OT: Adobe Fonts (and some comments/rants on the new Adobe web-site) .... Was RE: FrameMaker: mysterious font substitution in PDF

[Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain@aeris.net)]

Fred, thanks for the links (see at the end of this post).

Separately to all: please pardon the long-winded OT stuff here! So, feel free to skip reading this ...

Also, please pardon (or enjoy?), some comments/rants (below) from this old grouch. I was exploring the Adobe web site for fonts and documents and stuff today ... and got a bit frustrated. With the exception of the rant, I hope the comments are taken as constructive, rather than severe, criticism.

RANDOM ... FONT BOOKS

Although I am not a font geek per se (at least, I'd like to think so!), I don't know too many bookshelves that have these in it ... mine does! :)

http://www.amazon.com/Just-My-Type-About-Fonts/dp/1592407463/ref=la_B000APTXA8_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414200196&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Type-Library-Reference-Book/dp/0321821254/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414200228&sr=1-1&keywords=Adobe+Type

The first one above, by the way, is an amusing read on fonts ... it is not a reference like the second one.

And I plan to get the following when I have a bit of time to read ... during a vacation break perhaps:

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/ref=la_B001JRZFK8_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414209050&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Version-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414208813&sr=1-1

MY ADOBE FONTS

In the past, I have received Adobe fonts through Acrobat and FrameMaker upgrades, and also bought a few packages and fonts (Carta, Caslon Expert, Eurostile, Type Basics, Value Pack, and others). Also, some fonts were included in Adobe Type Manager for Windows 95 (I'm showing my age ... eek!) and its upgrades.

However, all of them were purchased in a Type 1 era ... before True Type and Open Type formats came along. And, some fonts don't work anymore - like the "dynamic" ones (Minion?) introduced in the last incarnation of ATM for Windows NT.

Over the years, I have settled on a much smaller set that I use most of the time for the few documents I work on ... the others were novelties that wore off in the face of getting real work done. Not surprisingly, this small set are the ones that are well designed and/or classics that work well.

Some of my fonts are in Open Type now, since they came with Adobe software upgrades. So, I have new "versions" of Adobe Garamond Pro, Tekton Pro, Adobe Caslon Pro and a few others. Good!

However, sometimes, upgrades include different font files ... the file dates change, the file sizes change, sometimes the font version number inside the font file changes ... but not consistently. Indeed, I have seen later upgrades of FrameMaker or Acrobat include older versions of a font than an earlier upgrade of the other product (hope that made sense).

Probably, what I should do is go through the fonts I still use and see what the price tag would be for updates. I suspect it may still be much higher than I would like and since I don't do much in FrameMaker anymore (am mostly using Word - for short new documents - and LaTeX with its default fonts - for longer new documents), it is not clear it would be too justifiable ... for me. YMMV, of course.

BTW, please don't misunderstand me here - I am not upset about Adobe's font pricing. Other folks charge too ... look at www.linotype.com<http://www.linotype.com> for examples. It is just a cost issue for me - YMMV.

OTOH, I don't think that font sales are a big part of Adobe revenue. So, I'd love to see Adobe do "version upgrades" for fonts (or even for older packages ... like the Type Basics set) - that might be innovative vs. other font "sellers". With web pages for font updates. Maybe it would help the font team at Adobe get a small revenue bump for their work.

That way, for me, I could make it more of an impulse buy to get my fonts updated - or perhaps justify it more easily anyway - than at the moment. Wishful thinking on my part perhaps ... since many fonts are included in the Creative Cloud stuff (as Adobe Typekit) now.

Z

RANTS (to Adobe)

Non-Adobe folks, please ignore and skip if you want.

<major rant #1 >
Adobe has a brand-new web site. Very clean and shiny and new and lots of Good Stuff(tm) there, yes ... if you are Creative Cloud centric!

BUT, IT IS TOUGH TO FIND INFORMATION ON FRAMEMAKER NOW! And, yes, I am SHOUTING here.

WTF, Adobe? Many of the "product listing" pages simply do not even mention FrameMaker (or TCS too, I suppose - I don't have that). And only one link to "fonts" ... that only goes to the Adobe Typekit ... and that is part of Creative Cloud.

Links on the main Adobe page (like the link to "Desktop" http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/catalog/desktop.html) all go to Creative Cloud tools pages ... where there is NO mention of FrameMaker, of course.

The "Menu" button in the upper right shows a pop-up where the "All Products" button goes to a page without any reference to FrameMaker (or TCS). But this new page has a link under a tiny word "Fonts" at the top of the page, which gets you to the right Non-Typekit place.

Okay, I would not expect a reference to FrameMaker on the "Mobile" link and related pages, but the assumption that the "Desktop" link should not include FrameMaker and TCS, etc., is a bit unacceptable. Heck, that page has "Acrobat XI Pro" and "ExtendScript Toolkit" listed.

