Typophile

Fixing a font that doesn't appear to be a valid font file

Tim.Donaldson

I have a semi large type family that has a problem with installing certain fonts that receive an error stating that they are "not a valid font file."

The type family is set up with 3 sub families like this:

fontname-regular
fontname-regular-italic

fontname-alt1-regular
fontname-alt1-regular-italic

fontname-alt2-regular
fontname-alt2-regular-italic

If you google "was not a valid fontfile", you'll discover a host of problems and solutions from the users end. But my issues only seem to effect the 'alt2' sub-family of the typeface which makes me think this is a problem caused on my part.

When installing the complete typeface, it only seems to effect 1 or 2 fonts in the alt2 sub-family, and not always the same two.

I've encountered the problem on both osx 10.6.8 and winXP

If anyone would like to look at the fonts, please let me know and I'll send you the files.

Jason Campbell

Sometimes this is a name length issue, although that tends to happen more in Windows. If you're using FontLab studio, in the font info interface, the Names page, check the "yin/Yang" looking button which checks for errors in font names.

Although this is just a guess, it could be something else completely.

Jason C

André G. Isaak

Just a random guess here, but in your PS Font Name field, try replacing Alt1 and Alt2 with AltOne and AltTwo. Also, make sure you have one and only one hyphen in that field.

André

Tim.Donaldson

Thanks for your help so far. After remaking one font from an old working file, I tracked the issue down to one stylistic alternative. When I renamed the guilty character from k.salt to k.alt, the font exports and installs without problem.

No idea why the salt doesn't work in one subfamily of fonts, but is fine in the others... but at least it's usable now!

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