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name - Naming Table (OpenType 1.4)

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The naming table allows multilingual strings to be associated with the OpenType™ font file.

These strings can represent copyright notices, font names, family names, style names, and so on. To keep this table short, the font manufacturer may wish to make a limited set of entries in some small set of languages; later, the font can be “localized” and the strings translated or added. Other parts of the OpenType font file that require these strings can then refer to them simply by their index number. Clients that need a particular string can look it up by its platform ID, character encoding ID, language ID and name ID. Note that some platforms may require single byte character strings, while others may require double byte strings.

For historical reasons, some applications which install fonts perform version control using Macintosh platform (platform ID 1) strings from the 'name' table. Because of this, we strongly recommend that the 'name' table of all fonts include Macintosh platform strings and that the syntax of the version number (name id 5) follows the guidelines given in this document.

The Naming Table is organized as follows:

Type Name Description
USHORT format Format selector (=0).
USHORT count Number of name records.
USHORT stringOffset Offset to start of string storage (from start of table).
NameRecord nameRecord[count] The name records where count is the number of records.
(Variable) Storage for the actual string data.

Each NameRecord looks like this:

Type Name Description
USHORT platformID Platform ID.
USHORT encodingID Platform-specific encoding ID.
USHORT languageID Language ID.
USHORT nameID Name ID.
USHORT length String length (in bytes).
USHORT offset String offset from start of storage area (in bytes).

Following are the descriptions of the four kinds of ID. Note that the specific values listed here are the only ones that are predefined; new ones may be added by registry with Apple Developer Technical Support. Similar to the character encoding table, the NameRecords are sorted by platform ID, then platform-specific ID, then language ID, and then by name ID.

Platform IDs, Platform-specific encoding IDs and Language IDs

Platform ID Platform name Platform-specific encoding IDs Language IDs
0 Unicode Various None
1 Macintosh Script manager code Various
2 ISO [deprecated] ISO encoding [deprecated] None
3 Microsoft Microsoft encoding Various
4 Custom Custom None

Note that platform ID 2 (ISO) has been deprecated as of OpenType Specification v1.3. It was intended to represent ISO/IEC 10646, as opposed to Unicode; both standards have identical character code assignments.

Platform ID values 240 through 255 are reserved for user-defined platforms. The DTS registry will never assign these values to a registered platform.

Unicode platform-specific encoding IDs (platform ID = 0)

Encoding ID Description
0 Unicode 1.0 semantics
1 Unicode 1.1 semantics
2 ISO 10646:1993 semantics
3 Unicode 2.0 and onwards semantics, Unicode BMP only.
4 Unicode 2.0 and onwards semantics, Unicode full repertoire.

A new encoding ID for the Unicode platform will be assigned if a new version of Unicode moves characters, in order to properly specify character code semantics. The distinction between Unicode platform-specific encoding IDs 1 and 2 is for historical reasons only; Unicode 1.1 is in fact identical in repertoire and encoding to ISO 10646:1993 (before any amendments).

There are currently no language IDs defined for the Unicode platform. This means that it can be used for encodings in the 'cmap' table but not for strings in the 'name' table.

Microsoft platform-specific encoding IDs (platform ID= 3)

Platform ID Encoding ID Description
3 0 Symbol
3 1 Unicode BMP only
3 2 ShiftJIS
3 3 PRC
3 4 Big5
3 5 Wansung
3 6 Johab
3 7 Reserved
3 8 Reserved
3 9 Reserved
3 10 Unicode full repertoire

When building a Unicode font for Windows, the platform ID should be 3 and the encoding ID should be 1. When building a symbol font for Windows, the platform ID should be 3 and the encoding ID should be 0. When building a font that will be used on the Macintosh, the platform ID should be 1 and the encoding ID should be 0.

Microsoft Language IDs (platform ID = 3)

The language ID (LCID in the table below) refers to a value which identifies the language in which a particular string is written. Fifty of the language ID’s assigned by Microsoft are listed below, along with their corresponding code pages. There are 85 additional language ID’s assigned. For a full list, please see the Microsoft Global Development site or Knowledge Base article Q224804.

