xara and font families

[FLySOLO]

hi,

i just tried to use the exo font family from http://www.google.com/webfonts/ in latest xara mx and it sadly doesn`t work.

the fontmenu shows all style names but all in the same weight. the same goes for the font dosis also available there.

in illustrator or indesign the fonts work correctly with all styles showing in the right weight.

help.

thx FLy

[gwpriester]

This is an area what could use some help. I purchased a lovely script font that has some incredible glyphs, but they are totally inaccessible in Windows Character Map and in Xara.

The glyphs can be seen and used in Illustrator and InDesign. One can hope that Xara will add this ability soon.

This thread should probably be in the Web Design Forum but the problem exists just as much if not more for print.

[rithopaulo]

hi,

i just tried to use the exo font family from http://www.google.com/webfonts/ in latest xara mx and it sadly doesn`t work.

the fontmenu shows all style names but all in the same weight. the same goes for the font dosis also available there.

in illustrator or indesign the fonts work correctly with all styles showing in the right weight.

help.

thx FLy

The Problem

This is an old issue having dealing with "font style linking" (see here)This comes down to a limitation in the windows OS font handler and the way it deals with font families. Illustrator, Indesign, and Photoshop etc by pass the windows handler and thus don't have this problem. Other programs however that use widows to handle the files are limited to 4 styles, usually regular / italic / bold / bold italic.

The Solution

It is possible to break the fonts down into smaller familes respectively (4 or less), then you can access them all in software like Xara.

The Method

In order to accomplish this the font family needs to be renamed within the font file itself. (I don't know the legal implications of doing this with commercial fonts you own, but with EXO it is fine since it has an OFL license.) To rename the font family you need some sort of font editor. I use the freeware called Type Light 3.2, but Font Forge will also work although it is quite hard to get to work on windows.

Step 1. Uninstall all of the font family.
Step 2. Open one of the font styles and choose Fonts>Names> from the menu.
Step 3. Change the Family name to something appropriate.
Step 4. Save the font file over writing the old one and your done.

Note: You can assign up to, but no more that 4 of the font styles to the same family to make this work.

Create a Naming System That Works for You

I use a naming convention when "converting my files." Since I am a web designer, I find it easiest to use one based on the CSS "font-weight" property. i.e. numbers 100-900.

100 - Thin
200- Extra Light
300- Light
400- Regular (or Book)
500- Medium
600- DemiBold
700- Bold (or Heavy)
800- Black
900- Extra Black

With Exo and many others I usually group two of the font weights and their respective italics together. So I end up naming the familes "Exo 100/200, Exo 300/400 etc. Each of these families then contains four styles that corresponds to "regular" "italic" "bold" "bold italic" within that family.

Example: EXO 100/200 contains

Exo Thin
Exo Thin Italic
Exo Extra Light
Exo Extra Light Italic

The Converted Font File

Since I have already done the work on EXO, and since it is distributed under the Open Font License so it can be modified and redistributed, I am attaching the converted EXO font for your convenience.

Hope this helps a lot of others as well.

Paul


Attachment 91057

[MEB]

This is still one of the big weaknesses of Xara. Full support for opentype would solve all those problems, but as far as i know it´s a deep change in the program´s code. Serif already implemented it in Pageplus a long time ago and recently added Drawplus to that list. All the big names support it (read Adobe, Corel). Another big miss is hyphenation. Those two alone would make a huge difference in Xara DTP capabilities.
Let´s hope that they get implemented soon.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics rithopaulo

Great information and solution.

Does anyone know if Windows 8 has better font support.

[FLySOLO]

hey gary,

where is the solution you are talking about?

is a post missing?

to the moving of the thread: this is not a web problem. i just pointed to google web fonts because it's available to everyone for testing. you can download the fonts there and install the files the usual way in windows.

i don't think this will change in windows 8. this seems to be a xara problem. adobe manages to use all font styles in the cs suite.

bb,

FLy

[MEB]

Hum i think Gary was replying to another thread and managed to post his reply in the wrong thread (here) or someone deleted a post Gary was replying to in this thread and now his answer doesn´t make sense.

[rithopaulo]

Welcome to TalkGraphics rithopaulo

Great information and solution.

Does anyone know if Windows 8 has better font support.

Thanks, but where did my solution go? I hope it did not get lost/.

[MEB]

I hope not. I´m kinda curious to know about that solution now
And by the way welcome to Talkgraphics rithopaulo!

[rithopaulo]

I hope not. I´m kinda curious to know about that solution now
And by the way welcome to Talkgraphics rithopaulo!

Thanks. I've been a lurker here a long time, but never posted. Now my first post which took a lot of typing seems to have gone missing.

Unfortunately I did not save the text of the post so I will have to redo the whole thing if it does not show up.