Fontlab Transtype 4 Serial 20
Donalvon Stilwell
Today I started digging into a project that's been idle for the past year or so and got a warning that "Type 1 fonts will no longer be supported starting January 2023. Your document contains Type 1 fonts." Guess I'm glad I'm slow on updating Illustrator.
What have people been using to convert their Type 1 fonts to a newer format? Have you found a solution that you can just point at a fonts directory and let loose, or does it require a human to make some choices for every font? What format have you been choosing? Most discussions I can find on the Adobe forums just acknowledging the existance of these programs, but never mention any. And there's no guidance on which format is best.
TransType 4 will let you convert entire folders of fonts from Postscript Type 1 to other font formats, including OTF PS. It will also do conversions one font file at a time too. There is a link to the user's manual on the FontLab Ltd web site page for TransType. The manual does a pretty good job showing how the application works.
-converter/transtype/
I don't have any, I phased mine out years ago as OT is so much better for cross platform work, too many issues with type1 versions on Mac and PC, but anyway, search the forum, this was just asked recently and TransTYPE seemed to be the winner...
Unfortunately, I have a lot of files where I used Type 1 fonts. I would like to continue using the files. Replacing fonts with InDesign's own tool (Type > Find/Replace Fonts) is too time-consuming. That's why I'm looking for a script that automatically converts Type 1 fonts to OpenType fonts.
I currently have the Type 1 version of the affected font installed. I would uninstall it and then install the OpenType font version. When opening an InDesign file, the script would run and replace affected fonts. (If it works with a double click in the scripts menu would also be enough). It is important that not only the fonts are changed in the text itself, but also in all paragraph formats. And that the fonts that are no longer installed at the time are also replaced.
I did some tests using Fontforge (free font software), fontlab 5, and OTMaster 7.9 and even when all the names (psname, full font name, family name, etc...) are the same as each other, Indesign realized the font is not type 1 anymore and ask to replace to another font)
Then I copied the Aldus font folder to my desktop, converted the Type 1 version to .otf with TransType, and dragged the .otf version into my user>Library>Fonts folder and Indesign saw the font and updated the text:
I bought two OpenType fonts on myfonts.com, I can use the fonts in other applications, including Rhino, Blender, but not in BricsCAD. I cannot find the font In Drawing Explorer->Text Styles. Anyone know why and solution?
BricsCAD can use OpenType TTF fonts but not OpenType OTF fonts (though I think it should simply support OTF fonts as well as I can't see a valid reason not to, but there are quite a few CAD and e.g. database programs etc. that still do not support OpenType OTF fonts for quite a few years).
You may want to check if the font are OTF or TTF style fonts. Upon purchase on MyFonts you can see if the font is supllied as OTF, TTF or even supplied as both at the bottom of the page with the description etc. of the font. That way you can check if it will be usable for you in BricsCAD or not.
You also may want to have a look at Fontspring instead of MyFonts, as Fontspring also offers a TTF download of you font order if the font is offically OTF only. This TTF may be the old-style plain TrueType or it may be OpenType TrueType but this depends on the font creator providing TTF fonts as well (and some still provide old-style plain TTF next to OTF) or how FontSpring converts the font.
,fontspring.com
Then there is the option of using a font converter to convert your OTF fonts to TTF fonts. Some are online converters (free or paid) and some are desktop conversion applications like TransType from FontLab or font editors like HighLogic FontCreator, FontLab Studio and FontLab VI, Fontographer (also by FontLab) , Type 3.2 by CR8 software. Some are windows only and some are available for MacOS as well.
-converter/transtype/
-logic.com/font-editor/fontcreator
-editor/fontlab-vi/
-editor/fontographer/
Many of my favorite fonts have styles (bold, italic, bold italic) with
different names, meaning that using the 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 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
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