it sounds like it could be a naming issue

It sounds like naming to me too.

That’s what I thought too but what specifically in the naming could he look at? Where in FL? I’m not very skilled in FL so what can I tell Juan Pablo?

Not that I’m a big pro, but I think that one of the names is just filled in wrongly. Not very strange, since it’s a big hassle to get it right, hyphen, no hyphen, abbreviation here, space there. Here is a post on the FontLab MSNGroup (horrible site, but ok) from Twardoch about naming fonts. I usually do it like that, and it has worked for me. Maybe Juan Pablo can use it.

You probably have a naming issue.

In FontLab, (with the font(s) open), choose “Font Info...” — there are a LOT of choices here, but the important ones are on the first screen: Family name, weight, width, style etc. Set these up for the weights you have, and then go thru the SEVERAL following screens (you can use the little arrow at the top to advance. FontLab is very good a “auto-filling” these (the little diamond icons) for you, but you have to set the initial values up right to begin with. If a auto-fill comes up weird, check your initial values and try again... you CAN override the auto fill, but you should consider using it as a “test”.

For example: Yous set the family name to “Wacky”; then use the pop-up to set the weight to “Bold” (you can type anything here, but if you want to be consistent with the thousands of faces out there, use one of the pop-up values); tehn set the width to medium(normal). Now use the “Build Style Names” auto-fill to finish the other values, then click to the next screen and click “Build Opentype Names” and so on and so on.

This should solve your menu problem.

Note that you COULD be having problems with Illustrator/InDesign’s font menu cache as well. Find a copy of Font Finagler and clean out your “old” cache files to fix any lingering menu issues (I have ot run this every month or so to clean out phantom menu items).

I have noticed if I use the ’build style names’ to auto-fill the fields, whatever pops up isn’t right. At least it differs totally from what Adam Twardoch has written on the FontLab Group.

Yes, if you have more than two weights in the family, the auto-fill stuff will never work as well as I’d like - it will generate multiple families even in OT-savvy Adobe apps.

T

Yeah, exactly. I have followed Adam Twardoch’s little description on that (horrible) MSNGroup, which works fine for me. OT family with weights.

Let’s hope that (someday...?) FontLab make the Naming process of fonts as easy as InDesign did with PDF-files. I have never understood why this can’t be inbuilt into FontLab now that the answers on how to do it are available.
I want to be able to trust the green diamond ;-)

Yeah, the method Adam described should be built in FontLab. Or, at least it could definitely be made more easy.