Did you also have a look at the Lanston offer?

There is no difference between your two selections, the presence of both is indicative of some confusion in the way in which families and foundries are grouped on that version of Monotype's web site. You could try the beta version of their new web site, which is an improvement, or you could go through Adobe's web site which is clearer. Alternatively, MyFonts lists these and several other takes on Goudy.

You could also consider the Goudy revival, Sorts Mill Goudy released through the League of Moveable Type under the SIL Open Font License.

Karl, I did look at the Sorts Mill Goudy but the lack of a bold ruled it out for my intended use.

Juergen, the Lanston package seems like good value next to the Adobe offering, and it has the long descender versions included. From looking at this thread comparing the two it seems that the LTC version is based on a smaller master than the Adobe one which would be more in line with the size I plan on using it at. It's also got lining, old style, proportional and tabular numerals.

Decisions, decisions...

I'd be interested to hear opinions from anyone who's used both.

Chris - The two groups you cite do not contain the same fonts. One contains a 'Standard' set and the other contains the 'Pro' set.

Following is a quote from Tom Phinney on an Adobe Forum:

"All Adobe Standard fonts support the following languages: Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Sami, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish.

Adobe Pro fonts support those languages, plus AT LEAST: Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian and Turkish. Some Pro fonts have more language support than this, such as Greek and/or Cyrillic, and additional extended Latin."

Does Lanston/P22 allow modification? Because that could potentially become a big advantage for the Adobe offering.

hhp

The P22 license says, "The font may be modified if properly licensed for non-commercial or in-house use. The modified font software may not be sold or distributed." Which appears to be functionally the same as Adobe.

The two groups you cite do not contain the same fonts. One contains a 'Standard' set and the other contains the 'Pro' set.

The two packages both have the Std character repertoire. Perhaps they represent two different OpenType conversions of the same set of Type 1 fonts, one by Adobe and the other by Monotype?

The Lanston package won it by a nose, and having spent a few hours using the new fonts I'm very pleased.
All of which is slightly off topic, my apologies!

Cool - it's always nice to see support for smaller (or at least not-huge) font houses. Especially ones that allow modification.

I'm curious: what clinched it?

hhp

Well, aside from issues of economy (it always smarts a little paying Adobe's European pricing), and the nice option of having the descenders as originally intended, the overall impression on the page was a bit more open with the Lanston version and, to my eyes at least, it has a bit more character.

Glad to hear, Chris.