AFDKO 2.5 font grouping doesn't work in QuarkXpress

Hi Andreas and Ludwig;

makeotf is actually building the name table according to the OpenType spec when the "l=" and "m=" modifiers are used, and that is supposed to produce the data in the file that is reported by Andreas. When the new "l=" and "m=" modifiers are used, the Windows platform name table strings are built just the same as when old "c=" and "c,1=" modifiers are used, but the Mac platform name ID's are built differently. This is why the new modifiers were made. In FDK's before 2.5, makeotf departed from the OpenType spec for the name table in that it put the Preferred family and style name in Mac name ID's 1 and 2, and did not write the Compatible Family and Style names in the Mac name strings at all. With FDK 2.5, we decided to follow Apple's lead with their latest system fonts and follow the OpenType spec, and put the Compatible names in ID's 1 and 2, and the Preferred names in ID's 16 and 17, in parallel with the usage for the Windows name strings. Hence when the new modifiers are used, the font should be larger than when the old modifiers are used, as the new modifiers will cause name ID's 16 and 17 to be written in the Mac strings, while the old ones will not. CompareFamily will not report an error because this is not an error, it is a design choice. You should be able to see the difference in the 'spot' dumps - please look again, now that you knwo to expect the same strings in Mac and Windows name ID's 16 and 17 with the new modifiers, and different values with the old modifiers.

The menu name results suggest that QuarkXPress is using the Mac platform name ID's 1 and 2 for their menus, which is new information for me. I will verify this. If correct, this means that for fonts built with FDK 2.5, fonts will be grouped in QuarkXPress by their compatible Family name, rather than by their Preferred Family name. This is an error by the spec, although of course it is the way Adobe was building fonts until last year. However, the entire Adobe Type Library is going to be re-issued in the near future, and all the Adobe OpenType fonts in FontFolio 11 and sold on the Web will be built with FDK 2.5 and will follow the OpenType spec. I expect that QuarkXpress will change their logic, especially as Apple has now been building new system fonts following the OpenType spec for some years.

Clearly, if you want your fonts grouped in the QuarkXPress font menus by Preferred Family name rather than Compatible Family name, you do need to sue the old modifiers. I do not expect that the older makeotf's usage of the name table will ever be penalized, as all previous Adobe OpenType fonts, and a number of Apple system fonts, follow the FDK 2.0 name table structure. The recommended approach to parse the name table is to use the Windows Unicode names if present, and only if they are not, use the Mac names. If you experiment, you will find that most of the Mac OS font menus do this. This is necessary because of the way that Adobe and Apple originally built OpenType fonts, the Compatible names, which are required for figuring out style linking, were available only in the Windows Unicode name strings.

Regards,
Read Roberts