Just in case this is true -- my office is also looking forward to Snow Lep --, someone at Adobe said (imagine here a black mask, heavy breathing) "I Have Foreseen It."

If you copy your Type 1 fonts into one of the Creative Suite apps in a folder named 'Fonts', they are available in that particular application. Windows users also have a "Shared" Adobe folder; fonts put in there can be used in any of the CS apps, and I imagine Macs have something alike.

So you haven't upgraded yet? I really want to hear from someone who has upgraded. I did know about putting the fonts in the Adobe font folder, but is that really what Snow Leopard users are going to have to do?

I asked Peter at Apple - his reply...

"I believe the issue is the many-many relationship between some suitcases and their lwfn postscript files.

If users have T1 font families with simple suicase--lwfn relations, they work OK AFAIK."

@Si - But that doesn't explain the reports that mention TrueType and OpenType fonts.

Could the logic behind handling of the font's vertical metrics have changed in Snow Leopard?

I'll send him another ping.

Cheers, Si

Simon>>> Who is this Peter at Apple?

Peter Lofting - he's the long-time font guy at Apple...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LastResort#Apple.27s_LastResort_font

Yep, "Font guy" is actually his title. Seriously.

FWIW my Illustrator 10 still works on Snow Leopard, and my Multiple Master fonts still work in Illustrator 10.

The single suitcase issue has been around forever. Smasher is just the tool for that.

I have been on SnoLeo for two weeks now and have not seen any issues re fonts, but mind: I do not have a production set-up.

My fairly shallow tests with CS4 apps have not resulted in unsurmountable issues.

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Bert, James, did you both read the thread on Apple? I'm very paranoid now. I don't want to upgrade. But it is nice to hear some haven't seen the problem.

Another news item from MacUser on this topic.

Interesting quote from that article: "Kurt Lang, author of a detailed examination of how fonts work in OS X, says the cause of all the problems is simple: Type 1 fonts are no longer supported by Mac OS X."

"...the problems is simple: Type 1 fonts are no longer supported by Mac OS X.”

Nice of Apple to clue us in on this little tidbit :-(

ChrisL

I still have an older G-5 with a PPC chip so I can't upgrade to Snow Leopard but this sure makes my decision to NOT buy a new Mac for a few more years!

ChrisL

So, now you'll need to buy all your fonts again (sooner or later). and again in a couple of years.
Good for font designers. Right? Too bad I'm not one of those.

One computer installed, 3 more to go -- but, hey, we're in no hurry. No problem so far with any font -- we didn't try very hard, as we had other fish to fry.

Item: Safari's Java is not compatible with Java applets we have to use to upload. Firefox works fine, but .. what the 'eck?

Item: printing to a Postscript file, using Adobe's PPD, is not dead -- well, not for us. That option disappeared from InDesign! Some web searching provided the answer: copy the Adobe PPD from your old (yes...) OS 10.5 Library/Printers/Contents/.. (some more path) and paste into Snowie. Works again.

Sigh. I'll let you know when we get to the fonts. The guys at the office are not extremely impressed, so far.

Pheau. Perhaps it's time to open a window? Relax & enjoy the vista?

Item: Safari’s Java is not compatible with Java applets we have to use to upload. Firefox works fine, but .. what the ’eck?

AFAIK, Safari runs in 64-bit mode by default. That could be the issue, since I know it's a problem for the Acrobat Reader plug-in. You can switch Safari to run in 32-bit mode, though.

Chris, I'm in the same boat. Actually I only just upgraded to Leopard. It was the last minute, they were already in the back room to be taken away (it was the first day of Snow Leopard)

Relax & enjoy the vista?

Vista doesn’t completely support Type 1 either.

Can Mac users still put the Type 1 fonts into the …/application support/fonts directory to make them to work?

So, now you’ll need to buy all your fonts again (sooner or later). and again in a couple of years.

