How do I get my font suitcase fonts on my old Mac to my new 10.8.5 mac?

You're losing the resource fork data from one, or both of the Type 1 PostScript files on the way over to the new Mac. On the old Mac, copy the fonts onto a Mac formatted USB thumb drive. Bring it over to the new Mac and copy them to its hard drive. As long as they maintain their size, they'll work. Make sure to keep them together in the same folder. T1 PS fonts will not work if they are separated.

Which type of suitcase fonts are you referring to? Mac legacy TrueType, or Type 1 PostScript? For the latter, you also need to copy of the matching outline printer fonts, and they must be kept together in the same folder. But either works just fine in Mountain Lion. I have tons of them from way back.

The main problem with either is that Apple has usurped Helvetica for most of the older fonts by giving their versions the same internal names, so many old Helvetica and Helvetica Neue fonts conflict with the ones Apple installs with the OS. Pretty much anything else should work. Newer OpenType versions of Helvetica work because they have different internal names, so can exist alongside Apple's fonts.

What are you doing to install the fonts? Adding them through Font Book, or manually placing them in a folder?

Fonts are greyed out when I 'add' through Font Book, and a workaround of putting directly into Library/fonts wouldn't let me (error message).

You will get that if you try to bring over only the outline portion of a Type 1 Poscript set.

Type 1 PostScript fonts are a set. One file is a suitcase containing all of the low res bitmap screen fonts. The rest are the outline printer fonts. As an example, here's Adobe Garamond.

Adobe Garamond

AGarBol

AGarBolIta

AGarIta

AGarReg

AGarSem

AGarSemIta

The first file which I highlighted in green is the font suitcase of bitmap screen fonts. The rest are the outline printer fonts.

1) The files for a Type 1 PostScript font must have both the screen and printer fonts for a given set in order to work. They also must be in the same folder.

2) The suitcase of bitmap fonts will work alone, but output will be terrible since the system will print the fonts using the 72 dpi screen fonts in the suitcase if the outline portions are missing.

3) Having only the outline fonts will not work. You will get exactly what you are having problems with. You can see the fonts, but they will not load. That's not a problem with Font Book, Suitcase or other font manager. None of them, nor the system itself will load outline fonts from a Type 1 PostScript font without the matching suitcase of screen fonts present.

FontForge can do it. Be aware you need to install x11 and brace yourself for the ugliest user interface known to man but it does the job of conversion.

I am not sure, how would I find that out?

You kind of have to know ahead of time. But here's one example of a Type 1 PostScript font:

The suitcase here has .scr (short for screen fonts) tacked on. Sometimes it will say .bmap (bitmapped screen fonts, same thing). Many won't have any extension. It doesn't matter if they do or not. This particular font has only one matching printer font. The suitcase will have at least as many screen fonts in it as there are outline fonts for the set.

A Mac legacy TrueType font will have the same icon and also have a Kind description of "font suitcase". There really isn't anything that will easily set them apart to know which one you have.

They're showing up as UNIX executable because they're zero byte files. Older Mac suitcase TrueType and T1 PS fonts have all of their data in the resource fork. Somewhere along the line of copying them over, that data is being stripped. You need to try again.

For a nicer user interface. You have to pay for it. http://fontgear.net/fontxchange.html

Here's one to try that is FREE. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7412462/using-os-9-resource-fork-fonts-in-css -with-font-face/7418915#7418915

Same problem. Fonts are greyed out when I 'add' through Font Book, and a workaround of putting directly into Library/fonts wouldn't let me (error message).

I upgraded to a new iMac w/OS 10.9.1

I have not tried reformatting a USB yet, will do this. But I'm thinking I need to see first what files exist and are compatable, do some sorting before I move. what files exactly am I looking for for 10.9.1 in my font folders? I have originals on CD's (new imac = no CD drive but I can start over, copy on to USB, etc.).

Is the problem really the transfer of files before installing? I dragged onto an external and am trying to reinstall from that drive -

ANY help on this would be great. I have several projects in progress and have already transferred my Adobe CC liscenses to the new computer and need to get it up and running w/fonts I used to be able to use!!!

S.O.S.

thank you!!!

Now to go export all of the other fonts on the old computer and hope those work as well 🙂

That should do it. 🙂