Fontlab 7 - Windows reads exported font name differently

Laurensius Adi

I'm making a font named 'LS Ultra Grotesk' using Fontlab 7.

It's a Multiple Masters, with 6 weights. Here's from Font Info > Instances.

I'm exporting the font to Web PS (otf) using these Instances.

If I install these fonts, Windows doesn't recognize them as a family.

Windows wrongly reads the regular weight as family: LS Grotesk with style: Ultra.

What should I do?

John Hudson

Hmm. Based on what you report, I would be worried that Windows might have an algorithm that treats 'Ultra' as a weight style name. That's just the sort of undocumented behaviour software developers love to hard code into font support.

Thomas Phinney

John’s theory seems likely.

As a test, try changing the family name to, say, “LS Ultre Grotesk” and see if that behaves as expected, or exhibits the same unexpected behavior.

Laurensius Adi

Renaming the font makes it behave as expected.

Any suggestions or workaround so I can keep the original name?
Should I try using numbers?

Peter Constable

John Hudson said:

Hmm. Based on what you report, I would be worried that Windows might have an algorithm that treats 'Ultra' as a weight style name. That's just the sort of undocumented behaviour software developers love to hard code into font support.

The name handling algorithm used in DWrite and WPF has actually been documented for a long time.

WPF font selection model - Microsoft (windows.net)

John Hudson

Thanks, Peter. That is a useful document, if alarming at times. Section D. Extract terms for weight on page 8 suggests why Laurensius is running into problems with his family name.

Laurensius Adi

Thanks for the docs.

I just tried naming the fonts using numbers like 45, 55, 75. Windows still read my fonts as LS Grotesk Ultra, and the bold becomes LS Grotesk Ultra Bold.

I guess I should look for another family name?

Thomas Phinney

That sounds like either (or both!):
- a font caching problem
- you have changed some name table entries, but not all the relevant ones

Adam Jagosz

Just because it's documented doesn't mean it's justified. That's the kind of infuriating  behavior developers love implementing because they think they know better.

Tanveer Qureshi

Hi, 
If I am not wrong, you should consider LS Ultra Grotesk into LS Ultra Grotesk Bold.

Thomas Phinney

I think I misread. You were just renaming the styles, but keeping the family name with the "Ultra" in it. Yeah, no surprise that did not help evade the Windows algorithm.