Windows Yu Gothic UI font: two font weights identical?

Rick Davies
Rick Davies Posts: 10
in Font Technology
Using a proprietary composition engine I'm seeing (or think I'm seeing) the following two fonts are identical.

        fontFamily="Yu Gothic UI" fontWeight="Semibold"
        fontFamily="Yu Gothic UI" fontWeight="Bold"

Double-checking using Adobe InDesign, these fonts seem identical there too.



There must be some good technical reason for this. Just now I'm scratching my head wondering what it could be ...

I know, not a big issue issue in the scheme of things, but if anyone has any ideas (or corrections) it would be great.

Thank you for the space to ask this question.

Rick


Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,865
    Well, one possibility is that the Semibold either doesn’t exist at all, or is not available at the time you are calling for it. You could be getting font substitution.

    By default in InDesign (albeit: depending on preferences settings I think?), that is usually called out by a pink highlight on the text, though, so it is often pretty darn obvious.
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 206
    Windows does include a Yu Gothic UI Semibold.

    Yu Gothic font family - Typography | Microsoft Docs
  • c.g.
    c.g. Posts: 54
    edited December 2021
    They are both present into a file named YuGothB.ttc located into the C:\Windows\Fonts folder.

    There are three fonts packed into that ttc file:
    • YuGothic-Bold.ttf
    • YuGothicUI-Bold.ttf
    • YuGothicUI-Semibold.ttf
    YuGothicUI-Bold.ttf and YuGothicUI-Semibold.ttf are the same thing indeed. I TTXed both and the only differences are:

    <head>
    <checkSumAdjustment value />
    <modified />

    <OS/2>
    <usWeightClass value />

    nameIDs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 16 and 17.

    For the rest, they are identical.








  • Aaron Bell
    Aaron Bell Posts: 93
    I should probably remember as I was the owner of the font for Microsoft years ago, but if I had to guess, it was probably added to accommodate some Windows UI requirement for a Semibold weight (as Segoe UI includes a SemiBold) and it was easier / cheaper to just “magic” one into existence rather than try and create a real instance of it.

    Folks outside of Microsoft shouldn’t be using the UI fonts anyway as they’re specifically made / modified for the needs of Windows UI, but, well, that ship sailed a long time ago.
  • Rick Davies
    Rick Davies Posts: 10
    Thanks everyone for great answers. Truly helpful!

    So, a new font category, 'delusional fonts', has been lurking out there longer than VT fonts :)

    Could we also have 'payroll fonts' with 1s replaced by 9s?

    FWIW, IMO, Yu Gothic UI has better Latin text for some use cases ...


  • Aaron Bell
    Aaron Bell Posts: 93
    The Latins in Yu Gothic UI are imported from Segoe UI I believe.
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 206
    Windows has many fonts that are designed primarily for scripts other than Latin. If you particularly like one of those fonts for Latin text, then it's a good default assumption that you'll find those in another Windows font with Latin as one of the designed-for scripts.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,165
    edited December 2021
    If you particularly like one of those fonts for Latin text, then it's a good default assumption that you'll find those in another Windows font with Latin as one of the designed-for scripts.
    But not always. Some MS fonts have Latins that were specifically designed to harmonise with the primary, other-than-Latin script, e.g. Nyala, Javanese Text, and Arabic Typesetting.

    Okay, so maybe I’m the only person who does that. :)
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 206
    @John Hudson And I kinda expected you'd mention there are exceptions. :smile:

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