I'd appreciate any thoughts on wrangling the following issue with font naming.
Briefly: I have several font families from a small semi-pro foundry, perfectly functional in all respects except the font naming. Within each font file, the font name is listed simply as the font family name alone, with no differentiation for the various weights and widths. No surprise, then, that they all show up in BFN as Duplicate Fonts, and that only one of them can be activated. There's nothing to tell BFN they're actually distinct fonts.
No worries, I have the tools and understanding to edit the files and set them right. I've done it before with other fonts, quite successfully. But I can't see a simple solution to how best to split them.
For instance, there are Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic, Black and UltraBlack variants for every width. And the widths include Book, Condensed, Compressed, Thin, Light, Extra Light, Hairline and Mono. (Overkill, probably, with modern typographic tools, but there ya go.)
If I create, say, a Condensed sub-family, do I put all six weights under that "<Fontname> Condensed" name? That means all six weights would appear under the fiont name in BFN, but what about in CorelDraw and Adobe Photoshop? How many variant weights can you have in a single font face in the applications themselves? Or would you list UltraBlack as a font all its own?
This is one aspect of font management I've never been sure of; and judging from the variant approaches you see from foundry to foundry, even with vendors like Adobe and Bitstream itself, then I would say I'm not the only on who's not clear on a simple "best" solution.
I hope it's clear(ish) what I'm asking. I'd be grateful to hear others' thoughts on this. Thanks!
Bran,
When I fix the internal naming--whether from a smaller foundry or a major foundry--I make the decision based upon how I want it presented in a font menu. Once one gets to a super family...which sounds like what you have, I generally name them so I see the major listing for each weight with the minor variants in them. So all the Thin with its variants, all the Light with its variants and so forth.
If I have a family with less than say 16 or so variants, I'll name them so they all appear like the below.
How they appear in CD is pretty much how they appear in Adobe products as well. There can be exceptions as Adobe does use its own font sub-routines rather than the OS font sub-system, and that mainly affects AI and ID.
I have one super family with 120 variants. It's broke up into various weights and variants like I mentioned above. That is, all the Thins and its variants and so forth. No way do I want to scroll through a massively long listing in a single dialog.
Mike
Hi Bran,
When I have a large family to consolidate their names--or break them apart--I will often create a text file with the font names in them. Then I can figure out a plan.
I have attached a text file of one large super family. I got the file names for the Aspira family by navigating to the folder I store my fonts in using a cmd prompt and typing the below in. this creates a text file named aspira.txt
Obviously you need to change it to both your own font's name for the wildcard portion and might as well for the text file's name. And I knew that the wildcard would hit all the family as they share the same first portion of the name.
dir /b aspira*.* > aspira.txt
In my font editor, I would open all the fonts in each section in the text file. And carefully change them in each font's properties, then export that bunch, load another bunch and do the same. In the text file I added a family name as I would likely do them if I needed to. And I might. The author stuffed the Wide into the regular family and it makes the drop down to where I have to scroll through the names. But the others in the super family are divided up as per the text file (shortened family names, but the same thing basically).
If you want to create a text file of the font in question, I would be happy to take a look at it.
One family: Aspira Black Aspira-Black.otf Aspira-BlackIt.otf Another family: Aspira Regular Aspira-Bold.otf Aspira-BoldIt.otf Aspira-Demi.otf Aspira-DemiIt.otf Aspira-Heavy.otf Aspira-HeavyIt.otf Aspira-It.otf Aspira-Light.otf Aspira-LightIt.otf Aspira-Medium.otf Aspira-MediumIt.otf Aspira-Regular.otf Aspira-Thin.otf Aspira-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira Narrow AspiraNar-Black.otf AspiraNar-BlackIt.otf AspiraNar-Bold.otf AspiraNar-BoldIt.otf AspiraNar-Demi.otf AspiraNar-DemiIt.otf AspiraNar-Heavy.otf AspiraNar-HeavyIt.otf AspiraNar-It.otf AspiraNar-Light.otf AspiraNar-LightIt.otf AspiraNar-Medium.otf AspiraNar-MediumIt.otf AspiraNar-Regular.otf AspiraNar-Thin.otf AspiraNar-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira Wide AspiraWide-Black.otf AspiraWide-BlackIt.otf AspiraWide-Bold.otf AspiraWide-BoldIt.otf AspiraWide-Demi.otf AspiraWide-DemiIt.otf AspiraWide-Heavy.otf AspiraWide-HeavyIt.otf AspiraWide-It.otf AspiraWide-Light.otf AspiraWide-LightIt.otf AspiraWide-Medium.otf AspiraWide-MediumIt.otf AspiraWide-Regular.otf AspiraWide-Thin.otf AspiraWide-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira X-Narrow AspiraXNar-Black.otf AspiraXNar-BlackIt.otf AspiraXNar-Bold.otf AspiraXNar-BoldIt.otf AspiraXNar-Demi.otf AspiraXNar-DemiIt.otf AspiraXNar-Heavy.otf AspiraXNar-HeavyIt.otf AspiraXNar-It.otf AspiraXNar-Light.otf AspiraXNar-LightIt.otf AspiraXNar-Medium.otf AspiraXNar-MediumIt.otf AspiraXNar-Regular.otf AspiraXNar-Thin.otf AspiraXNar-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira X-Wide AspiraXWide-Black.otf AspiraXWide-BlackIt.otf AspiraXWide-Bold.otf AspiraXWide-BoldIt.otf AspiraXWide-Demi.otf AspiraXWide-DemiIt.otf AspiraXWide-Heavy.otf AspiraXWide-HeavyIt.otf AspiraXWide-It.otf AspiraXWide-Light.otf AspiraXWide-LightIt.otf AspiraXWide-Medium.otf AspiraXWide-MediumIt.otf AspiraXWide-Regular.otf AspiraXWide-Thin.otf AspiraXWide-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira XX-Narrow AspiraXXNar-Black.otf AspiraXXNar-BlackIt.otf AspiraXXNar-Bold.otf AspiraXXNar-BoldIt.otf AspiraXXNar-Demi.otf AspiraXXNar-DemiIt.otf AspiraXXNar-Heavy.otf AspiraXXNar-HeavyIt.otf AspiraXXNar-It.otf AspiraXXNar-Light.otf AspiraXXNar-LightIt.otf AspiraXXNar-Medium.otf AspiraXXNar-MediumIt.otf AspiraXXNar-Regular.otf AspiraXXNar-Thin.otf AspiraXXNar-ThinIt.otf Another family: Aspira XXX-Narrow AspiraXXXNar-Black.otf AspiraXXXNar-BlackIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-Bold.otf AspiraXXXNar-BoldIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-Demi.otf AspiraXXXNar-DemiIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-Heavy.otf AspiraXXXNar-HeavyIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-It.otf AspiraXXXNar-Light.otf AspiraXXXNar-LightIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-Medium.otf AspiraXXXNar-MediumIt.otf AspiraXXXNar-Regular.otf AspiraXXXNar-Thin.otf AspiraXXXNar-ThinIt.otf
Hi Mike, thanks for your thoughts.
I've attached a list of the files in this family. (Not quite as huge as your Aspira family!) The fonts are standard .ttf.
As you'll see, there are a couple of different ways to split it, but I'd like to hear how you see it.
I appreciate your offer to do this.
Bran
(Hmmm ... wait a sec ... how do I attach a text file?)
Hah. You're not the first to wonder about attachments...
Switch to the Rich Formatting by clicking on the blue hyperlink at the bottom right of the reply box.
Click the button: