Apple SF Fonts on Windows
Jim Parrillo
Posts: 10
I downloaded the various SF fonts from the Apple developer site (https://developer.apple.com/fonts/) and installed them on my work computer (Win 10) but I noticed that the italics are not showing up in Illustrator or Photoshop.
They work fine on my Mac - has anyone else had this problem in Windows?
0
Comments
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I'm not sure if you're allowed to use them on Windows, but they probably don't conform to the specs. I suggest you run the fonts through Font Validator to reveal potential issues.
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If you're not allowed I would do it anyway. And I would freely modify them to work (even if the EULA contains a no-mod clause, something I personally find generally unethical).1
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My first thought was that, as these are Apple system fonts, a reasonable argument could be made that there is no reason they should be built to meet the usual cross-platform standards so as to work on Windows.
However, the license has no prohibition against running them on Windows; it just says they are provided solely to do interface mockups for macOS, iOS and watchOS. But it seems to allow doing those mockups on Windows, Linux, or wherever else you like. (It also requires you to be a registered Apple Developer or otherwise authorized by Apple. And has other restrictions and terms.)
Still, one can understand why Apple wouldn't have worried much about cross-platform concerns in building and testing them.2 -
Erwin Denissen said:[..] I suggest you run the fonts through Font Validator to reveal potential issues.
head
as wrong.
It could be my code (although it does work correctly for all other fonts I have, as far as I know), and it has nothing to do with the Regular vs. Italic problem as reported, since both of these have this "error".
Also – worth mentioning – when I install the font on my Mac, FontBook's Validator reports no errors whatsoever.
No obvious differences between these two in encoding, name tables, head, or metric tables. Funny, though, that only a few ofname
entries appear properly encoded for both Windows and Mac, but the majority only for Windows.
FreeType has no problem using the font:freetypetest -F ./SF-Pro-Text-RegularItalic -f ss01 "1966" ..........###.........#######.................###................###... .......#####........####...####.............###................###..... ....########.......###.......###..........###................###....... ...###...###......###.........###........###................###........ .........##.......###.........###......###................###.......... ........###.......###.........##......#########..........#########..... ........###........###......####....####.....####......####.....####... ........##..........###########.....##.........###.....##.........###.. .......###................###......###.........###....###.........###.. .......###...............###.......###.........###....###.........###.. .......##..............###.........###........###.....###........###... ......###............###............####....####.......####....####.... ......###..........####...............########...........########......
... where featuress01
is "Straight-sided six and nine".
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I looked at version 13.0d1e33. The fsSelection is not assigned. Maybe that is causing the problem1
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I took a closer look at one of the Italic SF fonts:
- The general rangeShift field is invalid
- The font checksum is incorrect
- Incorrect head table checksum
- Invalid Panose data
- The fsSelection regular bit is set
- The macStyle italic bit is clear
The last two errors cause it to behave like a regular font.Here is a tutorial about how to ensure proper style linking for large font families:FWIW if this was an OpenType font with TrueType based outlines, Windows would not install it, as it would then consider it a corrupt font, due to the first 3 errors. I think it should be as strict with CFF based outlines as well.2 -
Apple’s San Francisco font family is also used for all texts on their website, which is served to Web browsers on every OS, including Windows, without issues.
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I don't think modern browsers care too much if a font's style linking isn't set up properly. The CSS tells the browser specifically which web font to use for different text styles including italic.1
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