Please help: Not all family members available

Posted by abecedarienne in

Build

29 Sep 2008 — 2:18pm

Hi Folks,

It's been ages since I posted or read anything here. I haven't been doing much in the way of making or using fonts lately, but I got a bug in my bonnet to make one this past weekend and soon recalled why this work is not for sissies. :)

I've created a three-member family I call "FultonSignAndPriceMarkers". The members are Regular, Light and Symbols. For some reason, not all applications are happy with the new fonts (OTFs), as evidenced by the fact that they don't all show up in every application's font menus. Here is what I have found so far:

Extensis Suitcase - no problems, all styles work
All Apple apps - works fine, all styles available
Adobe Photoshop - works fine, all styles available
Adobe InDesign & Illustrator - only Symbols style is present and available
MS Office apps - light version is present but no style names show or are available

If anyone can help me sort this out, I'd be much obliged. For reference, I am using Mac OS 10.411 and FontLab 5.

I'd happily post the font files or any other info that might help.

Thanks mucho,

Amy
aka
l'Abécédarienne

Scott Leyes
29 Sep 2008 — 3:00pm

First, check to make sure your font ID & naming tables are setup correctly before generating the font(s).

Second, because its working in some but not all apps, I'd suggest that you might need to run a utility to clean out your font caches. I use FontFinagler once a month or so, especially to "fix" Adobe menus that get all cluttered with fonts I had open two weeks prior. Adobe apps seem more prone to this than others, probably because they maintain their own font caches independent of the system... you may be seeing older versions of your font still cached in the apps' memories.

I don't know if Font Finagler is Leopard-compatible, but it does work in Tiger.

abecedarienne
29 Sep 2008 — 3:26pm

Thanks for the FontFinagler tip. That cleared it up for Illustrator. Unfortunately, it's still not working (in the same ways as above) for the other apps.

I named them via the FL Font Info dialog. I'm attaching screenshots here. If anyone spots any potential pitfalls, please let me know.

Thanks again.

Christoph
30 Sep 2008 — 12:47am

Hi Amy,

Word looks at the family names if no style-linking is included. Adobe apps generally look at other name entries, accessible on your second page.
So:

Family Name + Full Name unique:
1. "Fulton Sign And Price Markers"
2. "Fulton Sign And Price Markers Light"
3. "Fulton Sign And Price Markers Symbols"
PS Font Names without spaces

2nd page
OT Family Name for all "Fulton Sign And Price Markers",
OT style Names
1. ""
2. "Light"
3. "Symbols"

Best

Christoph

Christoph
30 Sep 2008 — 12:48am

PS
You might have to shorten Family and Full Name ...

abecedarienne
30 Sep 2008 — 6:14pm

Thanks, Christoph. I do have the second page filled out as you say. What do you mean by "no style-linking is included"?

Thanks again.

Christoph
1 Oct 2008 — 11:56pm

Making Word's B and I buttons work ...