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Embeddability conundrum

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:42 pm
by Alfred
According to the information on the 'Legal' tab in the Font Properties dialog in FontCreator, the Morpheus font from Kiwi Media is 'Installable', so I was surprised to find that it doesn't display correctly in Internet Explorer when the TTF file is embedded in a web page using @font-face code. I then discovered that the 'Details' tab in Windows' Properties dialog shows the embeddability as 'Restricted', which is presumably how IE also sees it: unlike other browsers, IE always substitutes its default font if an embedded TTF font is not installable.
Morpheus-mismatch.png
Morpheus-mismatch.png (21.67 KiB) Viewed 10902 times
Has anyone else here encountered this problem, and is there anything that can (legally!) be done about it?

The font in question is available for free from Kiwi Media - Font Archive.

Re: Embeddability conundrum

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 4:52 am
by Bhikkhu Pesala
I found that simply exporting the font from Font Creator set the flag as installable on the embedding flag.

The readme.txt file says that the font is $10 for personal use or free for educational use. If you have any questions about embedding it on a web site, I suggest contacting Kiwi Media.

If you fix some of the bugs, and send them a fixed copy, they might be grateful.
  1. Run the font validator
  2. Rename "Idot" to "Idotaccent"
  3. Map the unmapped glyphs
  4. Complete Composites
  5. Add kerning classes and update kerning pairs
  6. Add OpenType Standard Ligatures for fi and fl

Re: Embeddability conundrum

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 5:00 am
by MikeW
Regardless of the text file, the font, as is often the case of those older TTF fonts, has mangled table entries. I believe the embed field as mentioned is actually not set to restricted but because the info is mangled, Windows errors to Restricted. Even the MS tool for changing TTF properties sees the value of that embed field as Installable, which is what it defaults to when there are broken table entires.

Re: Embeddability conundrum

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 6:59 am
by Erwin Denissen
The good old font has invalid font embedding licensing rights, as shown here:
Invalid Font Embedding Restrictions.png
Invalid Font Embedding Restrictions.png (25.59 KiB) Viewed 10884 times
The font seems to be made in 1996 (two years before we introduced FontCreator), and at that point these embedding rights weren't that important to notice this error.

The included readme file unfortunately doesn't allow you to modify the font without express permission from Kiwi Media. So the best you can do is contact the font designer Eric Oehler.

Re: Embeddability conundrum

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:40 pm
by Alfred
Thank you all for your helpful input.