Q: Altered Font Spacing Crippling for Designers

I have been chasing this problem for several days. The techs at Quark were very helpful. The problem is with Postscript Type 1 fonts. And perhaps with older PS Type 1 fonts.

Snow Leopard does not support Apple Type Services (ATS). So the font metrics (line spacing and metric for the character height and width) are returning different values in Snow Leopard than in Leopard. It took three calls to Apple and connecting to Dan Donnelley (a level 2 or 3 technician?) before I got any information.

Apparently, PS Type 1 fonts is not supported in 10.6.1 since ATS is considered "legacy" code and no longer part of Snow Leopard (as per some developer notes in the code files).

I acquired the Adobe Type Library more than 15 years ago, so I may be stuck repurchasing the library for $2599. If you have the Adobe Type Library 8, 9 or 10, you can upgrade to Adobe Type Library 11 (all OTF - Open Type Format) for $1599.

And to this, I say OUCH!

I have not heard of any work-arounds.

I had to erase my hard drive and reinstall 10.5.8 and run a back-up to get back to where I was a week ago.

Apple doesn't seem to be eager to support "old code." Adobe thinks everyone should buy a new font library. It looks as though that $49 upgrade may cost a lot more for designers with older font libraries.

Those I couldn't check. So it's more than just Quark.

And perhaps with older PS Type 1 fonts.

Snow Leopard does not support Apple Type Services (ATS). So the font metrics (line spacing and metric for the character height and width) are returning different values in Snow Leopard than in Leopard.

Now that sounds much more likely. In my tests, some Type 1 PS fonts worked just fine in Quark, while others didn't.

Apple doesn't seem to be eager to support "old code." Adobe thinks everyone should buy a new font library.

I suppose that day was inevitable, but I didn't think it would be quite this soon. Adobe of course hasn't sold Type 1 PS fonts for at least 3-4 years now. They've long since declared them obsolete.

This is going to be a huge headache as time goes on. Anyone in design and prepress knows that you can't just substitute a similar, or what is is supposedly the same font in a different format a lot of the time. The text reflows.

Yep, Adobe has been on the "replace your fonts now" kick for quite a while.

What we need now is some type of utility to make Type 1 fonts render properly.

Like some type of "Type Manager" for Adobe fonts.

I have run across a program for $99 called FontXChange. It allows for the batch conversion of Postscript Type 1 fonts to Open Type. Sounds promising and a lot cheaper than replacing the Adobe Type Library. I will report on the results in Quark/Snow Leopard after testing.

There's also the $179 TransType Pro. You need to Pro version to save OpenType PS fonts. I have the full editor FontLab from the same folks and use it to convert fonts to OpenType. Actually, I've been in the process of converting just about all of my fonts on and off for the last year or so.

If you think about it, the industry has been pushing us to one font format; OpenType. All new fonts from Adobe are in that format. Most other large font foundries are too, though some are still kicking everything out as Type 1 PS. All TrueType fonts from Apple, Adobe and whomever are OpenType by nature, being 16 bit fonts that can have 65,000 glyphs. So in the end, whether they're PostScript or TrueType, all new fonts are OpenType.

Not a bad idea really. Get rid of the grad bag of formats and get it down to one. The tough part to swallow is the cost of upgrading to the new font folio catalogues. For a lot less, you can convert what you've got, but it does take time when you have thousands to do.

It is apparent that the transition to OTF is inevitable. I batch converted ALL my fonts (in the neighborhood or 4,000 finished OTF files) last night in about 30 minutes with FontXChange. I did notice some errors, especially when the family of fonts originated in multiple folders. FontXChange dumps all of them into one folder and some call numbers are incorrect. For example Univers 57 (Regular Condensed) actually displayed and printed as Univers 47 (Light Condensed). Doing a single font conversion into the same folder didn't correct the problem. Converting the single file into new folder yielded the right font with the correct call number.

I subsequently opened up Quark document and discovered a couple of reflow instances due to different horizontal metrics and the vertical metric was just enough to make the 6 pt. photo captions disappear. However, I had some 72 pt. display type that had shift (down) more than 12 pts. previous as a PS Type 1 font in Quark/Snow Leopard. It seemed to display fine. But these experiments on with Quark in Leopard. I do expect similar results in Snow Leopard.

