[fmforosx] Cross-platform font conundrum

[Mark Barratt]

Paul Findon wrote:
> On 23 Jan 2006, at 09:44, Steve Rickaby wrote:
> 
>> When moving a template that uses Frutiger 45 and 55 Ps Type 1 from Mac 
>> to PC FrameMaker 7, the recipient reports missing font messages for 
>> the fonts, even though they are [allegedly] installed on the PC. Can 
>> anyone offer me any pointers as to why this might be occurring?
> 
> 
> I've never experienced this first-hand because all the FrameMaker users 
> I deal with around the world are on the Mac, but I understand that the 
> fonts must be of the exact same type and from the exact same foundry, 
> and even then there may be differences with extended characters. 
> OpenType is supposed to eliminate this kind of cross-platform issue.

You may have different versions of Frutiger, but it's unlikely. More 
likely is the problem I had when I used to use Frutiger on both 
platforms: naming policies.

Given a range of weights from 45 (light) through 45, 55, 65 and 75 
(black) and only medium and bold to choose from on early Windows 
machines, Linotype and its licencees chose to ship Frutiger as

. Frutiger 45, in which the 'medium' is Frutiger 45 and the 'bold' is 
Frutiger 65

. Frutiger 55 in which the medium is 55 and the bold is 75

This was quite sensible in some ways, but created cross-platform 
horrors, largely because selecting 'bold' on one platform gives a 
different result on the other one.

You can get round this by working on the fm.ini file font alias section. 
You need to map the Mac font-name to the equivalent Windows font-name in 
each case.

There are instructions on this 'Customising FrameMaker products' part of 
the online help, though I recall spending quite some time working out 
what, in each case, is the 'valid' font name.

If you are doing this once-and-forever it may be best to go through all 
the styles on a Windows PC and issue new templates, because of the 
complexities of telling clients how to find and replace their fm.ini 
files. Depends on how many users you have.

HTH

-- 
Mark Barratt
Text Matters

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