Thursday, February 22, 2018

Re: [Avid-L2] Re: More Font Joy than Humans should be allowed to have?

 


Funny I got a direct email for your response days ago but just saw it on the list.  Here is how I responded to the direct email:

Thanks for the suggestion.  No 3rd Party font management that I know of.  The fonts were simply installed by dragging them into the font folder and then the PC os does a quick install.

This is not something new to me.  For decades I've seen this behavior.  When I really started on Symphony I was on a PC for about the first 8 years.  Once I went freelance in 2009 most of my work is on Mac based symphonys.  I've seen the issue on Macs too.  Sometimes a Font won't even show up in title tool but it will show up in Marquee and rarely vice versa.

In this particular case it comes down to all the different iterations of the font EnglishGrotesque: Bold, Medium, Thin etc... show up as uniquely named choices in the font pulldown menu in Title Tool on my Mac Based home system.  The offline was done on Mac systems which explains why my PC system missing the fonts asked for each used iteration by it particular name  For Example when recreating Titles in to out EnglishGroteque Bold and EnglishGrotesque Medium are requested as missing and to find them in the font list.  On a mac these unique iterations appear in the Title Tool font list but on the PC I only see one choice of EnglishGroteque.

I first installed EnglishGroteque Bold and when the PC Avid Title Tool asked me to find it in font substitution I just picked the only choice in the list EnglishGroteque figuring it had to be the bold iteration because that is all I had loaded into the system.  Unfortunately after successfully assigning that font substitution I then received a second request to find EnglishGroteque Medium.  So I then loaded that second font but then there was still only one choice of EnglishGroteque in the PC Title Tool font menu and font substitution dialogue box.  Without two unique font listings there is no way to assign the second font.  This is the problem I've seen off and on for years on Mac and PC.

Clearly the facility IT person, whom I haven't had a chance to contact, has some conversion program, that I was told was Mac only, that converted the OTF fonts I was using into PC fonts with the unique font iteration names, don't know if the converted fonts were still OTF or whatever because I was done with my part of the project.

I own TransType Pro 3.1 which does font conversions and occasionally I've used it with success just to get a font to show up in Title Tool period.  I have both a Mac version and a PC version of TransType.  The PC version of TransType I have is on a 14 year old HP laptop and I haven't used it in years.

Judging by the various types of font name, e.g. Font Family, Font Style, Font Full Name etc..., it seems to me that perhaps the PC Title tool is only reading the Font Family Name and not any of the other names the more uniquely describe the font iteration.  Transtype lets me list those font properties for what will be the converted font and I suppose I could just start modifying those names to see what works but I don't have access to a PC Avid anymore to see if my theory holds water.

In particular it has been this very aspect of Avid Title Tool that prompted me to loudly proclaim I HATE FONTS!!!

I guess my next step should be to contact TransType Pro to see if they can shed some light on font basics.  While Avid Title Tool doesn't see the unique fonts Photoshop did on the PC so clearly there is something either primitive or wrong in the Title Tool code.

I just need a Font Guru to set me straight.
 


---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <pale.edit@...> wrote :

Does the PC system have some sort of third party font manager installed?

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 2:37 AM bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

So I was able to get a copy of the original OTF fonts from the project I was working on.  When I load them onto my home Mac System OS 10.12.5 Avid 8.9.4 all the different fonts are listed properly in Avid Title Tool.  This was not my experience on the PC based facility system not sure which windows OS but it was Avid 8.6.5.  While my mac home system with show EnglishGrotesque Bold, and EnglishGrotesque Medium etc... in the font choices on the PC when I just loaded EnglishGrotesque Bold it appeared as a choice in Title Tool as just EnglishGroteque.  Then when I added a second variant of EnglishGrotesque to the computer I still only saw one choice for EnglishGrotesque in Titile tool.  I did restart Avid after adding each font so that's not the issue.

My quick google says that OTF fonts are supposed to work properly in both Mac and PC so I'm still in a quandary as to what the facility did to convert the fonts for proper functionality in Avid PC title tool.

I played around with  TransType Pro and found the following properties for the bold version:
Font Family: EnglishGroutesque
Style name: Bold
Full name: EnglishGrotesque Bold
PS Font name: EnglishGrotesque-Bold
Menu name: EnglishGrotesque-Bold
OT Family name: EnglishGrotesque
OT Style name: Bold

On my mac home system in title tool this font was listed as EnglishGroteque Bold where as on the facility pc the title tool just showed EnglishGroteque.  Does this mean that the PC system is using either the Font Family or OT Family name instead of how the mac system seems to be listing the Full name property?

There are all kinds of interesting but overwhelming elements to fonts that I have no clear understanding of.  It doesn't seem like this should be so convoluted but what can I say?  Are there any Fontologists out there with some insight as to what's going on here.  I now know there is a way to convert and fix the issue I had I just don't know what they did.

And as always in case you forgot.  I HATE FONTS!!!



---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <bigfish@...> wrote :

Working at a large facility this week and I ran into a Font Issue.  Offline was done on Mac and online on PC Avid.  The Font was EnglishGrotesque and when recreating the titles first Avid asked for EnglishGrotesque Bold.  We found that OTF font and installed it.  I had to point the font substitution to find it.  Then recreating it asks for EnglishGrotesque Medium.  Then the age old problem of Title Tool happens.  I load onto the PC the second font for EnglishGrotesque Medium but in Avid Title Tool only one choice for EnglishGrotesque shows up.  There is no appendage for Bold or Medium.  This is nothing new to me but I've never found a solution.  In photoshop both choices show up with the appendage EnglishGrotesque Bold and EnglishGrotesque Medium.

The next day I'm told the Facility IT guy ran the fonts through a Mac only converter and now in title tool I can see all the different EnglishGrotesque Bold, EnglishGrotesque Medium and 4 other variants.  The day online editor told me he still had to manually assign the fonts in the font substitution dialogue but now they are at least listed properly.  I want to know what was done but I'm not at the facility now.  Does anyone know what might have been used to convert the fonts?  I was also told that in converting they renamed each font in the family with the correct appendage name and they removed a space between EnglishGroutesque and the various appendage of Bold, Medium etc...  Somehow removing the space was important in this process.

I have Transtype Pro and have converted mac to PC and vice versa.  I recall there was a category of settings/parameters where there were fields of date for Font Family, Font Menu Name and a few other parameters.  I feel like whatever was done in the font conversion was effecting this parameters so that Title Tool would see each of the Font Family Styles with unique names.  I also seem to recall there being some function in TransType Pro that would the unique style names for each font into the menu name category.

Is there anyone with more Font knowledge that might have a clue what program the facility used and/or if I am correct in thinking TransType Pro could be a tool that could do this.  Any Font insight would be appreciated.  I'm of the impression that Title Tool's antiquated code is missing some basic functionality that Photoshop and virtually all other font related programs have when it comes to listing multiple variants in a font family. 

Hey wait isn't there an updated Title Tool replacement besides New Boo Effects?  I thought I heard that was in the works.  Has it happened and I missed it?

Bottom line:  I HATE FONTS!!!! 
 

John Moore Barking Trout Productions Studio City, CA bigfish@...

 

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