I’ve created an ornaments/decorative elements font that accompanies my script font. There are two versions of each, one is rough/textured and the other a smooth version. The Script versions load perfectly in Font Book without a problem, but for some reason the Ornaments keep giving a system validation error. I’ve made sure to export without auto hinting and remove overlap and it still gives the same error. The only thing I can think of is that most of the glyphs are very wide due to the ornate/decorative nature of the glyphs - some measuring 7735 wide although they are relatively simple in shape (see example below)
Software authors tend to program glyph width cutoffs. For example, MS Word tends to stop displaying glyphs over 5000 units wide. And software authors tend to process TrueType and CFF fonts differently, so what works fine in one format can be hopelessly broken in the other. Sadly, the Fontbook developers don’t communicate well about some of the errors their specious software generates, so if the error isn’t specific you may have to jump down a rabbit hole of trial and error testing.
Please post your results on TypeDrawers so Google will pick this stuff up for other people. This stuff used to be documented on Typophile, but it’s lost now.
So in the end it depends mainly on this hardwired cutoff you mentioned.
In other words if anyone is to make sure a font works across the field, he/she has to test it extensively.
Still this would never cover all software and even future releases, furthermore if a font works now, there are no guarantees if this cutoff will decrease or be eliminated in the later versions.
It might. The problem with black boxes like Fontbook and MS Office is that cryptic error messages and poor documentation mean we can’t always be sure what the problem is.
Great, thanks so much for your input, much appreciated. I’m actually going to try and reduce the width of the glyphs and see if that helps. I’ll let you know my results.
Dear Lisa, often FontBook refuses to validate one of my fonts. It gives me the following error message; first you should improve your artwork Michiel and remove the kinks from the curves with Lola 2.5
