A Basic Course in Font Wrangling Session 23 – Saturday, September 12, 2009

Erich S. Lehman Premedia Facilities Coordinator School of Print Media Rochester Institute of Technology

Everything you wanted to know . . .

How to recognize fonts and font types

Where fonts live in Mac OS X

How OS X recognizes fonts

How to handle OS X based font solutions, aka “resources you didn’t even know you had”

Third-party font managers

Font Licensing and Font Troubleshooting

Handy resources for font issues.

Let’s start with the basics.

Types of fonts and how to identify them in OS X Unicode Where fonts live in OS X

Font Types: PostScript

Also known as Type 1 or Type 3 Two parts required (third is optional*) Printer font (LWFN) Screen font - (FFIL) AFM (Adobe Font Metrics) ﬁle* – not always present. Work great with RIPs

Apple and Microsoft collaboration All data in one ﬁle Added “hinting” Have many extra features that aren’t utilized

Font Types: Multiple Master

A ﬂavor of PS fonts; contains multiple character outlines Can be interpolated to create variations (think Gutenberg) Can vary sizes, weight, serifs, stance, etc. Causes problems – lots of problems

Datafork TrueType font Apple proprietary All font suitcases can be stored in data fork

Font Types: OpenType

Hybrid font from Adobe and Microsoft True cross-platform One ﬁle for all info, best of both PostScript and Truetype worlds Can contain over 65,000 characters and multiple languages in one ﬁle

Microsoft proprietary format Subpixel Rendering technology; focused on LCD screen display Technological beneﬁts do not carry over to print output Effects only seen in Microsoft operating systems

Font Types: CID fonts

Fonts whose glyphs have no names, just numbers. They are described in relation to other characters and glyphs in a character collection Typically for Chinese, Simpliﬁed Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. Need at least two ﬁles to be complete: CMap (character map) CIDFont

ASCII vs. Unicode

ASCII was the original standard, but Unicode trumps it ASCII is limited; Unicode extended characters into the millions Most Unicode fonts are “double-byte fonts” Most modern OS’s fully supports Unicode

Why older Mac & PC fonts don’t play well together: With ASCII, ﬁrst 128 characters were standard Second 128 (high-bit) are different on Mac and PC, hence, character substitution often occurs These encodings are called MacRoman and Win ANSI

Where Fonts Live

There can be up to 8 different places where fonts live OS X is a multi-user environment Allows high degree of customization, but also frustration

Font Hierarchy

Application Font Book Libraries (showed up in Tiger) User: ~/Library/Fonts Local: /Library/Fonts Network: /Network/Library/Fonts System: /System/Library/Fonts Classic: /System Folder/Fonts Third Party Font Manager (local) Presentation © 2009 Erich S. Lehman. 18 Cleaning House It pays to be a neat freak.

Minimize

What do you actually need? What is your most basic, standard set? What fonts can you eliminate? (always save them somewhere!) Get clean, uncorrupted versions of the fonts you use most

Use a utility to validate your fonts to make sure they are not: Corrupt Duplicates Missing pieces, etc.

Organize

How do you want to group your typefaces? Client Foundry Style

Font Book or third party font manager Locally hosted or server based Who approves? Who adds?

Font Cleanup Links

Apple http://www.apple.com/support/ Search “Font Handling” Design Geek: http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/fonts-osx.html

Extensis Best Practices: http://doc.us.extensis.com/Fonts-Best-Practices-in-OSX.pdf Ideas Training http:// www.ideastraining.com/PDFs/OSX_FontManagement.pdf

OS-X based Font Solutions

Since OS 10.3 Free font manager Font veriﬁcation Powerful but limited

Font Panel

Integrated into Cocoa apps Tied to Font Book For apps that don’t have type menu like higher-end apps (aka InDesign, QuarkXPress)

Nested feature in Font Book and Font Panel Allows for automatic substitution and advanced typographic features Dynamically changes based on font features/character set

Character Palette

Invaluable Only way to input many Unicode Characters Multiple views Tricky to get used to, powerful after that Accessed via the International System Preferences pane.

Like KeyCaps on steroids Unicode enabled Reﬂects Input Source Accessed via the International System Preferences pane.

Third Party Solutions

Multiple versions Detailed font info Clean font caches Standalone and Server http://www.fontexplorerx.com

Alsoft Master Juggler

Solid, easy to use solution Written in Cocoa Integrated tab functions Font Guardian http:// www.alsoft.com

User-friendly, all in one app Built-in validation Mac and Win Stand-alone or Server http:// www.fontagent.com

Extensis Suitcase Fusion 2

Melds Suitcase and Font Reserve technologies Assign & search by attributes Font Vault & Font Sense OS X single user; no server Mac and Windows http:// www.extensis.com

Intel-native type solution Melding of all that came before

Lite (<10) or Professional Font Vault & Font Sense http:// www.extensis.com

A Note on Windows Management

Finally there are parallel offerings between Mac and Windows! Link into servers with standardized interface Previously, had been a bit of an afterthought at Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/typography

Font Ownership and Licensing

What does the license allow? How many licenses/devices? Who “owns” the font? Does the service provider have to buy? Can I embed in a PDF? Flash?

Probably the most common problem(s) Multiple fonts with the same name Font Substitutions Usually same name but different metrics Font is missing, you might see Courier

Corrupt Font Cache Files

File that keeps track of your fonts Application and System level Has to be deleted to clear the problem Many utilities and font managers now address this

Rogue/unlicensed fonts Finder file flags Font file ID number conflict Font file or suitcase is locked

More Random Font Issues

Font ﬁle structure Missing bitmap fonts Missing PostScript fonts Old style FONT bitmap fonts

Font Doctor X

Robust repair and diagnostic tool Ships with Extensis Suitcase or available separately View and edit font suitcase ﬁles Font ﬁle converter http://www.extensis.com

Separate and Streamline fonts View and edit font suitcase ﬁles Clear font caches http://insidersoftware.com/

Unicode Font Info

Like Character Palette, but in a far more user- friendly format

http://www.versiontracker.com

Converts dfonts into OS9 TrueType fonts and vice versa Shareware

http://homepage.mac.com/ mdouma46/

Font Finagler

Cleans out font caches via interface Shareware

http://homepage.mac.com/ mdouma46/

Removes corrupt font caches Easy to use Freeware! http://www.jamapi.com/pr/fn/

Font Apps on the iPhone

Useful apps appearing on the iPhone Typography What the Font? Font Size FONTS! Many more each day

Font Lab: http://www.fontlab.com/ Font Editors: FontLab, Fontographer, Type Tool Font Converters: TransType, ScanFont Font Utilities

Contact Information

Erich Lehman Premedia Facilities Coordinator School of Print Media – Rochester Institute of Technology

[email protected] ofﬁce: 585.475.2766

http://esl6835.cias.rit.edu/FONT