Primary Language Locale Name LCID Win CP OEM CP
Albanian Albania (041c; SQI)    
Basque Basque (042D; EUQ) 1252 850
Byelorussian Byelorussia (0423, BEL) 1251 866
Bulgarian Bulgaria (0402, BGR) 1251 866
Catalan Catalan (0403; CAT) 1252 850
Croatian Croatian (041a, SHL) 1250 852
Czech Czech (0405; CSY) 1250 852
Danish Danish (0406; DAN) 1252 865
Dutch (2): Dutch (Standard) (0413; NLD) 1252 850
Dutch (2): Belgian (Flemish) (0813; NLB) 1252 850
English (6): American (0409; ENU) 1252 437
English (6): British (0809; ENG) 1252 850
English (6): Australian (0c09; ENA) 1252 850
English (6): Canadian (1009; ENC) 1252 850
English (6): New Zealand (1409; ENZ) 1252 850
English (6): Ireland (1809; ENI) 1252 850
Estonian Estonia (0425, ETI) 1257 775
Finnish Finnish (040b; FIN) 1252 850
French French (Standard) (040c; FRA) 1252 850
French Belgian (080c; FRB) 1252 850
French Canadian (0c0c; FRC) 1252 850
French Swiss (100c; FRS) 1252 850
French Luxembourg (140c; FRL) 1252 850
German German (Standard) (0407; DEU) 1252 850
German Swiss (0807; DES) 1252 850
German Austrian (0c07; DEA) 1252 850
German Luxembourg (1007; DEL) 1252 850
German Liechtenstein (1407; DEC) 1252 850
Greek Greek (0408; ELL) 1253 737 or 8694
Hungarian Hungarian (040e; HUN) 1250 852
Icelandic Icelandic (040F; ISL) 1252 850
Italian (2): Italian (Standard) (0410; ITA) 1252 850
Italian (2): Swiss (0810; ITS) 1252 850
Latvian Latvia (0426, LVI) 1257 775
Lithuanian Lithuania (0427, LTH) 1257 775
Norwegian (2): Norwegian (Bokmal) (0414; NOR) 1252 850
Norwegian (2): Norwegian (Nynorsk) (0814; NON) 1252 850
Polish Polish (0415; PLK) 1250 852
Portuguese (2): Portuguese (Brazilian) (0416; PTB) 1252 850
Portuguese (2): Portuguese (Standard) (0816; PTG) 1252 850
Romanian (2): Romania (0418, ROM) 1250 852
Russian Russian (0419; RUS) 1251 866
Slovak Slovak (041b; SKY) 1250 852
Slovenian Slovenia (0424, SLV) 1250 852
Spanish (3): Spanish (Traditional Sort) (040a; ESP) 1252 850
Spanish (3): Mexican (080a; ESM) 1252 850
Spanish (3): Spanish (Modern Sort) (0c0a; ESN) 1252 850
Swedish Swedish (041D; SVE) 1252 850
Turkish Turkish (041f; TRK) 1254 857
Ukrainian Ukraine (0422, UKR) 1251 866
4737 is default, but 869 (IBM Greek) will be available at setup time through the selection of a bogus Greek locale in Custom Setup.

Macintosh platform-specific encoding IDs (script manager codes), (platform ID = 1)

Code Script Code Script
0 Roman 17 Malayalam
1 Japanese 18 Sinhalese
2 Chinese (Traditional) 19 Burmese
3 Korean 20 Khmer
4 Arabic 21 Thai
5 Hebrew 22 Laotian
6 Greek 23 Georgian
7 Russian 24 Armenian
8 RSymbol 25 Chinese (Simplified)
9 Devanagari 26 Tibetan
10 Gurmukhi 27 Mongolian
11 Gujarati 28 Geez
12 Oriya 29 Slavic
13 Bengali 30 Vietnamese
14 Tamil 31 Sindhi
15 Telugu 32 Uninterpreted
16 Kannada    

Macintosh language IDs (platform ID = 1)

