Font naming and version control - incl. different formats

End user perspective - compliance workflows

To improve our validation process for font compliance, I'd welcome any insight to collect and collate font data. Currently we cover eight ID items, but this is still not sufficient. For instance, in our typesetter's software workflow Fairbank's name was declared as "FairbankMT Std-Regular". An example with Fairbank is below, we have a similar listing for around 7,000 fonts.

Name: Fairbank MT Std
Family Name: Fairbank MT Std
PostScript Name: FairbankMTStd
Style: Regular
Unique Name: Unique Mono - Fairbank MT Std
Format (detailed): OpenType (Flavored)
Version: Version 1.000;PS 001.000;hotconv 1.0.38
License Info URL: NI

We'd like our data to be comprehensive for as many situations as possible, to enable us to be systemic in our processes. Our font data is currently derived from FontExplorer, which I believe does not list every ID – are there better tools for this? 

We also have issue determining a good process for LaTeX font naming, as this does not include the same IDs. I am not aware of appropriate metadata / means to collect metadata, besides the file name / font name. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,732
    Katy, can you more clearly define the purpose of this tracking? Is it about licensing compliance only? Or are you also concerned with version tracking or making sure the "same" version of the font is being used at different stages? (design and output, perhaps)
  • KP MawhoodKP Mawhood Posts: 294
    @Paul van der Laan
    Thanks, I met up with Karl Stange at Pearson – and he demoed FontTools. Looks great, I'll take the time to sit down with this. Any pointers towards  python / bash scripting to copy-paste / adapt (GitHub etc.) is much welcomed. 

    I'll experiment with the LaTeX formats in font tools (.afm, pfa, .pfb, .pfm, .tfm, .vf… etc). It's the font-related files that also concern me (.fd, .map, .enc, .def… etc).

    @Thomas Phinney Sure – it's about automating workflows, for compliance. Naming discrepancies add to our need for manual intervention. For small suppliers and author-supplied content, version tracking often falls into risk management.
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    For small suppliers and author-supplied content, version tracking often falls into risk management.

    Well stated.
  • Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,732
    edited May 2017
    OK. I will second the nomination of ttx/FontTools for this purpose. Of getting the data, I mean.
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