Re: [css3-fonts] new editor's draft

John Daggett wrote:
> The sentence in the spec is now "For TrueType and OpenType fonts, the
> full font name as defined in the font name table is used to reference
> a given face."  By that I mean it should match the name record in the
> name table with name ID = 4.  Modulo name localization issues, I think
> that's fairly clear.

Well, not really.

"id 4: Full font name (...) An exception to the above definition of Full
font name is for Microsoft platform strings for CFF OpenType fonts: in
this case, the Full font name string must be identical to the PostScript
FontName in the CFF Name INDEX."
http://www.microsoft.com/Typography/otspec/name.htm

This effectively means that for OpenType PS (.otf) fonts, the name id 4
(Full name) is different on Mac and on Windows. On Windows (name id
4.3.1.1033), it looks like "Adobe Caslon Pro Semibold" while on Mac
(name id 4.1.0.0) for the same font it looks like
"AdobeCaslonPro-Semibold". This is true for virtually all OpenType PS
fonts on the market.

For OpenType TT and TrueType fonts (.ttf), the Full name is typically
identical on both platforms.

It is only the name id 6 (PostScript name) that typically is the same
between Mac and Windows, and is also never subject to localization.

The PostScript name is de facto the best unique identifier to address
OpenType and TrueType fonts. There may be some old TrueType fonts on the
market that do not have the PostScript name defined, but I've never seen
any (so if there are any, they're less than 0.1% or so). I've just
checked a quite representative collection of some 42,000 commercial (and
some free) fonts in both .otf and .ttf formats, and none of them was
missing the PostScript name.

I agree with you, however, on one point:

AFAIK, the PostScript name is not easily accessible through the Windows
GDI API. So we have a problem: the Full name is the one that is easily
accessible through the APIs but it is not identical across platforms
(for .otf), while the PostScript name is typically identical across
platforms but is not easily accessible through the APIs.

Adam



-- 

Adam Twardoch
| Language Typography Unicode Fonts OpenType
| twardoch.com | silesian.com | fontlab.net

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or
insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
(Hunter S. Thompson)

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 2009 17:52:37 UTC