Has font handling changed in Yosemite?

It's been showing up with OpenType fonts that don't follow standards for that font type. While even Adobe has a few fonts in their library that use a UTM of 2048, OpenType is supposed to have the UTM set at 1000. This is a setting you use when building a font in a font editor, so it's nothing you'll find in the OS you can change.

I just recently had a person email me about a font they wanted to use that had the same issue. The font works just fine in Mavericks, but displays smaller than it's supposed to in Yosemite, as in your sample image. That actually is a direct cause of the scale size being at 2048 rather than 1000. I rebuilt the font for them with a UTM of 1000, and the new font worked as expected in Yosemite.

Since a font should technically work at values other than 1000, I would say it's a bug. I'll file a bug report on it right now.

If you view the DIN Round font in a font editor, it most likely has a UTM value of 2048. Reset it to 1000. In the case of the font I fixed, it appears this way in FontLab Studio:

The UTM setting is 2048:

By default in this app, the check box to scale the glyphs is off. Which is odd since it should really be on. With the check box on, the fonts outlines are scaled to the new UTM value so that the remain at their current baseline and ascender size. Meaning, they stay at the size they're supposed to. With it off, the outlines are incorrectly scaled by the percentage difference. So 2048 to 1000 results in a 204.8% scale factor, which gives you a result you wouldn't want:

The newly saved font will literally display just over twice the size as it did in Mavericks or earlier. So make sure the glyphs don't change size when applying the new UTM value.

Without a way to correct the fonts yourself, you may be stuck if you can't run Mavericks from another partition until the issue is resolved in Yosemite.

Did some further testing today. I used Adobe's Arabic font set that came with the CS6 apps. They all have a UPM setting of 2048. As with other OpenType fonts saved with that value, they print as expected in Mavericks, but at half size in Yosemite.

However, the Adobe CC 2014 suite, TextEdit, and all other apps I tested with worked as expected with the same, unmodified fonts in Yosemite. So the bug is actually in Office 2011.

I don't have iWorks, so couldn't test Pages. So the problem is a bit more involved than Office.

The UPM value of Calibri is 1000, so I can't say why that would show a shift.

I've supplied a new bug report with the updated information.

Kurt, I'm desperately searching for a discussion thread on the way Yosemite and Mavericks before that can't seem to allow me to print things written in Myanmar font (Zawgyi One). Doesn't help even to save as a pdf. Can only print if I make a screen shot of the doc pages. Sorry to barge in on this thread but you have been so helpful in the past on all things 'Font' so hoping you can direct me to the correct forum or start a new one from this. PLEASE help.

Thanks.

May Tha-Hla.

Something is wrong with your setup. I have no trouble using Myanmar Sangam MN.ttf or Myanmar MN.ttc in Word, TextEdit, the Adobe CC apps, or other titles in Yosemite. The display as expected within the apps, and also show in a print preview, such as this one from Word 2011:

Create a new user account and login to it. Does the same thing happen there? If not, then there's an issue with your normal user account. If it's the same, then you may need to reinstall the OS.

Hello Har ©,

I played with this today to see if anything is different in 10.10.2. I used Apple's supplied versions of Apple Chancery and Andale Mono, both of which have a UPM value of 2048.

I then too BigCaslon.ttf, which has a UPM of of 1000, scaled it to 2048 and saved it as a new font named Testing123.ttf so I could have both it and BigCaslon active at the same time.

Testing again in Word 2011, the scaling issue appears to be fixed. Both versions display and print the same. That is, the 2048 UPM version doesn't come out smaller, as it did before.

Well, after doing everything from the minor to the dramatic, including reinstalling Yosemite, I feel both frustrated and massively relieved to discover that the problem is so simple: it needs Acrobat reader to print pdf versions of the Burmese script written in Zawgyi Font. My copy of Yosemite for some reason does not include Acrobat Reader and reinstalling it didn't bring it in either. It was a tiny trace of a comment in one result from Google searching that made me think of this solution. Downloaded a free copy of Acrobat and suddenly all is well - apart from the small fiddle of having to save Burmese scripted docs into pdfs.

I am tied to using Zawgyi as it's the only font that comes with an accurate and straightforward keyboard layout. That means I can type in the same order as I would write in Burmese script, which is not as sequential as it is when you are spelling in English. I would use the Apple fonts if I could, but the keyboard has some built-in faults and is not one that is widely used on the internet nor by private individuals. Hence my chasing up the solution for Zawgyi. I think i'd rather sacrifice the ability to print without conversion to pdf using Apple's fonts, in return for the ease and accuracy of typing with Zawgyi-One.

Sorry about the lengthiness of this reply, but am hoping its appearance in search engine results it will save blood sweat and tears for many other Burmese script users who are using macs to output their work. This has taken me all of yesterday and today to find the simple answer.

And thank you for your swift response to my question. I appreciate that.

May

Glad you figured it out. The Adobe Reader is not installed with OS X, so it's normal you needed to retrieve it from Adobe's site.

So the Reader was able to handle your PDF's in Yosemite where Preview couldn't?

Yes that's correct. It's the printing function in Acrobat which Preview cannot match. In fact I had always handled printing docs with Burmese scripting by using Acrobat before, but in those days Preview was not what it is now, and so for me it was a much ignored app and not the default. What I had forgotten till yesterday was that Preview was automatically kicking in so masking the fact that Acrobat was not available in Yosemite.

Myanmar Sangam would be a much better solution once the keyboard problem has been resolved so we can type as we 'see'. It does print without recourse to either Preview or Acrobat which is excellent. Just a major problem that it is completely useless for typing as it currently stands. It produces characters like these ္ ို ာ ့ (hope these error characters shows up at your end) where there are little dotted outlines indicating where the alphabetical characters should go, but there is no clue as to how to make the letters go in those places. Sometimes by luck, not judgement, the right letter goes with the intended glyphs, but mostly a stream of rubbish is generated. I guess it must be that there is a specific order in which one should type to avoid grey dots and set the glyphs around letters correctly, but Apple does not issue those instructions! If you know where I can get such help, I would appreciate it.

Also, it would take Windows'/Android's inclusion of Myanmar Sangam before the (much burgeoning) world of Burmese script users and website builders can give up on Zawgyi-One.

Thanks for your time.

May

Another related question: everyone seems to be using ZawgyiOne when writing in Facebook. In the iMac, it comes out as 'rubbish'. I have to copy and paste into MS Word, then apply Zawgyi font to the 'rubbish' then all becomes clear. Is there some sort of script or setting which could be applied to Safari to instruct it to read all Burmese fonts with Zawgyi rather than Myanmar Sangam? Or a setting for the iMac as a whole?