A short discussion with Adobe confirmed my suspicions. The change to OTF will result is a "marginal" amount of reflow due the differences is the code. I'm guessing that it may be similar to the legacy file reflow that occurred from Quark v4.11 to v5/6 (although that had a whole series or other bugs that I do not want to revisit).

Knowing the nature of the problem, I am resigned to making the transition. The only decision is how and when. Budget and project schedules will answer these questions.

Yes, there are some oddities when using TransType also. Some aren't actually a bug, but annoying anyway. An example is an ornament font. The Type 1 font has the glyphs in the normal text positions, such as a-z, but the font positions themselves have unicode names rather than the glyph name for that position. So when you convert the font, they glyphs all get moved beyond the 256th glyph position in what is at least closer to their correct unicode spot. The result is that if you've used that font in a standing document and substitute your converted OT font, the ornament will disappear in the document because the app is still trying to read the glyph from its original font position.

The change to OTF will result is a "marginal" amount of reflow due the differences is the code.

Yup, kind of like the old reflow issue between Mac and Windows. You could have what is supposed to be the exact same Mac and PC Type 1 font, say both from Adobe, but if you build the document on one platform and then display it on the other, text reflows slightly anyway.

I've installed 13.2, but if anything, it goes backwards. I ended up putting my most commonly used fonts into the system library, where at least they're all visible

I'm having the problem with several OpenType fonts, so this problem is not specific to Type 1.

Actually, that's good to know. Then the whole problem could be a system issue. I expect users to find more such things as Snow Leopard gets uses more and more use. SL isn't the minor release that it looks to be. Not only did Apple rewrite the OS as 64 bit, they rewrote the whole thing in Cocoa. There's bound to be issues that weren't there before.

Knowing that some OpenType fonts are also showing reflow/kerning/leading issues, I'm going to supply a link to this thread in Apple's bug reporting site and see what they say.

Here's something else everyone who uses Type 1 fonts may find interesting. I did a search on Adobe's site for "Type 1" and found this interview with an Adobe spokesperson who explains why Type 1 is being eliminated. It clears up quite a bit about why this font format should indeed go away. Note that this interview was from before Windows Vista was even released. It's also longer than I recalled that Adobe stopped selling Type 1 fonts as the first choice format. It's been 10 years!

http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2005/10/phasingouttyp.html

Kurt,

Just a note of thanks for your posts on Snow Leopard and font handling. I've been a Mac user since 1991, but I have not used these discussion boards before. To be honest, there's a lot of chatter with a lot of misinformation and whining that isn't helpful.

And while I reserve the right to whine (at least a little bit), my primary purpose is to sort out anomalies and user errors from software bugs, compatibility issues, hardware failure issues, etc.

I appreciate your straight forward approach to sorting out fact from fiction.

Have you run across many other users with Open Type reflow issues. The two reports I have run across do not give much detail as to the nature and extent of the reflow. The both indicate the documents originated in Leopard with OTF fonts and reflowed in SL.

Just a note of thanks for your posts on Snow Leopard and font handling. I've been a Mac user since 1991, but I have not used these discussion boards before.

Thank you, Robert. I try to remain objective (though not always successfully. ).

And while I reserve the right to whine (at least a little bit),...

LOL! Whining permitted.

I appreciate your straight forward approach to sorting out fact from fiction.

Tough to do to on this one as the problem appears to be jumping across to OpenType fonts.

Have you run across many other users with Open Type reflow issues.

Only the comments by a couple of other users here. I haven't experienced any issues with OpenType fonts myself, yet. Not even the ones I created by converting old Type 1 fonts.

Friends,

I am only running CS3, but I have had no font problems at all (except Microsoft Office-imagine that…)
I am also using suitcase fusion 2 and it works just fine without any updates since the initial install.

What is your font configuration? Does it include any Postscript Type 1 fonts? How many fonts do you keep open at any given time?

Also, what problems have you encountered with MS Office?