It would help if you told us what font format you're working with, and what platform(s) you care about.

Assuming that you include Windows on the list of platforms you care about, "you can't have your cake and eat it too."

If you want to have the fonts linked as bold versions 1>3 and 2>4, then fonts 3 and 4 can NOT show up as separate fonts in typical Windows applications such as Word. Sad, but there it is. That's just how fonts work on Windows (at least in most Windows apps).

If you pick which you're willing to sacrifice, (A) style linking or (B) having four separate font menu entries on Windows, then we can give you more advice.

Also indicate what font format you're generating.

Cheers,

T

Thanks Thomas for the quick response. I never could understand that saying - what's the use of having the cake if one cannot eat it? :) OK I understand what you are saying. Preferably the font would work on both PC and on Macs, and I could generate it either as OT or TTF whatever works best- both formats seem to work well. I forgot to add another preference- that Word be prevented from generating its own "fake bolds".
Would it be too greedy of me to ask you to outline both scenarios (A) and (B)? Would it be the same for the Mac? This is my first digital font so your help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers
V

Did you see this:

http://www.kltf.de/downloads/FontNaming-kltf.pdf

And of course Thomas' document.

Thanks Karsten I did use your wonderfully thorough Font Naming document, now kindly referred to by Nick. I must admit it had some information that was too specialized for me to understand fully, but the illustrated figures were very helpful. These covered linking pairs of fonts so I now need more information on listing the four weights as individual entries, particularly in Adobe applications. And thanks for the reference to Thomas' Open Type Font Naming paper which I shall now study.

I forgot to add another preference- that Word be prevented from generating its own “fake bolds”.
These covered linking pairs of fonts so I now need more information on listing the four weights as individual entries,

If you want to avoid fake bold in Word, the style-linked method is your only option. This would be scheme A in the PDF (page 5, left column).
Then, Word will show only Light and Regular in the font menu, while Semibold and Bold can be accessed via the Bold button. But you will see all four weights/styles in Adobe applications if you fill in "OT Family Name" and "OT Style Name" on the FontInfo's "OpenType-specific font names" page -- the "OT Family Name" should be the same for all four weights.
Can you fill in the names and then post screenshots of the first two FontInfo pages, or send a link to a download of zip'ed screenshots? I think it'll be easier to spot what went wrong.

Thanks Karsten and Thomas I learned a lot. After much trial and error and a generous dose of beginner's luck, I managed to name the four fonts so that they appear as four separate entries in both Word and in Adobe applications. Fake bolds are blocked in all cases. I am happy with this result on my XP but doubtless there may be pitfalls in other situations so your feedback is welcome. Refering to the letters in red in the figure (the one shown is for the bold) I compiled a table of the various entries and the result in Word and Adobe menus.

In each case after filling items A B C L M I clicked "Build Style Name" then the rest of the names can be built automatically using the two diamonds shown. The numbers in (A) give the stem width of the font, and the ones in (L) reflect the weight increase, but I am not sure of their significance or how they must be derived.

I found that an important step to avoid errors is to go to the page "Additional Open Type Names" (not shown here) click the red X to delete any previous entries, then click the "FI" button to import names, then Apply/OK

Yes, this is indeed the easiest way to do it. (G and H will not be used for TrueType and OpenType fonts.)

If you go to the Options/Preferences page "Generating OpenType PS, OpenType TT and TrueType" and from the popup there select "Do not export OpenType name records", you do not need to care for the "Additional OpenType Names" page because it will be ignored.

Curious what Thomas will say about checking "bold" for all weights, and numbers in the "PS Font Name".  :)

>>>>select “Do not export OpenType name records”, you do not need to care for the “Additional OpenType Names” page because it will be ignored.>>

Will do

>>>>Curious what Thomas will say about checking “bold” for all weights, and numbers in the “PS Font Name”. :)>>>

The "bold" checked in (M) is to foil the awful bolds generated by Word on its own, but the PS Font Names in (E) will all be different. (E)= (A)+(B)

One question remains - the family will not have the same name in (A) - will that have an effect on such issues as copyright or cataloguing or other aspects of font usage?

The effect of differing names in (A) is that for applications like Word, every font is considered a family of its own. I don't understand the question about copyright.