Code Language Code Language
0 English 59 Pashto
1 French 60 Kurdish
2 German 61 Kashmiri
3 Italian 62 Sindhi
4 Dutch 63 Tibetan
5 Swedish 64 Nepali
6 Spanish 65 Sanskrit
7 Danish 66 Marathi
8 Portuguese 67 Bengali
9 Norwegian 68 Assamese
10 Hebrew 69 Gujarati
11 Japanese 70 Punjabi
12 Arabic 71 Oriya
13 Finnish 72 Malayalam
14 Greek 73 Kannada
15 Icelandic 74 Tamil
16 Maltese 75 Telugu
17 Turkish 76 Sinhalese
18 Croatian 77 Burmese
19 Chinese (Traditional) 78 Khmer
20 Urdu 79 Lao
21 Hindi 80 Vietnamese
22 Thai 81 Indonesian
23 Korean 82 Tagalong
24 Lithuanian 83 Malay (Roman script)
25 Polish 84 Malay (Arabic script)
26 Hungarian 85 Amharic
27 Estonian 86 Tigrinya
28 Latvian 87 Galla
29 Sami 88 Somali
30 Faroese 89 Swahili
31 Farsi/Persian 90 Kinyarwanda/Ruanda
32 Russian 91 Rundi
33 Chinese (Simplified) 92 Nyanja/Chewa
34 Flemish 93 Malagasy
35 Irish Gaelic 94 Esperanto
36 Albanian 128 Welsh
37 Romanian 129 Basque
38 Czech 130 Catalan
39 Slovak 131 Latin
40 Slovenian 132 Quenchua
41 Yiddish 133 Guarani
42 Serbian 134 Aymara
43 Macedonian 135 Tatar
44 Bulgarian 136 Uighur
45 Ukrainian 137 Dzongkha
46 Byelorussian 138 Javanese (Roman script)
47 Uzbek 139 Sundanese (Roman script)
48 Kazakh 140 Galician
49 Azerbaijani (Cyrillic script) 141 Afrikaans
50 Azerbaijani (Arabic script) 142 Breton
51 Armenian 14 Inuktitut
52 Georgian 144 Scottish Gaelic
53 Moldavian 145 Manx Gaelic
54 Kirghiz 146 Irish Gaelic (with dot above)
55 Tajiki 147 Tongan
56 Turkmen 148 Greek (polytonic)
57 Mongolian (Mongolian script) 149 Greenlandic
58 Mongolian (Cyrillic script) 150 Azerbaijani (Roman script)

ISO specific encodings (platform ID=2) [Deprecated]

Code ISO encoding
0 7-bit ASCII
1 ISO 10646
2 ISO 8859-1

There are no ISO-specific language IDs.

Custom platform-specific encoding IDs (platform ID = 4)

ID Custom encoding
0-255 OTF Windows NT compatibility mapping

In cases where a custom platform cmap is present for OTF Windows NT compatibility, the encoding ID must be set to the Windows charset value (in the range 0 to 255, inclusive) present in the .PFM file of the original Type 1 font. See the 'cmap' table for more details on the OTF Windows NT compatibility cmap.

There are currently no language IDs defined for the Custom platform. This means that it can be used for encodings in the 'cmap' table but not for strings in the 'name' table.

Name IDs

The following name IDs are pre-defined, and they apply to all platforms unless indicated otherwise. Name IDs 21 to 255, inclusive, are reserved for future standard names. Name IDs 256 to 32767, inclusive, are reserved for font-specific names such as those referenced by a font’s layout features.

Code Meaning
0 Copyright notice.
1 Font Family name. Up to four fonts can share the Font Family name, forming a font style linking group (regular, italic, bold, bold italic - as defined by OS/2.fsSelection bit settings).
2 Font Subfamily name. The Font Subfamily name distiguishes the font in a group with the same Font Family name (name ID 1). This is assumed to address style (italic, oblique) and weight (light, bold, black, etc.). A font with no particular differences in weight or style (e.g. medium weight, not italic and fsSelection bit 6 set) should have the string “Regular” stored in this position.
3 Unique font identifier
4 Full font name; this should be a combination of strings 1 and 2. Exception: if the font is “Regular” as indicated in string 2, then use only the family name contained in string 1.
An exception to the above definition of Full font name is for Microsoft platform strings for CFF OpenType fonts: in this case, the Full font name string must be identical to the PostScript FontName in the CFF Name INDEX.
5 Version string. Should begin with the syntax ‘Version <number>.<number>’ (upper case, lower case, or mixed, with a space between “Version” and the number).
The string must contain a version number of the following form: one or more digits (0-9) of value less than 65,535, followed by a period, followed by one or more digits of value less than 65,535. Any character other than a digit will terminate the minor number. A character such as “;” is helpful to separate different pieces of version information.
The first such match in the string can be used by installation software to compare font versions. Note that some installers may require the string to start with “Version ”, followed by a version number as above.
6 Postscript name for the font; Name ID 6 specifies a string which is used to invoke a PostScript language font that corresponds to this OpenType font. If no name ID 6 is present, then there is no defined method for invoking this font on a PostScript interpreter.
OpenType fonts which include a name with name ID of 6 shall include these two names with name ID 6, and characteristics as follows:
  1. Platform: 1 [Macintosh]; Platform-specific encoding: 0 [Roman]; Language: 0 [English].
  2. Platform: 3 [Microsoft]; Platform-specific encoding: 1 [Unicode]; Language: 0x409 [English (American)].

Names with name ID 6 other than the above two, if present, must be ignored.