Of course designers would do well to remember that thirty years ago if they wanted to buy fonts they had to buy expensive photo-typesetting machine to use them, find somewhere to put the machines, and a large family could run thousands of dollars, etc.. Right now a designer in the US can buy the entire Adobe Font Folio collection for what it used to cost to buy the Helvetica family.

Mili,

I never switched to Leopard. I am still using Tiger. It didn't seem to be worth the switch. Tiger has been very solid for me. Let me know how Leopard behaves for you?

Cheers!

ChrisL

Chris, I just switched my work box from Tiger to plain vanilla Leopard (not Snow), because my Tiger computer refused to exchange files with my Leopard computer (Mac Book Air). Everything now works just fine.

On a related, but lighter, note: Is it not a strange marketing/branding strategy to call your OSes after increasingly more endangered, rarer beasts? What next, the smilodon?

If any of the Apple OS Felines lock up, you can say they are in a catatonic state :-)

ChrisL

Always go towards the bright white light!

Like this?

I don't use Quark or any Type 1 fonts, only CS4 and OT/TT and i've had not probs so far on SL.

Chris,

I upgraded to CS4 at the same time, so it's hard to tell if something happens because the OS or the application. My old Illustrator was acting up before, but now things are pretty smooth. An odd crash here and there and there's been a couple of total freezes. For those I suspect my daughter's computer habits, Messenger et al…

Oh, I forgot. With the older Leopard + PCC +CS4 combo the FEx doesn't seem to keep fonts activated all the time. There's also some fuss about Helvetica Neue 3, it being used by the OS

The only font trouble I've had so far (currently using Snow Leopard) is the age old conflict with Helvetica Neue. When I tried the workaround: deleting the system font and it's auto-replace file, it screwed up every other font not in the system folder, so I had to revert.

Thanks, Mili!
Children do have a way of "finding" glitches :-)

ChrisL

Arlo - I have the same problem here. Drives me crazy.
Other than that, no issues that I've noticed since the transition.

I did a quick test using the Type1 version of FF Milo Text. On-screen rendering and linespacing in TextEdit is exactly the same in 10.5.8 and 10.6.1. — FWIW

Jens, are you using any font management app to activate the fonts? Which one?

One thing I'm curious to dig into is this: if Peter's description is correct, fonts managed and activated by Suitcase Fusion 2 or Universal Type Server might be immune to the problem, as they separate font suitcases automatically as part of how they activate fonts....

Regards,

T

Thomas, I just put the font files into my ~/Library/Fonts/ folder.

As far as I know, for Mac Type 1 FontFonts, each style had its own suitcase file. The reason was that you could licence every style individually.

Here is a comparison: I typed the some text in TextEdit on 10.5.8 and opened it in 10.6.1 and made a PDF via Print -> Save as PDF. I rendered these PDFs in Photoshop and stacked them as two layers in this file: type1-10.5.psd.

Milo has a single suitcase for 1 style, while Univers has 2 suitcases for 8 styles.

The only difference I see is that TextEdit on 10.6.1 doesn't seem to apply kerning (it does for OpenType fonts, though). The bad clipping issue (ÄÖÜ cut off in the first line) occurs in both ...

Thanks for that, Jens. Good to hear that Mac Type 1 FontFonts should be OK.
I wonder, do the people who report no problems here use Type 1 fonts too?
(I'm overdue for a new Mac… :-\ )

Jens: Well, that seems to support Peter's comments. Lucky for FontShop and FontFont users that they happen to have dodged the line-spacing change.

Which makes me all the more curious about whether using Suitcase Fusion or Universal Type Server avoids this problem. Basically these applications split up font suitcases down to individual fonts when you bring them in to the app, and keep them separated when you activate the fonts. In THEORY, that ought to dodge the line spacing problem. Again, an unintended side effect, but rather fortunate if true.

The lost kerning is interesting and unfortunate. Can anybody confirm if the same problem happens in QuarkXPress?

Thanks,

T

I've had no trouble with my Type 1 fonts, but I don't know as much about differentiating between the different technologies as most of you do. For context, I'm running CS3 on Mac OS X 10.6 using Linotype FontExplorer X version 1.2.3.

