Font designers, a question about Opentype kerning...please read.

[Jason Arthur]

Hey guys, I've just noticed that ALL of my Opentype fonts have lost their kerning in Illustrator CS2.

All of them except for the Comicraft ones. (sorry Nate, even yours lost the kerning).

This is a HUGE problem for me and I need to find a solution ASAP.

I know for a fact that it's not a problem with the font itself being kerned because the kerning shows up in FontLab (and I've tried re-generating the fonts too, with no luck).

The only way I can get my fonts to show and properly use kerning is to re-save them as ttf files.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

-- J

[Clem Robins]

i'd help you out, jason, but since you're just doing this to help me, and since i don't know what the heck i am doing, let's just leave this one to the resident geniuses here.

[Kep!]

...ummm...nope, I'm clueless. Nate's work for me in CS2. Weird. I'll poke around and see if I get lucky.

[Jason Arthur]

Hey Kep, do me a favor...

type out Ly LY in one of Nate's fonts (making sure it's one of his opentype fonts).

Now put the T cursor between the L and the Y and check on your character palette to see if it shows a Negative kern.

thanks,

-- J

[Jason Arthur]

i'd help you out, jason, but since you're just doing this to help me, and since i don't know what the heck i am doing, let's just leave this one to the resident geniuses here.

It's for me too now Clem... JibbaJabba and all my other OTF fonts have no kerning now too.

-- J

[fro]

Google gave me this...
http://typophile.com/node/17113

I don't think it's your exact problem but it's very similar. The person on there found their solution about 4 posts from the bottom, but a lot of other solution were suggested along the way. Looks like it would help to browse through.

I also tried the LY pairs on a couple of Nate's opentype fonts but both were fine for me - they only flipped to negative if I flipped on optical kerning. I think they were all free ones, though, so I'm not sure if anything would be different on the opentype pay fonts.

Hope that helps a little!

[Kep!]

I'll give it a whirl!

[Piekos]

The problem listed in the link above is because MS Word doesn't recognize ANY kerning pairs. So that's not related to your prob.

All my OTF fonts kern fine for me in CS2, and all the other OTF fonts I have work fine as well. Checks out in Fontlab, and AI CS2 for mac and pc.

No one else has reported this with my fonts (or any that I've heard of) up until now.

How bizarre.

Did this happen all of a sudden? Did they all work fine before in CS2 and something changed?

~N

[Kep!]

Ok, I just ran it on several and....

Some yes, some no. SD2002OTF has a 0 across the board...SuperStrong has 0 on LY but a neg on ly. Others seem a mixed bag. It's hard to tell what is inteded as a 0 or not.

[Piekos]

WHat baffles me the more I think aboutit is that the process of kerning and kerning pairs included isn't any different regardless of file type...by that I mean, you kern the font in Fontlab, then save it as whatever format you want, OTF, TTF, PS1, etc. Why would it work in one and not the other?

Have you contacted Adobe? It sounds more like an Adobe issue than a Fontlab one.

~N

[Kep!]

NATE: If you post a few good kerning pairs that you know register on your end we'll give you the exact reading on our ends...it might help diagnose the problem.

[Jason Arthur]

thanks for all the help guys.

Adobe pretty much said that it's something to do with the otf generation in fontlab and thus...not their problem.

all of the standard Adobe otf fonts DO show kerning, so I'm confused as hell.

maybe I should re-install Illustrator?

-- J

[Piekos]

Due to the OTF generation in fontlab?

Then why does it work for some of us in CS2 and not for others? If it didn't work for ALL of us in CS2...then I'd say they were right.

Sounds like they're passing the buck.

~N

[Piekos]

Here's a screen capture of my latest dialogue font (CLOUDSPLITTER UC BB) in OTF, working exactly the way it's supposed to in AI CS2.

Jason, did you happen to ask Adobe what the RIGHT way to save OTF fonts in fontlab is? I'll be surprised if they have an answer.

~N

http://www.blambot.com/stuff/kerning.jpg

[Jason Arthur]

well, here's where I'm at now:

Nate's fonts DO show kerning (I was mistaken before).

It's just mine and Clems fonts that are kernless.

odd.

-- J

[Piekos]

Clem, Jason, you want me to take a look at Clem's files?

If you're not comfortable with that, it's cool. I'll be sure to 86 the files after we're done.

You're call.

~N

[Jason Arthur]

thanks again everyone for all the help, you all really are the best.

-- J

[Jason Arthur]

Well crap, Nate tried and it still didn't seem to work for me.

here's my settings in FontLab:

http://www.jasonarthur.com/images/Picture 2.png

Any thoughts?

-- J

[Clem Robins]

[QUOTE=Piekos]Clem, Jason, you want me to take a look at Clem's files?

If you're not comfortable with that, it's cool. I'll be sure to 86 the files after we're done.

You're call.


that'd be swell, nate. i'll email them to you, if Jason has not done so already.

[Jason Arthur]

Probably best for you to do it at this point Clem.

I'm downloading CS3's trial to see if that works... if so then I might have to go into debt...

-- J

[Piekos]

I checked out Jason's font in Fontlab 5.2 and despite my best efforts at tinkering, I couldn't get his kerning to stick.

I DID get a weird error message when I went to generate as an OTF file that was something like:

Which Data do you want to use while generating this font? Opentype Features Definitions or Imported binary Opentype tables?

I picked the first one.

~N

[Jason Arthur]

Did you try my font in Illustrator?

you're on CS2 right?

-- J

[Piekos]

Yes, and the kerning wasn't working.

~N

[Clem Robins]

forgive me for having to ask this again, nate, but what's your email address? i'll send you the files for the fonts which Jason's computer can find no kerning.

darn things work just fine for me.

[Piekos]

studio@blambot.com

I already tried Jason's JibbaJabba fonts as is, then I tweaked them in Fontlab and tried again. No luck. Are these your fonts you're talking about?

~N

[Jason Arthur]

Here's where I am...

Since I just got CS2 in early February and then they brought out CS3 like 2 weeks later and we know that CS3 and CS1 aren't having the same issue that CS2 is...

I asked Adobe to upgrade me for free and they sound like they might oblidge.

Cross ya'lls fingers,

-- J

[Kep!]

Now THAT is customer service!

[Jason Arthur]

Apparently it's a done deal.

Adobe is sending me the upgrade to CS3 for no charge (well, except shipping).

Finally!!

I knew my font was looking wonky since I switched to CS2 and now I know why.

So anyone out there with CS2... check your fonts, make sure they kern properly. If not then you need to complain to Adobe and let them know that it's costing you money and clients (same thing) because of a programming glitch in their software.

CS3 fixes that glitch.

-- J

[Kep!]

Whewhew!!!