When translated to ASCII, these two name strings must be identical; no longer than 63 characters; and restricted to the printable ASCII subset, codes 33 through 126, except for the 10 characters: '[', ']', '(', ')', '{', '}', '<', '>', '/', '%'.

In CFF OpenType fonts, these two name strings, when translated to ASCII, must also be identical to the font name as stored in the CFF’s Name INDEX.

The term “PostScript Name” here means a string identical to the two identical name ID 6 strings described above.

Depending on the particular font format that PostScript language font uses, the invocation method for the PostScript font differs, and the semantics of the resulting PostScript language font differ. The method used to invoke this font depends on the presence of name ID 20.

If a name ID 20 is present in this font, then the default assumption should be that the PostScript Name defined by name ID 6 should be used with the “composefont” invocation. This PostScript Name is then the name of a PostScript language CIDFont resource which corresponds to the glyphs of the OpenType font. This name is valid to pass, with an appropriate PostScript language CMap reference, and an instance name, to the PostScript language “composefont” operator.

If no name ID 20 is present in this font, then the default assumption should be that the PostScript Name defined by name ID 6 should be used with the “findfont” invocation, for locating the font in the context of a PostScript interpreter. This PostScript Name is then the name of a PostScript language Font resource which corresponds to the glyphs of the OpenType font. This name is valid to pass to the PostScript language “findfont” operator. Note that this does not necessarily imply that the resulting font dictionary accepts an /Encoding array, such as when the font referenced is a Type 0 PostScript font.

Note that this specification applies only to data fork OpenType fonts. Macintosh resource-fork TrueType and other Macintosh sfnt-wrapped fonts supply the PostScript font name to be used with the “findfont” invocation, in order to invoke the font in a PostScript interpreter, in the FOND resource style-mapping table.

Developers may choose to ignore the default usage when appropriate. For example, PostScript printers whose version is earlier than 2015 cannot process CID font resources, and a CJK OpenType/CFF-CID font can be downloaded only as a set of Type 1 PostScript fonts. Legacy CJK TrueType fonts, which do not have a name ID 20, may still be most effectively downloaded as a CID font resource. Definition of the full set of situations in which the defaults should not be followed is outside the scope of this document.
7 Trademark; this is used to save any trademark notice/information for this font. Such information should be based on legal advice. This is distinctly separate from the copyright.
8 Manufacturer Name.
9 Designer; name of the designer of the typeface.
10 Description; description of the typeface. Can contain revision information, usage recommendations, history, features, etc.
11 URL Vendor; URL of font vendor (with protocol, e.g., http://, ftp://). If a unique serial number is embedded in the URL, it can be used to register the font.
12 URL Designer; URL of typeface designer (with protocol, e.g., http://, ftp://).
13 License Description; description of how the font may be legally used, or different example scenarios for licensed use. This field should be written in plain language, not legalese.
14 License Info URL; URL where additional licensing information can be found.
15 Reserved; Set to zero.
16 Preferred Family; For historical reasons, font families have contained a maximum of four styles, but font designers may group more than four fonts to a single family. The Preferred Family allows font designers to include the preferred family grouping which contains more than four fonts. This ID is only present if it is different from ID 1.
17 Preferred Subfamily; Allows font designers to include the preferred subfamily grouping that is more descriptive than ID 2. This ID is only present if it is different from ID 2 and must be unique for the the Preferred Family.
18 Compatible Full (Macintosh only); On the Macintosh, the menu name is constructed using the FOND resource. This usually matches the Full Name. If you want the name of the font to appear differently than the Full Name, you can insert the Compatible Full Name in ID 18.
19 Sample text; This can be the font name, or any other text that the designer thinks is the best sample to display the font in.
20 PostScript CID findfont name; Its presence in a font means that the nameID 6 holds a PostScript font name that is meant to be used with the “composefont” invocation in order to invoke the font in a PostScript interpreter. See the definition of name ID 6.

The value held in the name ID 20 string is interpreted as a PostScript font name that is meant to be used with the “findfont” invocation, in order to invoke the font in a PostScript interpreter.

If the name ID 20 is present in a font, there must be one name ID 20 record for every Macintosh platform cmap subtable in that font. A particular name ID 20 record is associated with the encoding specified by the matching cmap subtable. A name ID 20 record is matched to a cmap subtable when they have the same platform and platform-specific encoding IDs, and corresponding language/version IDs. Name ID 20 records are meant to be used only with Macintosh cmap subtables. The version field for a cmap subtable is one more than the language ID value for the corresponding name ID 20 record, with the exception of the cmap subtable version field 0. This version field, meaning “not language-specific”, corresponds to the language ID value 0xFFFF, or decimal 65535, for the corresponding name ID 20 record.

