for color separations from our QuarkXPress files had all the right things going for it: they were cheap, fast, and good (forget the adage that says "choose two"); they were courteous; they were in the neighborhood. Our clients particularly appreciated their ability to get skin tones right. But they had good experience -- 90% of their work was for the soft porn magazine industry!

Neil

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

> I found that Myriad Pro Semibold showed up in the menu as Myriad Pro Light – STYLIZED AS BOLD. I then discovered that all the fonts that I thought were missing indeed just showed up as stylized versions of another font style name.

Yes, Thomas covered all this in his post 4. As he said then, it's just a fact of life on Windows. The style links for Adobe fonts are always given in the readme, and he gave a link to the Myriad readme in post 9. Other font foundries should give out the same info, so it's really not necessary to create a file in a Mac and then open it in Windows.

While some may find it counterintuitive to get Myriad Pro Semibold by bolding Myriad Pro Light, to me it's completely logical. A bold of a light face is going to be lighter then a bold of a regular face, so it makes sense to link the semibold there. I really don't know why some people get so worked up about this. They usually seem to be Mac users, so maybe it's just because it sounds complicated to them. But it's just never been an issue to me. Given the choice, I prefer font families to having each font listed separately.

> For PostScript RIPs, it is usually a no-no to stylize fonts.

I'm not sure what you mean by stylising fonts in this context. Since the whole thread has been about how selecting font variants in Windows works, I assume you're referring to selecting the variant by hitting the bold or itals icons or typing Ctrl-B or Ctrl-I. And I don't believe there is any difference between choosing a bold by, for example, choosing Myriad Pro Bold in ID's drop down font menu and selecting some Myriad Pro text and typing Ctrl-B or hitting the bold icon. As long as the appropriate font file is installed, I believe any method of styling fonts in Windows is just fine (though Dov or Thomas may correct on me on this). And, on Macs, you should also use style linking (as opposed to direct selection of the font) if you plan to use the files cross-platform.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Dominic,

I'm not sure what you mean by stylising fonts in this context.

I can't say for Windows, but in the past, our Mac-based service bureaus, printers, and production departments would tell us to direct-select the actual font, and not use the B and I buttons or commands to bold or italicize or there might be problems properly RIPing the files. I don't know if that is still true for imagesetting equipment.

Neil

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

Yes, all Windows users know about that, because we so often get told by Mac users never to use style linking on Windows. But even on Macs wasn't that just a way to stop people who weren't too knowledgeable about fonts from creating faux fonts? I thought that, as long as the relevant font files were installed, you could happily use the B and I style buttons and keyboard commands. I know that these days you don't have a choice if you're planning to also use these files on Windows - you have to use style linking.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Dominic,

But even on Macs wasn't that just a way to stop people who weren't too
knowledgeable about fonts from creating faux fonts?

No, it was a real potential problem with output. I was a victim of the consequences at least once, and as a result, I just never use it anymore. On Macs, due to the way fonts were created and accessed, you were less likely to create faux fonts.

But I don't know if whether non-recognition of style links at output is or was a Windows issue as well.

Neil

[Dominic...@adobeforums.com]

> It was a real potential problem with output

That's interesting. Then at what point did it change, because that's apparently not the case now?

> I specifically choose the font and variant.

Don't you mean you specifically choose the font? On Windows you choose the font and then then the variant (as you do on Adobe apps), but on Macs apps in general, I thought you just choose the font fullstop.

> But I don't know if whether non-recognition of style links at output is or was a Windows issue as well.

Then you haven't been paying attention to this thread! Style linking is (and has been) the only way to choose bold, itals, and bold itals fonts in Windows, and as such is not an issue. The only thing I'm not 100 per cent clear on is whether there is any difference in the way Ctrl-B, the bold icon, and the bold name in the font variant dropdown work. I suspect not.

[Allan_...@adobeforums.com]

When I first came across fonts with this problem, I thought that they must have been converted from a Mac by someone unaware of a PC's 'quirks'.

After reading these posts, I am now aware, that very few people seem to understand or even acknowledge that there is an issue. I guess that if you are only using high-end graphics software, and only using professional foundry fonts, then you would probably never come across this problem.

In my world though, even the high-end VDP (variable data printing) software that I am using, doesn't allow me to select between fonts with the same 'family' name, and not everyone is prepared to pay for good fonts, but prefer to use cheap or free ones.

Allan Murray