Changing internal font names?
mikebar...@gmail.com
to an another forum in which I might find an answer. Here's the
question:
Many of my favorite fonts have styles (bold, italic, bold italic) with
different names, meaning that using the <bold> command in Word will
not give me a true bold. Here's a more specific example: I really like
the font Roice, but when I wish to use Roice Italic, I can't simply
hit <Ctrl+I> in Word, as this will not give me the true italic
(instead, I get some hideous approximation thereof). I can select
Roice-Italic from the drop-down font list, but this is both cumbersome
and problematic should I wish to use another font (because the
italicization will vanish if I switch the document to, say,
Helvetica).
I can change the internal names of the fonts using FontExpert, but
this program cannot save OTF fonts in anything but TTF format, which
seems to degrade the quality (at least on-screen) considerably. I'm
hoping to find a solution that is, at best, free or at worst, fairly
inexpensive. Any ideas?
Thanks very much for your time.
Michael
Armadillo
This is because FontFont (and some other foundrties) know squat about making font files correctly. Ok, I'll admit that Microsofts idea of four member font families is not too bright either.
The problem is caused by font naming, as you correctly suggested. FF fonts for Windows are usually arranged that each font is a sole member of the family. So Roice-Italic is a member of Roice-Italic family while it should belong to Roice family as a italic member. Font naming is a bit tricky and I'm not always sure how it works although I've fixed fonts (too) many times. In Mac this kind of incorrect naming works as well as in Adobe CS products. Fonts by Adobe and Linotype has the best quality. I've purchased fonts from FontFont, HTF and Emigre that I had to rename and even rehint to make them work properly. On time I even renamed and rehinted unhinted(!) HTF Type1 fonts saved as OTF and sent back to the foundry - they did no send a reply, though. ;-)
The solution is to rename the font but if you use non-professional tools you'll get non-professional quality. The degrading quality is probably caused by losing font hinting in the process. The font outlines are ok and would probaly be ok in high resolution output but in low resolution printing and especially on screen the quality will be much worse than the original.
Currently FontLab (www.fontlab.com) has the best set of font tools but they are not exactly free or cheap (demo versions available). TransType can rename fonts as well as convert them into another format. FontLab is a a very good font editing tool and you can do a lot with it but as a conversion tool it may be an overkill or at least very confusing. Also even FontLab cannot always keep all the hinting information as it is.
Jukka
Character
The internal font NAMES aren't the only thing that identifies bold and
italic variants. There's also a flag that needs to be set for MS
products to identify and associate them properly with their family
members.
As Jukka said, FontLab would be today's tool of choice. If ALL you
want to do is reset flags and change the internal names, Fontlab (the
company) has some less expensive font editors such as TypeTool.
A free open source alternative would be FontForge.
Following is an excellent article on font naming by Adam Twardoch,
FontLab's technical genius and Product and Marketing Manager: I'm
afraid that e-mail's re-wrapping may make the table hard to put back
together.
From: Adam Twardoch (Original Message) Sent: 1/20/2004 10:26 PM
Tips / Families
Font Family Naming in FontLab
Creating font families that have family and style naming that works in
all systems always was a difficult task.
Each font family should contain two family naming systems. There
should be a "long" family where there is one family name and multiple
styles truly reflecting the typographic design of each style. In
addition, for families containing more than four styles, there should
be several "short" families with up to four styles each.
Let's consider the following family grouping:
| Long Family | Long Style | Short Family | Short Style |
B | I | Weight |
| ------------------------------- | -------------------------------
|---|---|----------|
| My Garamond | Light | My Garamond Lt | Regular |
| | Light |
| My Garamond | Light Italic | My Garamond Lt | Italic |
| X | Light |
| My Garamond | Regular | My Garamond Rg | Regular |
| | Regular |
| My Garamond | Italic | My Garamond Rg | Italic |
| X | Regular |
| My Garamond | Semibold | My Garamond Lt | Bold |
X | | Semibold |
| My Garamond | Semibold Italic | My Garamond Lt | Bold Italic |
X | X | Semibold |
| My Garamond | Bold | My Garamond Rg | Bold |
X | | Bold |
| My Garamond | Bold Italic | My Garamond Rg | Bold Italic |
X | X | Bold |
| My Garamond | Condensed | My Garamond Cn | Regular |
| | Regular |
| My Garamond | Condensed Italic | My Garamond Cn | Italic |
| X | Regular |
| ------------------------------- | -------------------------------
|---|---|----------|
Open all styles in FontLab and open the Font Info dialog. You should
focus on the "Basic set of font names" pane and the "OpenType-specific
font names" pane. In my further notes, I'll put "OT" in front of field
names that are on the "OpenType-specific..." pane.
PostScript Type 1
1. Put Long Family in the "Family Name" field.
2. Append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by hyphen and
stripping all spaces (i.e. "MyGaramond-SemiboldItalic"), and put in
the "Font Name" field.
3. Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "FOND Name"
field, replacing the hyphen with space (i.e. "MyGaramond SemiboldItalic").
4. Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "Full Name"
field. Alternatively, append Long Style to Long Family, separating
them by space (i.e. "My Garamond Semibold Italic") and put it in the
"Full Name" field.
5. Put Short Family in the "Menu Name" field.
6. For Windows Type 1 fonts, put Short Style in the "Style Name"
field. For Mac Type 1 fonts, put Long Style in the "Style Name" field.
7. Set "Font is italic" and "Font is bold" according to the style
linking schema devised (columns "B" and "I" in the table).
8. Put the appropriate Weight to the "Weight" field.
9. If you're creating a Windows Type 1 font, generate it. If
you're creating a Macintosh Type 1 font, build the suitcase according
to the tips given in the Creating ATR-compatible suitcases document.
OpenType (PostScript- or TrueType-based)
1. Put Long Family in the OT "Family Name" field (on the
OpenType-specific names pane).
2. Append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by hyphen and
stripping all spaces (i.e. "MyGaramond-SemiboldItalic"), and put in
the "Font Name" field.
3. Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "FOND Name"
field, replacing the hyphen with space (i.e. "MyGaramond SemiboldItalic").
4. Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "Full Name"
field. Alternatively, append Long Style to Long Family, separating
them by space (i.e. "My Garamond Semibold Italic") and put it in the
"Full Name" field.
5. Put Short Family in the "Menu Name" field *and* in the "Family
Name" field.
6. Put Short Style in the "Style Name" field. Put Long Style in
the OT "Style Name" field.
7. Set "Font is italic" and "Font is bold" according to the style
linking schema devised (columns "B" and "I" in the table).
8. Put the appropriate Weight to the "Weight" field. Also set the
appropriate Width in the Width field.
9. Go to the Additional OpenType names pane, click on the Import
Names button.
10. Find the entry 1.1.0.0 (Font Family Name, Macintosh, Roman,
English) and put the Long Family there.
11. Find the entry 2.1.0.0 (Font Subfamily Name, Macintosh, Roman,
English) and put the Long Style there.
12. If you chose the "alternative" in step 4, and you're making an
OpenType PS (.otf/CFF) font, find the entry 4.3.1.1033 and put the
contents of the "Font Name" field there.
13. In OpenType export options, select "Export only OpenType name
records" and generate your TrueType or OpenType-CFF font.
Corrections, comments are welcome!
Regards,
Adam Twardoch