Best Cross Platform Font Practices

Dun...@officeformac.com

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Dec 10, 2008, 2:18:50 PM12/10/08

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Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

Hi all.

I have a client who gave me a PPT/08/Win file to work on. I made a bunch of layout revisions, sent the file back, and all the fonts were *slightly* different. I guess Verdana on the mac and pc are different enough. I've seen the list of "common" fonts, but we are sick of Arial and Times. Would it behoove us to make the investment in OpenType font(s) and use those for our back and forth? Embed the fonts in the document? Any other thoughts?

Thanks--D

Jim Gordon MVP

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Dec 10, 2008, 6:51:54 PM12/10/08

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Hi,

It's not like you can't have what you want. It's just not necessarily
free. I think the people who make fonts would like it very much if you
and others with this wish were to purchase their work.

http://www.adobe.com/type/

-Jim

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Dun...@officeformac.com

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Dec 10, 2008, 7:27:08 PM12/10/08

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Well, I'm certainly not opposed to making a purchase. I just want to have a clear understanding of how it works. Are there any good reference manuals out there that can shed some light on this topic for me? Of course, I am off to do a google search right now, see what's on the Adobe web site. This was my first stop.

--d

Jeff Chapman

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Dec 11, 2008, 6:52:34 AM12/11/08

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There are a multitude of fonts available for both Windows
and Mac, but I would recommend that if you're thinking
of buying an entire font pack for both Windows and Mac,
you should first try out one or two of the same font on
both platforms, and see if the font is recognized correctly
on both Mac and Windows. I've seen cases where even
though the font is named the same, it doesn't get recognized
as such when you open it in PowerPoint 2008 for Mac, and
so you may need to replace the offending fonts after opening the
presentation on the Mac. This may be less of an issue now
with OpenType, but it used to be a problem with TrueType.

There are of course a lot of sites out there that sell fonts,
such as MyFonts.com, Linotype.com, ItcFonts.com and so on.
Most of the sites will let you preview the font in different sizes,
and some even provide a feature to let you type in sample
text and see the results.

Jeff

Steve Rindsberg

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Dec 11, 2008, 12:12:25 PM12/11/08

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> I have a client who gave me a PPT/08/Win file to work on. I made a bunch
of layout revisions, sent the file back, and all the fonts were *slightly*
different. I guess Verdana on the mac and pc are different enough. I've seen
the list of "common" fonts, but we are sick of Arial and Times. Would it
behoove us to make the investment in OpenType font(s) and use those for our
back and forth? Embed the fonts in the document? Any other thoughts?

The others have discussed purchasing fonts for both systems.

Just to add one bit: Embedding won't help in this case. You can't embed
fonts using Mac PPT versions, and Mac PPT can't use embedded fonts. It's a
Windows-only deal.

CyberTaz

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Dec 11, 2008, 12:36:46 PM12/11/08

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On 12/11/08 12:12 PM, in article VA.0000473...@localhost.com, "Steve
Rindsberg" <ab...@localhost.com> wrote:

Extending on Steve's comments: That's one of the major advantages of OTFs -
they aren't *versions* designed to be "similar" on the two platforms. The
exact same OTF file is usable on both Windows & OS X systems... You can copy
the font from either system & install it on the other. IOW, it is the
identical font that's used on both platforms. This is one of the most simple
& straightforward articles on the subject but provides links to other info:

http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype/

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Jim Gordon MVP

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Dec 11, 2008, 7:03:20 PM12/11/08

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And to piggy back on the piggy's back, even in Windows you can only
embed a font that allows itself to be embedded. And even though the font
may technically be embedded, the font's license may not allow it. You
should investigate the license of a font you wish to acquire. Some fonts
may offer practically unlimited installs - others just one instance per
font.

Steve Rindsberg

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Dec 12, 2008, 12:18:37 AM12/12/08

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Poor brokenbacked piggy-on-the-bottom ...

PPT Windows respects the embeddability info in fonts; it won't embed those that
don't permit it, and behaves differently when opening presentations that have
edit-only vs fully-install-embed enabled fonts.

TAJ Simmons

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Dec 12, 2008, 5:01:42 PM12/12/08

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To tag along, I wonder if the line endings (eg, on a pc, one word would
perhaps get wrapped onto a new line, and on the mac it would not, or
vis-a-versa) would behave when using open type fonts with big paragraphs on
text when viewed on
mac powerpoint
and
windows powerpoint

Cheers
TAJ

Jim Gordon MVP

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Dec 13, 2008, 2:05:14 PM12/13/08

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It would probably be worthwhile for us to gather a sample or two for
testing purposes.