The best thing is to make some tests. Try all fonts in different applications (InDesign, Word, TextEdit, as well as older ones like Freehand), and print documents on different printers. In addition, check cross-platform compatibility. As an example scenario: Create a Win/Mac Word document with the fonts, save it, then import it to Win/Mac InDesign.

>>>every font is considered a family of its own. I don’t understand the question about copyright.>>>

Exactly, but here there is no one family name because the numbers in each font name make (A) different each time. I was not thinking too clearly when I asked about copyright - just wondering in general if the lack of a unified family name will cause any issues in marketing etc.

>>>Create a Win/Mac Word document with the fonts, save it, then import it to Win/Mac InDesign.>>>

You were prescient about this - when I placed the Word document in InDesign, a fonts not found error message was given. However the fonts automatically chosen for substitution where the correct ones. This trouble is caused because of the double naming of a font as "Regular" and as "Light/Regular/Semimold/Bold"

By the way may I ask you to advise me about any special steps required to generate a font for the Mac? Thanks again

Having the fonts "lie" about their usWeightClass is a little disturbing to me, but these wouldn't be the first fonts to do so, I guess. Not a choice I'd make, but I can understand why Vladimir wants to try it.

I really don't like the suggestion of just ignoring the OpenType names. That will cause the Windows-style names where every font is a separate family to carry over into OpenType. I believe there's no good reason to punish savvy applications because of the limitations of typical Windows apps. Do you really want every font to show up as a separate family in apps like InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator?

Regards,

T

Hello Thomas, I did not and would not suggest to omit OT names (the "OpenType-specific names" page).
I suggested to ignore the "Additional OpenType names" page which shows the future name table's content. This because if one forgets to refresh it after adjusting other Font Info pages, and if "Export only OpenType name records - ..." is selected in preferences/options, then former name strings will go into the name table rather than latest adjustments done in other Font Info pages.

>>>Having the fonts “lie” about their usWeightClass is a little disturbing>>>

Thomas's sentiment is understandable. I imagine it would be like a biology professor having one his students invent their own taxonomy for the family, genus and species of some specimen brought to the lab. On the other hand what could be more disturbing than the "lie" of having a user press the bold button in Word and seeing text appear with smudged ungainly outlines instead of the crisp ones painstakingly designed by the typographer?

>>>>I believe there’s no good reason to punish savvy applications because of the limitations of typical Windows apps...[with fonts appearing] as a separate family in apps like InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator?>>>

Agreed. In the naming experiment above (using Karsten's useful workaround for the Mac name), when a Word file using the four separately-named fonts was placed in IndDesign the Adobe application refused to recognize the AlQuds 240 Bold. But it worked when I renamed it AlQuds 240 Black. I am sure other problems might also occur in other situations.

Perhaps the best compromise is to have the fonts named as two families, Light and Normal, with a linked pair of fonts Regular/Bold in each family, named in the standard way. Pity, it was so nice seeing the four fonts listed by weight in the menus.

I console myself by thinking that users of Windows apps are less likely to be as font-conscious as those using Adobe apps. I mean that following this latest suggestion, Word displays only two font weights; the other two will only appear as 'true' linked bolds.

Thanks Karsten and Thomas once more for being helpful to those us frustrated with the 4-unit only family Microsoft method. Here is hoping that one day, MS will rethink it and do something sensible :-)

ChrisL

Perhaps the best compromise is to have the fonts named as two families

I think so. It isn't even a compromise but gives Windows users the behavior they would expect.

Thanks Karsten

Unfortunately couldn't help much -- only remind to do many tests when trying unconventional solutions.

Always interesting to read about this naming-stuff.

Karsten: Sorry for misunderstanding your suggestion - no actual disagreement. :)

For the record: I rechecked my method mentioned above to rename the Bold 'Black', but this time it did not seem to work too well.

MS is ridiculous, why do people waste their time with PC's?

Here is another name-related question: Are font family-names case-sensitive?

Yes. Or at least you should assume that some clients will make case-sensitive distinctions, even if some (or many) do not.

Thomas, is the case-sensitivity merely a naming convention, or would applications actually make a distinction between myfont.ttf and MYFONT.ttf ? If the latter, that may be an interesting way to name regular and BOLD versions of a font. The font family I am working in will now have six weights and I must decide about naming soon.