Combining Font Families

[filemeaway]

I'm trying to find a way to combine multiple fonts into one family. Currently, I have lots of different faces of the same typeface that are listed in separate families that only include 1 or 2 actual fonts, and it takes up a lot of space. I'd like to have them all under the same family so it's easier to work with and navigate through.

Would FontLab allow me to do this, and if not is there another program that would? I should also add that I'll be using these on a Mac, so Microsoft's restriction to four styles per family wouldn't be a problem.

Thanks!

[travisneilson]

Yes Yes, i really need this for myself also. my font list is to hard to navigate through now.
Please someone give a short tut to ge this done. ive never used font lab before...

[Alex Petrov]

Tips and tricks from MSN Fontlab group (http://groups.msn.com/fontlab/)
http://groups.msn.com/fontlab/tipsandtricks.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=2843

Font Family Naming in FontLab

Creating font families that have family and style naming that works in all systems always was a difficult task.

Each font family should contain two family naming systems. There should be a "long" family where there is one family name and multiple styles truly reflecting the typographic design of each style. In addition, for families containing more than four styles, there should be several "short" families with up to four styles each.

Let's consider the following family grouping:

| Long Family | Long Style        |  Short Family   | Short Style   | B | I | Weight   |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |---|---|----------|
| My Garamond | Light             |  My Garamond Lt | Regular       |   |   | Light    |
| My Garamond | Light Italic      |  My Garamond Lt | Italic        |   | X | Light    |
| My Garamond | Regular           |  My Garamond Rg | Regular       |   |   | Regular  |
| My Garamond | Italic            |  My Garamond Rg | Italic        |   | X | Regular  |
| My Garamond | Semibold          |  My Garamond Lt | Bold          | X |   | Semibold |
| My Garamond | Semibold Italic   |  My Garamond Lt | Bold Italic   | X | X | Semibold |
| My Garamond | Bold              |  My Garamond Rg | Bold          | X |   | Bold     |
| My Garamond | Bold Italic       |  My Garamond Rg | Bold Italic   | X | X | Bold     |
| My Garamond | Condensed         |  My Garamond Cn | Regular       |   |   | Regular  |
| My Garamond | Condensed Italic  |  My Garamond Cn | Italic        |   | X | Regular  |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |---|---|----------|
Open all styles in FontLab and open the Font Info dialog. You should focus on the "Basic set of font names" pane and the "OpenType-specific font names" pane. In my further notes, I'll put "OT" in front of field names that are on the "OpenType-specific..." pane.

PostScript Type 1

Put Long Family in the "Family Name" field.
Append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by hyphen and stripping all spaces (i.e. "MyGaramond-SemiboldItalic"),  and put in the "Font Name" field.
Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "FOND Name" field, replacing the hyphen with space (i.e. "MyGaramond SemiboldItalic").
Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "Full Name" field. Alternatively, append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by space (i.e. "My Garamond Semibold Italic") and put it in the "Full Name" field.
Put Short Family in the "Menu Name" field.
For Windows Type 1 fonts, put Short Style in the "Style Name" field. For Mac Type 1 fonts, put Long Style in the "Style Name" field.
Set "Font is italic" and "Font is bold" according to the style linking schema devised (columns "B" and "I" in the table).
Put the appropriate Weight to the "Weight" field.
If you're creating a Windows Type 1 font, generate it. If you're creating a Macintosh Type 1 font, build the suitcase according to the tips given in the Creating ATR-compatible suitcases document.

OpenType (PostScript- or TrueType-based)

Put Long Family in the OT "Family Name" field (on the OpenType-specific names pane).
Append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by hyphen and stripping all spaces (i.e. "MyGaramond-SemiboldItalic"),  and put in the "Font Name" field.
Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "FOND Name" field, replacing the hyphen with space (i.e. "MyGaramond SemiboldItalic").
Copy the entry from the "Font Name" field to the "Full Name" field. Alternatively, append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by space (i.e. "My Garamond Semibold Italic") and put it in the "Full Name" field.
Put Short Family in the "Menu Name" field *and* in the "Family Name" field.
Put Short Style in the "Style Name" field. Put Long Style in the OT "Style Name" field.
Set "Font is italic" and "Font is bold" according to the style linking schema devised (columns "B" and "I" in the table).
Put the appropriate Weight to the "Weight" field. Also set the appropriate Width in the Width field.
Go to the Additional OpenType names pane, click on the Import Names button.
Find the entry 1.1.0.0 (Font Family Name, Macintosh, Roman, English) and put the Long Family there.
Find the entry 2.1.0.0 (Font Subfamily Name, Macintosh, Roman, English) and put the Long Style there.
If you chose the "alternative" in step 4, and you're making an OpenType PS (.otf/CFF) font, find the entry 4.3.1.1033 and put the contents of the "Font Name" field there.
In OpenType export options, select "Export only OpenType name records" and generate your TrueType or OpenType-CFF font.
Corrections, comments are welcome!

Regards,
Adam Twardoch

[filemeaway]

OpenType (PostScript- or TrueType-based)

Put Long Family in the OT "Family Name" field (on the OpenType-specific names pane).
Append Long Style to Long Family, separating them by hyphen and stripping all spaces (i.e. "MyGaramond-SemiboldItalic"),  and put in the "Font Name" field.

This is either a typo or out of date. There's no "Font Name" in my font info pane, not in the Basic or OT Specific Panes.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[travisneilson]

I figured it out.
On a Mac its like this:
- open all the fonts you want to combine. it helps if you open Window>Panels>Fonts so that you can the the families as you create them, choose group by OT family from the last option icon on the panel.
- open the font info panel (opt+cmd+F)
- in the "basic set of font names" only place the family name in the family name field.
- go to the "open type specific font names" panel and place the only the family name in the OT family name field
- place the style in the  OT style name
- im not sure if it matters for the mac name but ive been putting the family name followed by the style name separated by spaces.
- file>generate all
- choose opentype from the options

thats all i can remember off the top of my head.
took my a long ass time to figgure out what fields effected the out come and how to export properly, but now i know. and knowing is 1/2 the battle.

[Alex Petrov]

This is either a typo or out of date. There's no "Font Name" in my font info pane, not in the Basic or OT Specific Panes.

Any ideas?

The field is called "PS Font name".