Altered Font Spacing Crippling for Designers

You said nothing of the sort in that post. Anyway, Im done with this exchange.

I agree with you in your last post though, why drop support for these fonts??

Worst of all in my opinion is that this was not made clear in any way before. If I had known that I would have to tell my boss to export files for me because my fonts are messing up in Flash, I would have never bought or installed SL! It is much better to keep 10.5 and why would SL disable certain fonts but not the newer versions of leopard?

Very weak! Worst thing now is, that with 10.6.2, some fonts issues are fixed others are not and I have even noticed that sometimes fonts work and other times not.

Yep. Common fonts, like Futura and Univers too. I did a check with Extensis' Font Doctor, and the fonts are fine. What happens is that I there will be an asterisk next to the name in Illustrator, for example, and the text will not be correct in the doc. I realize the asterisk means there is a font issue, but what is the problem exactly?

I quit the app, restart it and it still is messed up. Only after I restart will it the font load properly. But this keeps happening again and again.

This all started AFTER the 10.6 installation.

Any news on this?

I just purchased a new Macbook with SL without knowing about this. I am a Flash designer and all of my old files are rendering incorrectly, which pretty much royally screws me.

Is there any kind of work-around for this? I don't think I can revert to Leopard on my new computer since it came with SL...

+I don't think I can revert to Leopard on my new computer since it came with SL...+

It's possible you might be able to install 10.5, depending on exactly which model MacBook you have. Look in System Profiler for "Model Identifier". If it says "MacBook6,1", it's the very latest model, and won't run with anything earlier than 10.6 (or possibly requires 10.6.1, which is what came with it). If it says "MacBook5,2" it might run with 10.5, perhaps requires 10.5.6 to start up. The original Mac Box Set included a 10.5.6 Install DVD, if you can find one of those; otherwise an Install DVD for the Early (10.5.6) or Mid (10.5.7) 2009 MacBook should work. Or perhaps even an original 10.5 Install Disc.

Hotmetal said:

This is not going to change any time soon, and it certainly won't change from top-down edicts from Apple Computing. Yes, we upgrade our applications, some sooner, some later. No, the vast majority of corporate art departments, home-based "desktop publishers" and commercial art studios have enormous investments in Type 1 fonts, no idea where they came from (yes, most are probably pirated, especially the pre-1991 versions that continue to show up with jobs), and will just give you that "deer in headlights" look if you try to tell them any of this.

Frozo said:

How does this rant help in any way but make yourself feel justified by being in a career that you obviously are very disgruntled in? You're not helping your cause man... it's printers' attitudes like yours that make the client move on to another -- not the fact that you don't approve of their lack of font prowess.

I'm a designer/art director and I have to side with Hotmetal on this. I know and have worked with too many clueless designers who think it's still 1992 and that nothing ever has or ever will change. If I get a file from someone who has used an ancient filetype or old font, I simply won't accept it. It is more trouble than it's worth to try to convert obsolete files. Designers who won't change with the times aren't going to be designers for very much longer. Type 1 fonts have been a dead technology for nearly 15 years. How long should dead technology be supported? It took time and effort, but I'm finally rid of all of my Type 1 fonts. Any legacy files were reworked long ago to use OpenType (or TrueType in cases where I couldn't fine an OpenType version). Yeah, it took a lot of effort, but now I don't have to worry about whether my commercial printer is going to be able to print what I make correctly.

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent, creative people are absolutely incapable of seeing that they have a responsibility to move forward with technology if they want their work to survive. It's like someone with 1978 AMC Pacer taking it to a repair shop and expecting the shop to have all the parts for it on hand.

danegeld wrote:
Hotmetal said:

This is not going to change any time soon, and it certainly won't change from top-down edicts from Apple Computing. Yes, we upgrade our applications, some sooner, some later. No, the vast majority of corporate art departments, home-based "desktop publishers" and commercial art studios have enormous investments in Type 1 fonts, no idea where they came from (yes, most are probably pirated, especially the pre-1991 versions that continue to show up with jobs), and will just give you that "deer in headlights" look if you try to tell them any of this.

Frozo said:

How does this rant help in any way but make yourself feel justified by being in a career that you obviously are very disgruntled in? You're not helping your cause man... it's printers' attitudes like yours that make the client move on to another -- not the fact that you don't approve of their lack of font prowess.

