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Can't see/use multiple font styles

J

Jesse_gvi

New Member
This is happening here at work on Flexi10 and at home in CS5 with a few free fonts.

I'll drag & drop a font, "Duke" from Lost Type, which has a beveled font file, a filled font file and a shadow font file and it will only show and let me use one. If I try to drag & drop one of the files I don't see, it says it's already installed. If I delete it I can drag in any of the three files and have it work, just not all at the same time. I'm also remembering that I deleted it at one point and one of the other styles popped up in its place, almost like it was hiding behind it.

This is happening with a few fonts, some from Lost Type, some from other sites.

Any ideas?
 
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
Every font family I've ever dealt with has a separate file for each family member. It sounds like you haven't installed them all.
 
J

Jesse_gvi

New Member
@ Fred: I drag all of them and it goes through the process of installing 1, 2, then 3. And when I re-drag it says they're already installed.

@Oldgoat: Nope, I've checked that too.
 
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
Jesse_gvi said:
@ Fred: I drag all of them and it goes through the process of installing 1, 2, then 3. And when I re-drag it says they're already installed.
Click to expand...

Providing each style is a separately and differently named file so that they are all available for selection, The rest will vary with the program being used. Some apps will access them with the Bold or Italic buttons; some will show a side menu with each being selectable; and some will simply show each version in the font menu list.

There is no reason to continue to drag them into the Windows Font folder, although dragging and dropping them is discouraged. You will get the best results by installing fonts using the File > Install method available through the Control Panel.

The only other thing I can think of to check is how many fonts you have installed. Today's computers can handle quite a bit of fonts but every system has its limits and will start to behave erratically at a certain point if you have an excessive amount of fonts installed.
 
J Hill Designs

J Hill Designs

New Member
tried both duke and bender from there..both have 2+ styles, and each only shows up as one...cant figure it out either...looks like they only named the files different, but the hard-coded font names are the same, which causes problems
 
oldgoatroper

oldgoatroper

Roper of Goats. Old ones.
The reason this is happening is because the creators of the fonts named them whacky...

All three fonts are named internally as Duke Family.

But the subfamily names are Regular, Fill, and Shadow. My guess is that most software is looking for Bold, Italic, Oblique, Strong, etc. but not Fill and Shadow. So it doesn't know WTF to do with it, so it will only show you the one font that has a "standard" subfamily name -- Regular.

I've been looking for a utility all afternoon the can rename a font internally and set its subfamily names. I had one about ten years ago, but it would not be able to handle OTF fonts. Anyone know of a font renaming utility that renames fonts internally, NOT renames filenames?
 
B

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
I have an old copy of Fontographer I keep alive on an ancient PC just for the purpose of tweaking screwed up fonts in cases like this. It can handle naming problems. It's also handy for opening old Multiple Master fonts and generating "single master" versions of a specific MM instance. At some point I'm gonna have to pony up some $$$ for FontLab's FOG upgrade or pay a little more for FontLab so I can run the software on a new computer.

BTW, I discourage dragging and dropping fonts into the Windows font folder in Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows. Using the OS' "Install Font" menu is the best approach. Windows 7 allows more flexibility with installing fonts. You can right-click on fonts stored anywhere and click "install" and you're done. If you drag and drop into the fonts folder you get prompted with a choice to install.
 
oldgoatroper

oldgoatroper

Roper of Goats. Old ones.
Ok, here's how to fix these fonts.

I found a free OpenType editor for windows here. Download it and install it. (If you already don't have a font editor installed.)

Freshly extract the three OTF files from the Duke.zip file to somewhere like your desktop.

Start Type Lite and File/Open the file "Duke Fill.otf"

On the menu, click Font, then Names -- then Change the Family name to DukeFill

Don't do anything else (I've already tried playing with the sub family to get this to work as a Bold and it just doesn't work)

File/Save as... (you can overwrite the existing file or enter a new name to create a new copy)

Then, install your altered or new font.


Repeat above with Duke Shadow, except change the Family name to DukeShadow


You won't have to alter the the Duke (regular) font file -- just leave it as it is and install it.


You should now have three new fonts in your font list -- Duke, DukeFill, DukeShadow
 
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