I have four open type fonts that I have to add some addional glyphs to. I have been able to successfully modify and save off two of the fonts (Century) from font creator. When I save them the extension changes from .otf to .ttf, but it is still the open type font. This is fine since it still has open type information in the preview of the font and illustrator recognizes it as the same font. However, when I save the other two (Futura Medium) they are now being recognized by illustrator and other programs as true type and not as the same font as before. When I open this new font in Microsoft Volt I get the message that the open type tables are still there, but I can’t figure out how to get it back to being recognized as an open type font. One difference I noticed between the two groups of fonts is that the Futura fonts do have alternate glyphs available when I open them in illustrator.
Is there a way to update my modified Futura fonts so that the font preview file and other programs will recongnize it as an open type font again?
I have tried changing the extension with no luck. When I go to C:\Windows\Fonts and open the font the document still shows it as true type as does all other programs. Although, I would be happy with a true type font. The non-modifed open type is already in use in some of my saved files and they do not recognize this as being the same font. I am confused because I was able to edit two other open type fonts and same them off with font editor with no problem. The only difference was that those two fonts were simple open types that did not have any glyph variants stored in them.
In addition, if I change the font in my document from the old .otf font to the new .ttf file some of my characters change. For example everywhere I had an instance of “ff” I will get a new character like “)”.
If font editor can only edit simple .otf files without gylph variants, is there a way to strip these variant glyphs out of the .otf file prior to opening the file up in font editor? I am wondering if this is what is causing the problem.
I saved them somewhere in the middle to make them quicker to locate when adding those glyphs in Adobe. I went back and realized that two of them were placed in front of the “ff” gylph. I have regenerated my font with the gylphs closer to the end, or at least after all of the glyphs that I know we will ever use so I am not having the same erronous glyph issue. I had not realized prior to this that in Adobe Illustrator when you change the font of a piece of type that already exists in the file Adobe looks at its glyph location and not its mapping value.
Of course, I would still like it if font editor would preserve the open type file properties upon saving since the open type tables are saved, similar to how it has treated the other open type fonts I have modified.
I saved them somewhere in the middle to make them quicker to locate when adding those glyphs in Adobe. I went back and realized that two of them were placed in front of the “ff” gylph. I have regenerated my font with the gylphs closer to the end, or at least after all of the glyphs that I know we will ever use so I am not having the same erronous glyph issue.
Thanks for letting us know your results.
I had not realized prior to this that in Adobe Illustrator when you change the font of a piece of type that already exists in the file Adobe looks at its glyph location and not its mapping value.
I might also be caused due to the fact FontCreator doesn’t support all OpenType features.
Of course, I would still like it if font editor would preserve the open type file properties upon saving since the open type tables are saved, similar to how it has treated the other open type fonts I have modified.
I think that is due to the lack of a DSIG table inside the font.
I asked you about the location of the new glyphs, because I had a vague notion that the OT table which determines the substitution of glyphs relies on the absolute position of the substitute glyph. So this is not an Adobe Illustrator issue.
The DSIG table was missing from these two files. I was able to request a new .otf file from the font distributor and that appears to have solved the problem.