I'm a designer/art director and I have to side with Hotmetal on this. I know and have worked with too many clueless designers who think it's still 1992 and that nothing ever has or ever will change. If I get a file from someone who has used an ancient filetype or old font, I simply won't accept it. It is more trouble than it's worth to try to convert obsolete files. Designers who won't change with the times aren't going to be designers for very much longer. Type 1 fonts have been a dead technology for nearly 15 years. How long should dead technology be supported? It took time and effort, but I'm finally rid of all of my Type 1 fonts. Any legacy files were reworked long ago to use OpenType (or TrueType in cases where I couldn't fine an OpenType version). Yeah, it took a lot of effort, but now I don't have to worry about whether my commercial printer is going to be able to print what I make correctly.

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent, creative people are absolutely incapable of seeing that they have a responsibility to move forward with technology if they want their work to survive. It's like someone with 1978 AMC Pacer taking it to a repair shop and expecting the shop to have all the parts for it on hand.

IMHO a real designer wouldn't be sending fonts to the printer, and would have far too many documents to be able to "rework" them all. So, you're saying if you have a house with wooden studs and a composite roof, you should be required to destroy your home and rebuild using "new technology" just because the guy down the street with the new house is saying so.

Ok, here's the designers viewpoint. I am totally up to date with technology. I have the latest hardware/software -- and up until 10.6, my fonts worked PERFECTLY fine on my up-to-date system. When I send a printer my job, I make sure everything is the correct resolution, all images are CMYK, all the linked images are included (along with any placed images in Illustrator files), a PDF for reference AND every font I used to do the job.

The way WE see it is this.. the job was given to you with everything you need to print it. So what if the font is old? We gave it to you and it worked on our up-to-date system. Im not asking you to use your own fonts, Im giving you them to do the job. I have now done all I can to from my side –– it is now YOUR job to make sure it prints (which is why I am paying you).

Now the problem is, yes... these fonts are now not working on my up-to-date system, which means I can't expect them to work on yours. But this is only a new problem, and now it is up to the designer to change his fonts because Apple finally decided to drop support of these older PS fonts. Where these other gripes are coming from I have no idea. Im sorry you have to deal with clueless designers, but we all have to carry the weight of others in some way or another in our careers.

So why cant we all get along? 😉

Frozo wrote:
Ok, here's the designers viewpoint.

Ok, here's another designer's viewpoint: Never send fonts to a printer unless you want text to be reflowed on their system. Send PDFs or EPS (or Tiffs as a last resort) with all the fonts turned to vectors (or rasterized in the case of tiffs).

Sending this way, of course, means you'll have to send documents that are exactly the right size for whichever printer you are using -- so get the specs.

It's kind of moot to discuss this as an argument. I personally just wanted advice on how to work through it. Whether or not Type 1 fonts are so obsolete or not, if a majority of users still have them, I don't understand why Apple would drop support for them. Just seems silly to have it work fine last OS and now all of a sudden not. Even if I do rework all my old files, I'll never be able to share them with another designer unless they are running SL. I was laughing at the blunder of Vista a while ago and now I feel poetic justice is being served to me.

I also noticed as I went through all my fonts that all my favorites are Type 1 postscript and all the ugly ones are truetype or opentype. Unlucky coincidence.

Hey,

is this fixed for anybody?? When I export my boss' flash files my fonts are still shifted vertically!! I pray that this is addressed in 10.6.3 which brings me to the next question... WHEN is 10.6.3 coming out?? It's been in 2 successful error free betas. Why are they stalling. We need this update and we need it to fix the stupid font shift. I even installed SL from scratch, no difference! Please Apple!

IT IS FIXED 10.6.3 fixed it. Finally, Thank you Apple... man how many hours I wasted having others export the files for me. YES YES YES

IT IS FIXED 10.6.3 fixed it.

I wonder why they totally fail to mention fonts in their documentation:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4014

"IT IS FIXED 10.6.3 fixed it."

Can others verify this? Especially with Quark. Kurt Lang, do you have an opinion?

For the many people who depend upon OS X to display and print Type 1 fonts exactly as it always has, upgrading to SL would be suicidal until we have verification that this awful problem has been solved.

yes... anyone with confirmation on universal type 1 font compatibility please chime in. would like to finally upgrade our studio's systems.
thanks!
,r