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Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 7:35 pm
by LonelyPixel
Hi,

I've found the free Baron font and downloaded it. It's 6 .otf files. Unfortunately, the files each define a different font family so they appear as 6 independent entries in font family lists of applications. The Bold and Italic style buttons in MS Word for example did nothing useful. I tried to correct that by setting the family and subfamily to the correct names. I've also set the Italic and Bold checkboxes accordingly.

Unfortunately, the "Regular" style can only be used if it's the only one that's installed in Windows. As soon as I also install "Italic", both will be rendered as italic, no matter which I select. "Bold", "Bold Italic", "Black" and "Black Italic" work just fine. It's only the "Regular" that is overwritten by "Italic".

I have worked with a number of fonts and none had this issue. I've tried with and without setting the extended typographic family and subfamily information. I've tested on Windows 7 and 10 and both show identical behaviour. I could attach these two edited files if you want to try it out for yourself.

What might be the problem here? Maybe I have missed some other metadata field that's just set to an unfortunate wrong value and conflicts both fonts, I don't know.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 8:36 pm
by Bhikkhu Pesala
It sounds like you know what you're doing, so I think we need the font project file to see what the issue is.

Perhaps an extra space character in the family name or something.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:19 pm
by LonelyPixel
Well, I'm certainly not a professional or experienced font designer. I've just looked up all the terms I encountered and think they make sense to me.

Here are the two font files that cause the problem.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:44 pm
by Bhikkhu Pesala
I opened the two files in FontCreator and installed them.

All works as expected. Applying the italic attribute switches to the italic style.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:59 pm
by LonelyPixel
In what application did you test the fonts? I can install them as often as I want, in any order, but Microsoft Word will only show the italic font. The italic toolbar button has no effect at all on this font in Normal weight. The fonts appear correctly in the Windows control panel Fonts view, but they're not usable in applications that only know the four basic styles. The selection works in Illustrator, for example, because it knows to real styles.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:34 pm
by Bhikkhu Pesala
I used PagePlus, but the application should not matter.

Try rebooting your PC.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:51 pm
by LonelyPixel
I've done that a few times already. PagePlus looks like it could use most font features and not just the four basic styles. I've done more tests now. Microsoft Word still can't show the non-italic font. But Windows Notepad and WordPad and Excel can do it just fine. So maybe it's a Word problem? Does Word react sensitive to some features of a font? Never seen such misbehaviour before.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:32 pm
by Erwin Denissen
Try to rename the font family so you know it is not a Word/font cache problem. Or try on another computer.

OR better, first try to repair the font cache.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 3:39 pm
by LonelyPixel
I have now tried it on another computer that has never seen a font with this name. And it's chaotic. I've installed all six files by dragging them into the Fonts control panel window. Then I opened Word 2010 to select the font. In the font list, all Baron fonts (1. basic 4 styles and 2. additional Black) are shown in italic. When I select the styles, the Regular and Italic work normally. These are the two that did not work on my other systems. But then again all other styles are messed up. Bold and Bold Italic are displayed as Bold Italic; Black and Black Italic are displayed as Black Italic.

In WordPad (not Office Word), the fonts can be selected correctly, but the dropdown list also shows them all in italic.

paint.net shows the fonts correctly in the dropdown list, but the Italic style is not used. Instead a fake auto-generated style is displayed.

The font files must be defective in some way. Maybe that's why the original author used six separate family names to keep them apart. I have attached all six styles in case somebody wants to try. Unfortunately the font designer is not reachable anymore since he published the files some two years ago.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:01 pm
by Erwin Denissen
Even without the font files, I'm convinced there are issues with them.

But did the changes you made solve the issues on your other computer?

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:08 pm
by LonelyPixel
What other computer?

The original files have a separate family name for each file. So there's no issue at all. Except that the font taks six lines in font selection lists.

My changes are only about the name and descriptions of the files. And these files cause issues on every computer I've tried so far. Different issues everywhere, but none works correctly.

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:39 pm
by MikeW
Here is a fixed version (in more ways than one). At least it works in Word 2010 here.

For the Black style, you need to create or modify a style to access it. Word is dumb that way.
Capture-000092.png
Mike

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:40 pm
by MikeW
BTW, once the Black style is added to a paragraph or character style, pressing the Italic button will then make the font Black Italic.

Mike

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:49 pm
by LonelyPixel
What have you changed in these files?

I've tried them (after deleting the Office font cache which improved things slightly) and they work in Word 2010. I'd just expect that the Black and Black Italic would be listed in the same family and could be selected with the italic format button. They're two separate families now. If I try to fix that, the Black Italic is still not accessible.

What's so complicated with these particular fonts?

Re: Baron font only in italic, not regular

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:30 pm
by MikeW
LonelyPixel wrote:What have you changed in these files?

I've tried them (after deleting the Office font cache which improved things slightly) and they work in Word 2010. I'd just expect that the Black and Black Italic would be listed in the same family and could be selected with the italic format button. They're two separate families now. If I try to fix that, the Black Italic is still not accessible.

What's so complicated with these particular fonts?
I screw up once in a while...What can I say.

Try the attached.