The bottom line point is that if I didn't already know that FrameMaker was an Adobe product, I suspect that I'd never find it from the top pages and links at the site.

So, my question to Adobe: Are you TRYING to kill the product? Maybe I should be glad that I have been taking a pre-emptive leap to LaTeX and Word.
</rant #1>

<comment #2>
Many site links on FrameMaker pages go to old versions of documents.

The new versions of documents do exist for FM 12, but the links take you to the FM 11, FM10 and even some FM 9 versions of docs (rarely version 8). Sometimes, I get to a URL and simply edit the "9" or "10" or "11" in the URL of the document to a "12" ... and Lo! The latest PDF version of the document shows up. So, the files do exist.

Links at the "FrameMaker Development Center" (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/framemaker.html) point to old versions too. See the link for "Scripting Guide" for example - goes to version 10, and the Reviewers Guide goes to FrameMaker 11 (although, at least, it says so.).

In general, pages and links to older versions of documents and software (with one exception: the FM software updates page - and that isn't great either) are a bit disorganized and difficult to navigate.

Many software companies are getting this job done correctly - with clean pages and links to old versions (listed everywhere properly), etc. Look at Altova, Cyberlink, and Xara for excellent examples of how to provide pages and links to old releases, new versions, old manuals, etc. Even Microsoft is cleaner and more consistent. Other small and large companies get it right.

Can somebody at Adobe, or on the Adobe FrameMaker team perhaps, take the time and effort to clean all/some of this up?
</comment #2>

<comment #3>
The font listings at store1.adobe.com are not easy to search - the "Menu" button on any font page, only shows Creative Cloud and tool stuff - not back to a "Top" page for fonts.

So, unless you know the font name, or package name, or some basic info, it is time-consuming to click through links to see what packages of fonts are available (haven't found a "Master" page on packages yet - it probably exists).

For example, I found the "Adobe Helvetica Neue" page earlier today, but did not see the "Helvetica Std" page that Robert Lauriston and Fred Ridder found.

Another example, the link to "Adobe Caslon Pro" on Carol Twombly's page: http://www.adobe.com/products/type/font-designers/carol-twombly.html takes you to the page for the old Adobe Caslon (Type 1) page: http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=180 rather than http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?event=displayFontPackage&code=1712 ... Either the link or the words on her page needs a change. FWIW, I suspect that her work was the original Type 1 Adobe Caslon rather than the Adobe Caslon Pro.

Anyway, Adobe, some cleanup needed here? Or are font sales simply too tiny to warrant the effort?
</comment #3>

<comment #4>
Some FrameMaker documents are updated without a way to "know" this. I found more than a few examples of newer FM 12 documents that had changed from earlier this year, but I could not tell till after I downloaded and looked inside the PDF's (with my wonderful comparison tool: Beyond Compare 4 from Scooter Software.).

For example, the latest Frame 12 Help file (in PDF format) had changed considerably (with an entire new section on Structured FrameMaker), but I would not have known that till I checked.

Another example: the file "FRAMEMAKER12_GETTING_STARTED_GUIDE.PDF" is the same document as "FRAMEMAKER12_REVIEWERS_GUIDE.PDF" via the links at the top of FrameMaker page: http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html ... The link labelled "Getting Started Guide" under the heading "Getting Started Guide" points to one, and the link under the heading "Resources" points to the other.

Why have two names for the same file? And two links on the same main FrameMaker page to the different versions?

Some thought as to versioning documents (with dates in the external file names, or collected in a more central way, perhaps?) would be good ...
</comment #4>


Fred Ridder wrote:

?  Adobe offers the Helvetica Std OpenType package (roman, oblique, bold, and bold oblique) for 5 users for $99.00, which might be a hand and a foot, but hardly an arm and a leg.
See http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=1424
Of course, if you want the compressed, condensed, light, and black variants, it starts adding up at $29 each, and the Full Family package Robert mentioned starts looking better at its $360 price rather than $522 for 18 individual fonts.

If you can live without the semibold weight of Caslon, you might want to look at the "Type Basics" OpenType package, which includes the four basic variants of the Caslon face, along with 61 other fonts for $99.00 (5 user license). See http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=1902 . The Caslon Pro package with all six variants of the face is $135.00 without the 61 other fonts, which are actually pretty intelligently chosen.

But it seems to me that one advantage of the Adobe type store is that you can buy and download just the variants that you actually need to use, since the discount for most of the family bundles ranges between 14% for small bundles to 31% for the Helvetica Full Family bundle. And then there are the "loss-leader" bundles like the "Type Basics" package, which would cost over $2000 at the full individual prices.

-Fred Ridder
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