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Some Styles of Installed Fonts are Missing or 'Overlap'

Anonymous
2010-06-13T21:35:25+00:00

I am having difficulty installing some fonts.  I have multiple styles (bold, condensed, light, etc.) for a single font family.  When I install all these fonts, only some of the styles are listed in font control panel, even though all the files have been installed.  If I delete the styles I can see, then some of the missing ones appear.  When I delete those, others appear and so on until all the styles have been deleted.  The impression one gets is that styles are overwriting each other and are not being distinguished by Windows for some reason.  I am working in 7 Ultimate 64, the problem occurs with both OTF and TTF files (not all, just some).  Here is a list of what I have tried and observed:

All of the files end up in the 'fonts' directory (can be listed in the console).

All of the files get a registry entry in 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts'.

Sometimes fonts that 'overlap' in this way will appear identical in preview (before they have even been installed).

I have opened the font files in an editor to verify that the names and styles are set correctly, and they are (as far as I can tell).

Fonts are installed either through the 'install' button in the font viewer or through the context menu in explorer.

The offending fonts coexist just fine if I change their family names.

I am running an old version of Photoshop (CS).  Could any third-party software like that have caused this?

Can anyone offer any suggestions other than reinstalling Windows which is a poor solution?

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-06-27T20:13:58+00:00

    I'm having the same problem.

    Font files are OpenType, all from same family called FU24 (different styles of the same family - e.g Bold, Black, Bold Condensed etc.).

    All fonts were tested and worked on Windows XP machines.

    After installing the whole set of fonts (23 in my case), only 2 appeared on the 'windows fonts control panel' / 'windows fonts library' applet.

    When uninstalling these 2 fonts, they disappear, and then one or two fonts that were previously hidden are now magically shown!

    In addition, if I install the fonts individually (one by one), first one appears, and when I install a second font from the family it will either show, or not show, depending on some kind of logic windows incorporates by which some fonts are actually the same, in which case it automatically disables all contact the user may have with these files.

    The fonts also don't show on any of the installed software, including Microsoft Word and Notepad.

    Guessing, I'd say the font managing process somehow recognizes some fonts as identical, though they are not, thus disabling all "copies" of the same font.

    This makes work with fonts in windows 7 practically impossible.

    Please solve this.

    This is not a user specific problem, Chris H. It's a problem with windows's fonts manager and the problem should be addressed as such.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-09-07T12:50:44+00:00

    I had this problem as well. Can someone please point me to a fix, and/or point me to a tool that will let me rename the different styles so they don't overlap?

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-09-03T17:23:09+00:00

    I am still wondering what is going on here.  I have been forced to abandon certain font sets as I cannot use them.  This is likely to become an issue again in future projects, so if anyone can shed any light on what may be happening or what I could try, I would be grateful.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-09-08T04:39:24+00:00

    Windows Vista/7 are very sensitive to font metadata. If the font maker did not enter the metadata correctly then problem such as this disappearing fonts will occur. The best solution is probably to seek out an updated version of the font from the software vendor. More info at the following links (mainly useful only to font developers)

    http://forum.fontlab.com/fontlab-studio-tips-and-tricks/font-family-naming-in-fontlab-studio-5-t313.0.html

    http://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype/afdko/topic_font_wt_win.html

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-06-14T16:21:37+00:00

    These fonts have all come from other computers.  I have TTF and OTF versions that work on other machines.  I have opened these files in a font authoring application, re-exported them as both flavors, and even tried tweaking some of the settings and metadata.  I have access to another Windows 7 machine, so I will try them there.  However, that will not tell me if Windows 7 is the problem or if the font files are the problem.  The fact that this has occurred for two different font families with files coming from two different sources makes it less likely that the files themselves are corrupt.

    I only mentioned Photoshop as an example of something old I was using.  I don't know what it can or can't do to the system.  The question is:  can third party software affect the way Windows recognizes fonts?  Is it even possible?  How would I check?

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