It seems there are two potential issues from the above discussion if I read the comments correctly: vertical metrics and perhaps, kerning problems. The second one I haven't seen as much commentary on but I view it as much more troubling: why would the OS not correctly read a plain kern table that appears in every T1 font? That one needs to get resolved.

For the former, a likely explanation is that the T1 fonts have always used a different calculation for ascender/descender total dimensions in determining vertical metrics, compared to TT fonts and now, OTF. In fact, FontLab has a screen for that exact thing, and an easy check if this is the explanation would be the following:

Open one of the T1 fonts causing a problem in Snow Leopard in FontLab. Go to the vertical metrics page under font info, and observe the ascender/descender dimensions as-shown. Hit the recalculate button. If new numbers appear--and those WOULD be the vertical metrics used were it a TT or OTF font--then that is surely the explanation for the leading problem in SL. When you use default leading options like "single-spaced" in software such as Word, TextEdit et al., the OS uses these global vertical metrics in determining line spacing. In the SL code rewrite, they are pulling that info from the OTF-method and not the former T1-method.

This could be confirmed one other way as well--for one of your T1 fonts in SL with a reflow problem, use an exact-point size leading option in your software (e.g., exactly 14 points) instead of a leading option based on the global vertical metrics (e.g., single-spaced, or 0.8 times single-spaced). If my reasoning is the explanation, then the former will not have the vertical padding problem and the source of this glitch will be identified.

Unfortunately, unless Apple is willing to patch the OS code to pull the metrics data using the old approach for T1 fonts, there would seem to be no workaround short of reformatting your old documents, or converting the T1 fonts to OTF. And if you did the latter, and you "fixed" the discrepancy between the T1 and TT/OTF methods for calculating vertical metrics, you'd STILL need to reformat your legacy document anyway. So either way, it involves needless work for the T1 font user--but at least you don't NEED to repurchase your T1 fonts just because they are not in OTF format.

I welcome all comments on my faulty logic, I'm just brainstorming in this lengthy post.........and I DO want SL because it really jazzes up my Apple TV :-)

Just speculating here.... Mac PostScript Type 1 fonts are comprised of two files, one containing the PS outline data and basic metrics (the sidebearings) and the other, a Mac "suitcase" file containing the kerning, style linking and other metrics data. Could it be that Snow Leopard is getting all its info from the outline file and ignoring the suitcase file? That would explain the lack of kerning and possibly the line spacing discrepancy for some fonts. Perhaps Snow Leopard needs the .afm file as well (which was needed for programs that couldn't get the metrics from the font suitcase)? Like I said, just speculating.

I think I may be onto something. I opened the PS outline file and the Mac suitcase file of one of my old Mac PS Type 1 fonts separately in FontLab. The vertical metrics did not match!

Vertical metrics in outline file (also same in .afm):
Ascender = 667
Descender = 193

Vertical metrics in suitcase file:
Ascender = 753
Descender = 248

This was a font built with Fontographer back in the Nineties.

Not sure is this is related to the Snow Leopard problem, but it's interesting.

To be more explicit: as Ryan says, it looks like there are two different symptoms (line spacing changes and potentially dropped kerning). They doubtless have similar causes, but it is possible that as Mark speculates one *might* be able to work around the line spacing problem by modifying the fonts. I doubt there would be any such solution for the kerning going away.

Mark, why don't you try modifying the LWFN outline file so the vertical metrics match those in the FFIL suitcase file? I'd do it myself, but I have guests to attend to, both my Macs are at work, and I have not upgraded either of them to Snow Leopard, for increasingly good reasons....

(I'll be surprised if Snow Leopard suddenly pays attention to AFMs, though.)

Regards,

T

I would do some tests, but I've been holding off upgrading to Snow Leopard. Maybe I'll make the leap on one of my machines and try some things out.

The reason I mentioned the AFM thing is the MacOS X's roots in the Next OS, which did use AFM files. It wouldn't surprise me if MacOS X inherited support for AFMs from Next.

Possible, but I'd be surprised if that was still there.