When translated to ASCII, this name string must be restricted to the printable ASCII subset, codes 33 through 126, except for the 10 characters: '[', ']', '(', ')', '{', '}', '<', '>', '/', '%'.

Note that this specification applies only to data fork OpenType fonts. Macintosh resource-fork TrueType and other Macintosh sfnt-wrapped fonts supply the PostScript font name to be used with the “findfont” invocation, in order to invoke the font in a PostScript interpreter, in the FOND resource style-mapping table.

Note that a particular Name ID 20 string always corresponds to a particular Macintosh cmap subtable. However, some host OpenType/TTF fonts also contain a post table, format 4, which provides a mapping from glyph ID to encoding value, and also corresponds to a particular Macintosh cmap subtable. Unfortunately, the post table format 4 contains no provision for identifying which Macintosh cmap subtable it matches, nor for providing more than one mapping. Host fonts which contain a post table format 4, should also contain only a single Macintosh cmap subtable, and a single Name ID 20 string. In the case where there is more than one Macintosh cmap subtable and more than one Name ID 20 string, there is no definition of which one matches the post table format 4.

Note that while both Apple and Microsoft support the same set of name strings, the interpretations may be somewhat different. But since name strings are stored by platform, encoding and language (placing separate strings for both Apple and MS platforms), this should not present a problem.

The key information for this table for MS fonts relates to the use of strings 1, 2 and 4. To better help understand, some examples of name usage, weight class and style flags have been created.

Note that OS/2 and Windows both require that all name strings be defined in Unicode. Thus all 'name' table strings for platform ID = 3 (Microsoft) will require two bytes per character. Macintosh fonts require single byte strings.

Examples of how these strings might be defined:

  1. The copyright string from the font vendor. © Copyright the Monotype Corporation plc, 1990

  2. The name the user sees. Times New Roman

  3. The name of the style. Bold

  4. A unique identifier that applications can store to identify the font being used. Monotype: Times New Roman Bold:1990

  5. The complete, hopefully unique, human readable name of the font. This name is used by Windows. Times New Roman Bold
    (If this were the Microsoft platform string for a CFF OpenType font, then the value would be TimesNewRoman-Bold, as described in the definition of name ID 4 above.)

  6. Release and version information from the font vendor. Version 1.00 June 1, 1990, initial release

  7. The name the font will be known by on a PostScript printer. TimesNewRoman-Bold

  8. Trademark string. Times New Roman is a registered trademark of the Monotype Corporation.

  9. Manufacturer. Monotype Corporation plc

  10. Designer. Stanley Morison

  11. Description. Designed in 1932 for the Times of London newspaper. Excellent readability and a narrow overall width, allowing more words per line than most fonts.

  12. URL of Vendor. http://www.monotype.com

  13. URL of Designer. http://www.monotype.com

  14. License Description. This font may be installed on all of your machines and printers, but you may not sell or give these fonts to anyone else.

  15. License Info URL. <http://www.monotype.com/license/>

  16. Reserved. Set to zero.

  17. Preferred Family. No name string present, since it is the same as name ID 1 (Font Family name).

  18. Preferred Subfamily. No name string present, since it is the same as name ID 2 (Font Subfamily name).

  19. Compatible Full (Macintosh only). No name string present, since it is the same as name ID 4 (Full name).

  20. Sample text. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

  21. PostScript CID findfont name. No name string present. Thus, the PostScript Name defined by name ID 6 should be used with the “findfont” invocation for locating the font in the context of a PostScript interpreter.

The following is an example of only name IDs 6 and 20 in the CFF OpenType Japanese font Kozuka Mincho Std Regular (other name IDs are also present in this font):

6. PostScript name: KozMinStd-Regular. Since a name ID 20 is present in the font (see below), then the PostScript name defined by name ID 6 should be used with the “composefont” invocation for locating the font in the context of a PostScript interpreter.

20. PostScript CID findfont name: KozMinStd-Regular-83pv-RKSJ-H, in a name record of Platform 1 [Macintosh], Platform-specific script 1 [Japanese], Language: 0xFFFF [English]. This name string is a PostScript name that should be used with the “findfont” invocation for locating the font in the context of a PostScript interpreter, and is associated with the encoding specified by the following cmap subtable, which must be present in the font: Platform: 1 [Macintosh]; Platform-specific encoding: 1 [Japanese]; Language: 0 [not language-specific].