Font variants within same font

[quadhurst]

Forgive me if my terminology is incorrect but I hope I shall manage to explain my problem:

I have created a font and need to create a variant of it. Normally this would be bold or italic but my variant is that of certain characters being different; but I can't see the principle being any different. My two fonts are 'Font family name Series 1' and '(Same) font family name Series 2. So I saved the first font and it works fine through loading it into Font Book (I use a Mac). I then created the Series 2 variant and named it as I understood I needed to and then removed the font from Font Book and reloaded it. I expected, therefore, to be able to go into my application (usually Photoshop), click on my font (worked) and then click on the variant, as if I was going to choose bold or italic. That hasn't worked. All I get on that [non-existent] drop-down is a frozen window with my Series 2 variant frozen into it.

What have I done wrong?

Many thanks.

Andrew

[Allan Murray]

I can't really tell without looking at what naming records you have used in your two fonts (email them to me at [e-mail] if you would like me to have a look at them),
but you might want to check that your two fonts have different unique IDs (advance name entry #3), and PS names (advance name entry #6). Check this for all language settings used eg English (US), Macintosh Roman, Apple Unicode (if used) etc.

An easy way to do this is to use the font/rename font option to rename your second font instead of renaming manually with the font/names dialog.


Based on your assumption "I can't see the principle being any different", they should be named:

Family name: font family name
Sub family: Series 1
Full name: font family name Series 1

Family name: font family name
Sub family: Series 2
Full name: font family name Series 2

In names advanced, clear names [3], [6] and [16]-[22]. (They unique id [3] and PS name [6] will be automatically populated on save).
Do this for all language settings used eg English (US), Macintosh Roman, Apple Unicode (if used) etc.


But I would actually advise to stick to the standard sub families: bold, regular, italic, bold italic, and give your two fonts different family names.

[quadhurst]

Many thanks for that. I've actually cracked it and it works. My mistake was not to name the first font correctly. Once I had done that I have the two choices available to me in the sub-window in Photoshop.

Another question (or do I have to crate a new thread?):

Can I copy the kerning I have created in my first font to the second font? It would be great if I could. It would save a massive amount of time.

Many thanks.

Andrew

[Allan Murray]

On the kerning window dropdown menu (the small down arrow button in the top left corner of the kerning window), select save pairs to file.
To load the kerning pairs into your second font use the add pairs from file option.

[quadhurst]

Many thanks for that. I shall try it out.

Looking back at a post I did two years ago about class kerning, you said that that wasn't available yet but was to be added son. Has that been done? It would be so useful.

Kind regards.



Andrew

[Allan Murray]

In reference to your older post ( forum.cr8software.net/thread/293/kerning ), where you ask if you can apply class kerning using separate right and left groups - the answer is still the same, in that this is not currently supported in the gui. Class kerning from the gui can only be applied to the left and right at the same time (eg to a group like A Â Ẫ Â etc )

(I say in the gui, because you can do it as an opentype feature:

languagesystem DFLT dflt;
languagesystem latn dflt;

@left=[H I N M];
@right=[C G O Q];

feature kern {
pos @left @right 35;
} kern;

but this is not really practical, as you would want to use the gui to kern.)

There is a major update due to be released in within the next week or so, but this feature is not included. I will aim to include something in a smaller update later this year, and will be similar in implementation to the current linked left and right metrics function.