BTW, it occurs to me that of course it may be a different version of TextEdit on 10.6 than on 10.5.x, and it wouldn't surprise me if the kerning loss was a TextEdit issue rather than strictly an OS issue. I'll be curious to hear if that problem occurs in other apps, and if so which ones. Word? QuarkXPress? Flash? (InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop should be immune.)

Regards,

T

People that are running into this issue and want to see it addressed by Apple should log bugs into their database at http://bugreport.apple.com/
You will need a free AppleID account, if you don't have one yet.

I'm sorry, I have don't have either Word, Flash or QuarkXpress to test it ...

TextEdit version numbers do differ, 1.5 and 1.6.

I've upgraded to Snow Leopard on one machine and tested my hypothesis about AFM files: Installing AFM files has no effect on the lack of kerning with Type 1 fonts in Text Edit on 10.6.1. In my other machine, which is running 10.5.8, kerning works in Text Edit for the same Type 1 fonts.

Oh, and I did note a slight difference in the vertical position of the glyphs. They start slightly higher up on the page in Text Edit on Snow Leopard, although the line spacing seems identical.

We did some more testing today at Extensis:

We saw a major shift in first baseline position for some Type 1 fonts in Snow Leopard compared to Leopard, in QuarkXPress 8.1. In this case, they were lower in Snow Leopard, rather than higher as in the case Mark describes.

Contrary to what I would have expected, given the info from Peter Lofting, activating the fonts with Suitcase Fusion 2 did not make the problem go away. So I'm unclear on whether splitting up suitcases can help.

Regards,

T

Ohhh, this is bad karma...

Snow Leopard / Type 1 problems also occur in Adobe CS4 Flash.
With Futura Light and other Futura fonts leading is way off.

Converting fonts doesn't help.
Adjusting vertical metrics unsuccessful so far.
Renaming Futura Std fonts so the 'Std' part disappears doesn't do the trick either.

I'm the only Snow Leopard in an organization with loads and loads of Flash, InDesign and PhotoShop content in - you guessed it - Futura Light.

I'm forced to revert to Leopard.
Damn this is SO not Apple.
Wonder if good old Steve has OK'ed the Type 1 stunt?

Carsten

I'm sure this was an accidental side effect of other changes on Apple's part. People are always too quick to assume something like this is a deliberate strategy or evil plot.

Whose cut of Futura Light are you using, btw?

Cheers,

T

Hey T

I'm not suggesting a plot.
But I'm worried why Apple has not allready issued a statement on thisted subject.

The Futura set I'm using is Adobe's.

Now I've bought the OTF verson called Std.

C

Renaming Futura Std fonts so the ’Std’ part disappears doesn’t do the trick either.

So are you saying that you see the problem with Futura Std (OpenType) as well as the Type 1 version?

Story has been picked up in the press...

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138833/Bugs_Fixes_Font_problems_...

I forget... what are Type 1 fonts again?

Cheers!

Type 1 fonts? Schizophrenic… Bipolar…?
And those OTF’s must have had a lot of therapy — they are so… ”complete”…

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Sorry if this is too brief but now I'm a few hours behind on work. I'm having type 1 font issues in Snow Leopard. Specifically with the FF Thesis (Mix, Serif, Sans) collection not working at all. I just realized that my specific issue exists when using FontExplorer X (latest S. Leopard update too) but not with Suitcase Vault. Previously I thought it was only an Apple OS issue but it turns out it can be an Apple issue and a software issue. Another quick fix I just found is that if you create a "font" folder in the CS application directory, the application will open the font with no issues.

I'd just like to add that I may actually be wrong about creating a "font" folder in a CS app directory to drop fonts in. That may not work after all. I have way too many experiments going on.

Offline, Apple is acknowledging that this is their issue to resolve. I can't comment much more than that (thanks to NDAs), but I think people will be satisfied with the final outcome, if not with Apple's minimal public communication on the issue.

Regards,

T

>...I think people will be satisfied with the final outcome...

