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Can’t see activated Postscript fonts in Adobe CS2 proggs

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 8:46 pm
by Seafront
I am using Windows XP Pro SP2 and trial version of FontExpert 2006 Release 2.

When I activate TrueType fonts they appears in both Adobe CS2 proggs and Microsoft proggs such as Word. When I activate Postscript fonts they only appears in Microsoft proggs, not in Adobe CS2 proggs.

I must choose Install, then postscript fonts appears in Adobe CS2 proggs.

Any ides about this? Is it a limitation in the trial version?


/ best regards, from Sweden

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:28 am
by admin
Quick answer is: it is known issue and we consider this behavior as an issue in Adobe products on Windows platform, while the behavior of FontExpert is correct.
Workaround: with Adobe products and PostScript fonts when possible use permanent font installation instead of temporary activation.
Note: The problem is related only to PostScript fonts activated temporarily.

(Note that Adobe InDesign CS2 accepts PostScript fonts when they are activated temporarily from our Adobe InDesign plug-in. It is an exception from this issue, the reason is discussed below.)

Below is the discussion in more details.

Adobe products are comprehensive and excellent, but we must say that this is a bug of Adobe products, such as Adobe InDesign CS2 and Adobe Photoshop CS.

Temporary font activation is the feature well known to Mac users and FontExpert users have requested this feature. We have introduced it in version 8.0 although we told to FontExpert users that temporary activation is very similar to permanent installation.

It seems the issue we are discussing is the example why permanent installation may be more preferable than temporary activation.

Below are our thoughts why it happens in Adobe products.

It appears that Adobe products ignore PostScript fonts that were activated in the folder location that is "unknown" to the Adobe product.
(Although in Windows the font can be located and activated in arbitrary folder.)

When the font is installed permanently the Adobe product (and every program) can find it's physical location in Windows registry. When the font is activated somewhere in a non-standard folder, all Windows programs "see" this font in Windows “memory”, but the actual location of the font file is unknown to Windows programs.

And this is the decision of each program (it's developers) how to manage this situation. Most of Windows programs such as Winword or Wordpad accept this PostScript font, while Adobe products ignore it (unfortunately).