Hi, I’m wanting to have a have my font listed in the Adobe font menus alphabetically by the font family name - but display using my “foundry’s” initials in front of the name. I have been able to do this in the past in FontForge, but have not been unable to figure out how to do this in Glyphs.
Here are a couple of examples in case I haven’t clearly communicated what I am trying to do: In Adobe Illustrator, ITC Zapf Dingbats is listed alphabetically under Z for Zapf, though it is displayed in the menu as “ITC Zapf Dingbats”; and Adobe Garamond Pro is listed alphabetically under G for Garamond, though it is displayed as “Adobe Garamond Pro” in the menu.
Any help on how I can make this happen. I’ve tried adding custom parameters, but nothing seems to be working. Is this something that can be done in Glyphs?
As I understand it, Indesign uses a build in list of foundry names.
But if your old fonts work as expected, could you send me one of them that I can gave a look how it might work?
MrBills…here’s my 2¢ worth. If you are creating fonts for your own use only, disregard this post.
I would suggest placing your foundry’s initials after the family name. There may be a way of accomplishing what you’re trying to do. Just a shot in the dark, but naming the “font family” Yourfont YF, but naming the “Full Name” YF Yourfont Regular may work. The problem is, it may work in Adobe apps but not in other apps. If you sell or freely distribute your fonts, one of a designer’s goals should be to make his/her fonts compatible with as many platforms and software applications as possible.
By placing the initials after the family name they are present in the font name, they don’t interfere with the alphabetical placement of the font in the font menu, the fonts aren’t sorted by the family name in some apps and the foundry initials in other apps, since the initials fall between the family name and the style name, they can be treated as part of the family name, leaving the style names to denote styles. (I’ve seen some designers place foundry initials at the end of the full name, so a font would appear as Yourfont Regular YF…which is just a horrid, horrid practice).
If you’re creating fonts only for your own use, then the best practice is really whatever you’re comfortable with.
In font forge you are able to modify three settings for the font name in the font info dialogue box, as seen in this picture: http://fontforge.org/fontinfo.png
I believe it was the “name for humans” value that modified how the font name was displayed in an adobe applications menu, while the font was listed using one of the other values.
This may indeed be the solution, but I haven't seen a way to change this in Glyphs, though I have tried the "compatibleFullName"; and "postscriptFullName" custom parameters with no luck.
I think you may be right, it might be a best practice moving forward to add the foundry initials after the font name in the “font family” value. In this case in particular, I am trying to match some prior work I had done for a monument company, creating revival fonts from old headstones and monument letter-press boards. I have done a few in the past for them, and for consistency am trying to match what I had done previously (though in this case it was not foundry initials but the monument company initials).
I did end up deciding to move the foundry initials to the end of the name from here on out, as this does seem to be the best practice. Still not quite sure how Adobe does it in their font names though.
If you do still want to look into the issuer, I’ve since noticed a difference in how Indesign and Illustrator handle the font names in the font menu. Not sure how Indesign got brought into the discussion, but I was talking specifically about Illustrator in my original question.
The font that I sent Georg shows up for me differently in each application. In Illustrator it is displayed alphabetically by the font name (even though it is displayed with the foundry initials first), and InDesign does indeed ignore the Name for Humans entirely and displays the font name only, no initials displayed.
At this point, I am able to move forward either way, so finding this answer would be for your own edification, but I thought I’d bring some resolution to the post.
Thanks again for looking into this originally for me.
there is a hardcoded list of foundry initially in Indesign.
Getting the names right is sometimes a bit cumbersome, especially if you like to do stuff like you. mostly you run into a different problem with every app you test it…