Font problem after updating to OS 10.6.7

[Groucho]

Ah, glad to know this. I was thinking of composite fonts the way you digit, i.e., Option-u and then u to produce the umlaut like this, ü.
So, if a font is composited in its creation phase, how does this affect the final outcome?
The font designer, I imagine, creates a dot (full stop or period), then uses it as a template for many instances in which a dot is involved: a question mark, suspension marks, exclamation mark and so on. Out of consistency. Think of the dot in the exclamation mark as a clone. That might explain why the dots in an umlaut are not affected: they are, I guess, specifically designed. They are not a copy (or a clone) of the period mark. They are different from punctuation marks. Maybe they are smaller, or have a different aspect ratio, or are square, or what fancy suggests. That’s why you, Kino, say that this is “invisible to end users.” This makes sense. And this can explain why the dots disappear.

Henry.

[Kino]

So, if a font is composited in its creation phase, how does this affect the final outcome?

As far as the rendering engine in OS X or in applications (InDesign and some other applications have their own rendering engine) work fine, there should be no difference in the final outcome between decomposed glyphs (all elements are concretely defined) and composite glyphs (some or all elements are abstractively defined via a kind of mapping). However, a bug or shortcoming like the one in OS X 10.6.7 may always happen. So it would be safer to decompose composite glyphs (i.e. convert them into real and concrete glyphs) when generating a font file and, AFAIK, that is what Adobe does for OpenType PS fonts.

In some or most of Apple TrueType fonts — not affected by the bug in question because they are in TrueType format — coming with OS X (I have not looked at them all), accented letters are supplied as composite glyphs presumably because decomposing them would increase the font file size considerably.

If you are interested in the internal structure of fonts, I’d like to suggest you to play with FontLab Studio that you can use as a very nice font viewer even in the free demo mode and its manual in pdf format (free) is very instructive.
http://www.fontlab.com/fontlab-font-edi ... tudio.html

Edit: fixed a typo (you can use *as* a very nice font viewer).

[Groucho]

I opened Futura with FontLab demo. While I can decompose the accent in a with grave, I cannot do the same with exclamation mark. That is, the command is grayed out. When I select the dot, it is just a path.

Henry.

[Kino]

I opened Futura with FontLab demo.

I think you mean Futura Medium coming with OS X. That font is an AAT TrueType font which is completely different from Futura Light PS Type 1 font the original poster is using. We cannot tell anything for sure about a font without having at hand the exactly same version of the font, in the same font format, made by the same vendor. I don’t know much about the font business but it seems a font (design) is often licensed to multiple font vendors whose final products are different in many points. For example, Palatino coming with an iLife updater and Palatino coming with Windows 2000 (and later?) are different in the font format and have different character sets although their glyphs (character shapes) are basically the same as far as commonly available characters are concerned. As computer programs (a font is a program), they are differently coded.

I just realized another possibility. Even if punctuation marks in the Futura Light are not composite glyphs but decomposed, the vanishing dots problem may occur if the dots in them were copied from the same and deficient source.

FontLab has a feature called FontAudit (View:Show Layers:FontAudit) which indicates actual and potential problems related to contours composing a character shape. If you will have examined a certain number of fonts with FontAudit enabled, you will notice that many fonts have glyphs affected by errors. Although some of them “can cause problems with rasterization” (FLS5MacManual.pdf, p. 85), usually they do not cause a trouble, presumably because the rendering engine is designed to work around common and minor bugs. However, bugs are bugs and it is not surprising that the 10.6.7 updater made it less indulgent.

[Groucho]

I have two sets of Futura. The first I can’t open via FontLab. The application says, FontLab cannot open TTC font collections. I think this is the Futura that comes with the system. There are four faces, Medium, Medium Italic, Condensed Medium and Condensed Extra Bold. The extension is ttc. The other is Futura BT. It has seven faces, Book, Light, Book Italic, Light Italic, Extra Black, Heavy, Heavy Italic. No extension. The icon says FFIL font. It was validated through Font Book. I think I got it from an old bundle by CorelDraw. It’s a truetype font. At least, this is what Font Book says. Font Audit, in FontLab, shows nothing.

This is all. I think we better be confident on Apple’s feedback. They know best.

Henry.

[Elbrecht]

Hi

Apple releases Snow Leopard font update for OpenType/PDF issues - go for: Software Update

HE

[ptram]

I would like to ask those who experienced the problem, if this patch solves it. I'm still not updating to 10.6.7 for fear of serious troubles with fonts while preparing some publications for printing.

Paolo

[Hamid]

The problem reported in the thread 'Problems with Arabic' after 10.6.7 update relates to some TrueType fonts:

http://www.nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4199

That problem has not been addressed by Snow Leopard Font Update, which is meant to resolve the problem with OpenType fonts.

It is better to wait, especially if the problems you had after the 10.6.7 update involved TrueType fonts.