Oh I doubt it. Apple have not had anyone competent to speak with about these issues for more than a decade, and I doubt they are doubling their resolution or improving their fonts.

Cheers!

>Apple have not had anyone competent to speak with about these issues for more than a decade

Who did you speak to over there? Was their answer incompetent, or did they just decline to answer your questions?

@David B: Is it okay if I call you a brilliant crank? :)

T

The point is, we need common options among the OS that allow founders to make fonts at optimal quality per user if possible where smaller sizes are in use with cross platform applications like on the web.

That was the point of TT, then OT and OFF; a single file containing the whole font and hints to enable high quality in low res., TT.

Implemented on only 1/4 of the Mac/Win platform, in the form of Vista y hints, is — not helping. And... I reserve the the right modify the words after the last em, as time goes on.

Here's what the replacement for Type 1 fonts look like, described by the replacement to PostScript, rendered by the replacement to OS9, 9 to 12 point in a design for small sizes...

Cheers!

Hi all, with 10.6.2 just released has anyone verified this is fixed/resolved?.... Would like to know though only using Adobe Creative Suite with FEX or FAP or Fusion... thanks

It was never an issue with Creative Suite applications, anyway (except for things not using their standard font engine, such as Flash authoring, or Dreamweaver).

While I haven't heard anyone *verify* it per se, Apple has specifically said this is fixed in 10.6.2, which is good enough for me.

Cheers,

T

Actually, I'm told by Apple that they addressed some things, but there's still a dangling issue or two in 10.6.2 which might affect Flash, among others. I believe they have a fix pending for what they know about, though. Still, I'd be interested to hear about specific, reproducible cases that we could pass to Apple to help them stamp out the problems. It's difficult for them to address them without something specific to test.

As it stands, I'm running Snow (10.6.2) and all is well with me. TT, PS, & OTF. I have yet to run into a problem but I did just do a fresh reinstall so I have very few fonts installed.

Hi all good with me too... thanks again
10.6.2

I have the same problem that Carsten mentioned above -- line spacing is significantly off for futura in flash (CS3 and CS4). We have a very large website done in flash using that font and I really don't want try manually adjusting the whole thing (especially if a fix comes out that would cause a manual fix to go awry). Christopher, you mentioned another problem that may be causing this problem... have you or Carsten (or anyone else) found any fixes or more information on this specific problem? I haven't noticed any other font problems, but this one is significant for our firm.

Christopher, you mentioned another problem that may be causing this problem... have you or Carsten (or anyone else) found any fixes or more information on this specific problem?

Lisa, as I said, I think this is still in Apple's lap as something to fix. If you have a reproducible problem in Flash, can you send me the specific details and steps to reproduce it? We can look at it and also forward it to Apple. There have been many reports of problems, but very few specific details that would help us get them fixed, so that information would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the response, Christopher. When you mentioned the "dangling issues" that apple is still dealing with, were you following a specific thread on apple's site (sorry if I missed that somewhere)? I'd be interested to read more about those issues if it's not too difficult to point me in the right direction.

I'd be more than happy to provide any specifics of the problem we're having. Basically, we have a flash site that was developed in CS3 using Futura BT fonts and when I installed Snow Leopard (not a clean install) and reopened the files, all the text had a significant amount of extra space between lines. We have another system here that was not upgraded to SL and when I open the same files on that machine the spacing is correct. I am currently managing fonts using Linotype FontExplorer (the old free version). What other details would you like? I can send files or screenshots if that's helpful. Let me know. Thanks for your help.

I don't have any specific info about the so-called "dangling issues" -- it's only to say that I've heard not all problems were resolved in 10.6.2.

The web rumor mill seems to think a 10.6.3 update is imminent, so let's see how it looks after you're able to test that.

Glad I found this forum - I've been losing my mind trying to figure out what the deal is with the fonts rendering differently. I'm a Flash designer and all of my old Flash files are not really usable on Snow Leopard. All of the text is nudged so that its slightly off position - would take me forever to go in and manually correct all of my files.

