Font style linking

Windows applications select fonts differently than applications on Mac OS. These differences can cause it to look as if fonts are missing. Or, they can cause font substitution when you transfer documents from a Mac OS to Windows.

Fonts are accessed differently on different platforms. However, you can use font name style links to access your fonts on both platforms and avoid font-matching problems.

A typical Windows application allows you to apply a maximum of four styles to a typeface: regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. You select the regular style from the font menu. For example, when you choose Book Antiqua from the font menu, you see the typeface Book Antiqua regular. Then, you select bold or italic styles by clicking a bold or italic button or by using a keyboard shortcut. For example, to specify Book Antiqua Bold, you select Book Antiqua from the font menu. Then, youo apply the bold style by clicking a bold button.

This process of specifying a particular font by selecting a related font and applying a style to that font is called font style linking.

Many applications on Mac OS, in contrast to Windows, list all the styles for a typeface within the font menu. For example, a type family like Book Antiqua appears in the font menu as Book Antiqua, Book Antiqua Bold, Book Antiqua Italic, and Book Antiqua Bold Italic.

If you use a Macintosh, this functionality gives you two ways to specify a particular typeface. You can directly select the typeface from the font menu. Or, you can select the regular version of the typeface from the font menu. The, you use style linking by applying bold or italic to the regular face. Either method gives you the font you need.

If a particular typeface style is not installed on the computer, you can get unsatisfactory results. Depending on the application you are using, you either see the regular typeface or a fake version of the italic font created by the application. For example, some applications attempt to fake an italic font by skewing the regular typeface. This process of manufacturing a fake version of a bold or italic font is sometimes called font fauxing. Faux bold or italic styles don't always print as they appear onscreen, especially to PostScript printers.

Macintosh users have a simple method for avoiding this problem. Always specify a typeface from the font menu and never rely on style linking. Since a typeface appears in the font menu only if it is installed, this method prevents accidental font fauxing. Windows users do not have this option. On Windows, it's necessary to use style linking to specify bold or italic font faces on Windows. If you use Windows, the only way to prevent font fauxing is to make sure that all the typefaces you use are properly installed. Also make sure that you only use bold and italic styling when bold and italic styles exist (not all fonts have style-linked bold or italic).

The Windows limitation of requiring style linking with a bold button or keyboard shortcut can be problematic. Especially when you use a font family that offers more weights than regular and bold.

For example, the OpenType fonts from Adobe family Futura Std offers weights of Light, Book, Medium, Heavy, Bold, and Extra Bold. Obviously, one Bold button is not enough to specify all these weights. When all these typefaces are installed on Windows, the Light, Book, Medium, and Extra Bold typefaces appear in application font menus. The weights of Heavy and Bold do not appear in the font menu. To access these typefaces, it's necessary to use style linking. Futura Std Heavy is specified by selecting Futura Std Medium from the font menu and then applying the bold style. Futura Std Bold is specified by selecting Futura Std Book from the font menu and then applying the bold style.

Adobe provides complete descriptions of the typefaces that appear in Windows font menus and the typefaces that require the use of bold or italic style linking. For OpenType fonts from Adobe, you can find this information on the Adobe Type Library web pages for each individual typeface. The style link information is listed at the bottom of the More Info tab. For PostScript fonts, you can find this information in the Readme file included with the font.

For a complete list of all OpenType fonts from Adobe and PostScript fonts and instructions for accessing them, see http://store.adobe.com/type/pdfs/Type1-2-OpenType.pdf.

If you have only one typeface style from a family available (such as bold or italic), that's the font you see when you specify the family. For example, if Trajan Pro Bold is the only Trajan Pro font installed, that's the font you see in a typical Windows application. Therefore, it's necessary to always install entire style-linked groups within a font family. Or, if you cannot install the entire style-linked group, then apply the appropriate style button. For example, for the Trajan Pro Bold example above, click the bold button even though Trajan Pro Bold is already displayed. This step doesn't change the appearance of the font in your document. However, if the document is later opened in an application with access to Trajan Pro Regular, the correct bold font is still used for the text.

Because of the differences in the way fonts are specified, some Windows applications can't recognize the fonts used in a document created on Mac OS. For example, in Adobe PageMaker, you can specify a font on Mac OS by selecting it from the font menu. However, the font isn't necessarily recognized in PageMaker on Windows if that particular font is specified by selecting a different font and applying a bold or italic style. Specifically, if you choose the Type 1 font Futura Heavy on Mac OS by selecting it from the font menu, and then you move that document to Windows, it's possible that the Windows application doesn't recognize that the specified font, Futura Heavy, is the equivalent of the font Futura Medium with a bold style applied to it.

If you are working on bpth Mac OS and Windows, you can avoid font substitution by specifying the typeface using style linking. This method allows the Windows application to find a matching font, if one is available, when the file is opened on that platform.