[Solved] Bold function with uncommon fonts

[pcdzialo]

I frequently use uncommon, that is non-system, fonts that came with WP; one in particular, Venetian. Now, I've noticed that when I set text with a "Venetian301 Dm BT" font to bold it doesn't seem to use the corresponding bold version of this font but instead kind of bloats the current font in imitation of it. I don't see this happening with italics.

Is there some way to set what font Writer will use with a particular font for its bold?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

There are two ways to solve this problem:

1. Edit the font so that the two fonts have the same name, but the bolder one uses the bold type style.

So one would change “Venetian301 Dm BT” to “Venetian301 BT Bold.”

Currently, they are both the Regular typestyle.

2. The other way would be to create a character style in OpenOffice called “DemiBold” or whatever and use the “Venetian301 Dm BT” for that. Then assign a shortcut to the Style from Tools, Customise, Keyboard. Every time you want Bold Venetian, you use the shortcut. To revert to the default paragraph style you use Control Shift Space. For other fonts you would need to edit the character style. By using a character style you can use DemiBold with any font size.

The reason it doesn't happen with italic is because both fonts have matching italics type styles: “Venetian301 BT Italic” and “Venetian301 Dm Bt Italic.” What you have there is two pairs of fonts rather than one set of four type styles for one font. Windows doesn't recognize "Demi" as a font style to switch to, and Wordprocessors don't have a DemiBold character style unless you create one, though they do have bold and italic character styles built-in.

The screenshot is from MainType Font Manager.

[pcdzialo]

I prefer the first method, renaming the font, but I don't know how to do that in Windows XP. Do I need certain software (i.e. font-related software)?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Yes. You need a Font Editor like Font Creator to rename the fonts. The Trial Version will do the job. For such a basic task there might be cheaper or free alternatives. Font Forge is free, but I haven't figured out how to install it on Windows yet. Maybe someone else can explain how to install it. FontCreator Home Edition is relatively cheap at $79, but that's a lot just to rename fonts, unless you also want to create or modify fonts.

[pcdzialo]

Thanks!

Fontforge seems to be working for me.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Fontforge seems to be working for me.

Aren't you going to tell us how you got it working? Are you using it on Windows or Linux?

I guess this problem is [Solved]. Please edit your thread title.

[pcdzialo]

No, I meant that fontforge is working. . . .

In fact, I haven't been able to fix the problem yet. I'm not sure if you'll be able to help since it could be a fontforge issue. I'll explain.

According to all of the instructions I have read, to make a font family you need the same Font Family name and particular Font names for each of the types (regular, bold, italics, etc). In the Font Info>Names dialog of fontforge there are these inputs boxes:

Fontname
Family name
Name For Humans
Weight
Version
Base Filename

If I open a font, say Times New Roman Bold Italic, the names are:

Fontname: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT
Family name: Times New Roman
Name For Humans: Times New Roman Bold Italic
Weight: Bold
Version: 2.90
Base Filename

Now, what I'm trying to do is turn the Venetian Demi font into my "regular", and the Venetian BT Bold into my "bold" (in essence, making two families of fonts into one).
I open these fonts in fontforge, give them new names and weights ("moobis-Regular", "moobis-Bold", etc.), a new generic family name ("moobis"), and generate them as ttf. If I generate just one, regardless of which it is, I can open it in the Windows Font Viewer and it is what I intended. But after I create the other one, even though it has a different particular font name, it opens as the first one or possibly vice versa. For some reason it will only recognize one of the two: I can view both fonts simultaneously and they are the same glyphs, and it gives the same name at the top of the view, even though the actual ttf files were generated from different originals and are clearly different in file size. It simply won't recognize them as two versions of the same family, one somehow overrides the other.

I tried giving them different family names to see if the problem persisted, but it worked fine . . . of course, that doesn't fix my problem; that was my original problem: different font families.

Oddly, it works between the italics: moobis-regular and a moobis-italics is ok. There must be something about trying to combine the two different Venitian families (the demi and the BT bold) into a new "moobis". Any suggestions?

I am on Windows XP Home.

[pcdzialo]

I think I figured it out.

In the Font Info>OS/2 dialog there is a Weight combo-box. The Venetian Demi and the Venetian Bd Bold fonts that I was trying to combine into one family were both set to "400 Book". When I changed the Bd Bold type (my new "moobis-bold") to the "700 Bold" setting, everything worked.