Just bought this Macbook last week and updated to 10.6.2. I really hope this gets fixed soon. I might consider running a version of Leopard on another hard drive if I can't use these files on Snow Leopard.

I love Apple...but this feels like another Vista..

Just wanted to post an update. I installed 10.6.3 yesterday and happily the futura fonts in our flash website seem to be back to normal!

http://www.fontlab.com/news-and-events/fontlab-announcements/os-x-10-6-3...

Adam posted a note on the FontLab site that 10.6.3 is making nice with FontLab and that it was safe to go back in the water :-)

>>>>>
OS X 10.6.3 - Good to Go!
With Apple's release of OS X 10.6.3 all of the problems encountered using Fontlab products with earlier 10.6.x versions seem to have been resolved. It's safe to go back in the water :)
>>>>>

Apple specifically asked their 10.6.3 beta testers to look for font issues.

"Apple specifically asked their 10.6.3 beta testers to look for font issues."

Kudos to Apple for manning up! Bravo!

Here's some refs if anyone is interested - http://www.bing.com/search?q=10.6.3+beta+fonts&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC

My fonts are acting pretty well under 10.6.2 although Distiller seems a bit wacked. Apparently the progress bar is poorly written and it distills quickly if it is hidden. Weird.

Careful of 10.6.3 guys. Lots of reports on the Apple and Adobe boards of CS4 products crashing and also problems with Samba connectivity if you're on a Windows network.

Not going to go there.

pbc

Unfortunately, 10.6.3 does not seem to resolve the OS X cache corruption issues we've seen a lot of at Extensis. I personally am happily staying on 10.5 for my main work computer until I see more reason for confidence in 10.6.x.

Cheers,

T

Hi everybody,
having followed this thread, and subsequently contacted the Underware foundry, I was under the impression that an upgrade to Mac OS 10.6.3 was going to sort out my problems. Not at all. I am still unable to see my PS1 fonts under 10.6.3. I'm currently using an older version of font explorer, (V 1.2.3 build 833). But I've also tested the apple font book. I've also tried putting the font I wished to use in a folder (a) directly in my Indesign CS3 app folder, or (b) in the FONTS folder nested in the library/app suport/fonts. Neither works. Clearly I'm not alone in having problems, but I had the distinct impression from the forum that most of you are getting by in 10.6.2, and that 10.6.3 was a good move.

Can anyone direct me to an article summarizing the state of the art on this issue ?

It is kind of crazy : my old G5 Tiger runs just about everything, my iMac Leopard 10.5.8 has no printer support, and now my Snow Leopard has no PS1 fonts. Hmmm.

Thanks for any comments…
cheers,
Pete

Th. Phinney wrote: …happily staying on 10.5

Given I would go to by a new Mac in the near future, what shall I opt for:
– Bying 10.6.3 (and see what happens and what not happens…)?
– Try to get a 10.5 machine; can I install a downward version of OS X on a newer machine?
– any other thoughts?

Mr Cheese claimed: …10.5.8 has no printer support

I wondering if I understand this properly. Could you explain a little?

Hi Andreas,
concerning OS 10.5.8, yes, I lost access to both pdf printing facilités, and all my epson printers. I spent considerable time trying to figure this one out, only to discover on mac/web Forums that many people have had similar problems : loosing printer access, that is not being able to "see" their printers. To be quite honest, I am wondering why I ever bothered leaving Tiger. Of course, the problem is that I need to follow Adobe, moving through CS2 > CS3 > CS4 later this year. So, I am obliged to evolve, but I feel somewhat at the mercy of Apple/Adobe, in what they decide they will bother supporting. I have many thousands of euros of PS1 fonts in my studio type-library, and I'm kind of wondering what I'm going to do with them all.

My feeling would be to find a machine which will install a pré-10.5.8 system. Problem with that is that you won't be able to synchronise your iPhone !!

Cheers,
Pete

A couple of lengthy articles concerning font handling in OS 10.6

http://www.prepressure.com/fonts/basics/snow-leopard-fonts

http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html

cheers,
pete