Back when Adobe finished converting its font library to OpenType around 2003-04, I wanted to draw some kind of line in the sand, but that idea got quickly shot down from many sides. However, the day has finally come!
In January 2023, Type 1 fonts will stop being supported for authoring in most other Adobe products, except for Document Cloud apps (Acrobat, Adobe Sign, Acrobat Reader). Photoshop will end Type 1 support in 2021 (as announced in 2019).
https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/kb/postscript-type-1-fonts-end-of-support.html
Comments
Also, while the Finder still lists their types correctly ("Font Suitcase" and "PostScript Type 1 outline font"), both file types have lost their icons. Instead the Finder shows the default I-have-no-idea-what-this-is icon.
So, I expect Apple will drop Type 1 support as well in the not too distant future.
I just checked my raspberrypi, which has Ubuntu server 20.04 on. There are a little over 4000 type 1 fonts there. Again, almost all of that under texlive. (I don't use GUI on that system - in fact I don't even use a keyboard with it, entirely headless, so there is very little x11 stuff on it)
I totally agree that guidance in this area would be helpful. I won’t be surprised if Adobe clarifies this in the future. They should. There are certainly some fonts Adobe can give a blanket OK to end users to convert, if Adobe wishes to do so. Mostly Adobe Originals and a few other Adobe internal designs.
The main reason this is not simple is... which fonts are “Adobe’s”? When you look at the fonts Adobe licenses/licensed to end users, it was a minority of “the Adobe type library” that Adobe owns outright and can do with as they will. Other fonts were licensed from other foundries, subject to other restrictions, and the license terms can and did change a bit over time.
As I understand it (caveat there!), Adobe originally licensed all Adobe Type Library fonts on the same terms to end users in the 80s and 90s. But eventually there were splits in which fonts got treated what way, so... “it’s complicated.”
This makes me wonder: Which will be more work (or more expensive) for Adobe--continuing to support a font format that hasn't changed in decades or dealing with (probably angry or confused) customers whose fonts suddenly stop working?
Is Adobe planning to be proactive about communicating this to customers as soon as possible to avoid such a situation?
The magnitude of this issue will depend on how many users are still actively using Type 1 fonts, I suppose. Does Adobe know?
Users may still be angry, but at least they won't be surprised when support is actually dropped.
And I just remembered a blog post I made on behalf of Adobe in 2005, talking about phasing out Type 1 as a format—which related to multiple public presentations I did that year). https://blog.typekit.com/2005/10/06/phasing_out_typ/
A general/long notice of 15 years, and a more immediate notice of two years... seems like this should not be a surprise any more. I think prominent warnings in the latest versions of the app, along with more public pronouncements, are significant notification.
At the time, I said (on behalf of Adobe) that all fonts licensed from Adobe could be converted by users, but as mentioned, some of Adobe’s licensing partners—notably Monotype—scuttled that in later years.
The surprise for me is that this day did not come sooner. That speaks to the entrenched nature of fonts, and the fact that people do expect them to last forever, unlike other kinds of software such as apps. So in that respect, my expectations were off.
That said, I totally understand the frustration. I have been working with fonts a long time, and there was a period where I went for Type 1 over TrueType... so yes, I still have a few Type 1 fonts in my library. Out of about 18500 fonts in Suitcase Fusion, about 1% are Type 1. Mostly custom fonts from one project, and dingbat fonts.
@Andreas Stötzner I firmly believe anybody who thinks that there will be competition to lure users irate over lack of Type 1 font support is... mistaken.
Apple’s documentation for example has described Type 1 fonts as “legacy fonts which might work but aren't recommended” for at least a couple of years (not sure how much longer): https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201749
Microsoft stopped supporting Type 1 in their newest imaging environments over a decade ago (unsupported by GDI+, WPF and DirectWrite)—although good old GDI exists in the latest versions of Windows, I expect the overwhelming majority of new apps are written for other imaging systems, and new versions of older apps often migrate.
Supporting Type 1 isn’t free for developers. They have to test it, and continue testing it with new app/OS versions, or it is likely to break. Recent years have seen many such breakages. Like Mac OS Catalina 10.15.1 breaking them across the board for non-Adobe apps, which was not fixed until 10.15.2.
The fact that Mac-flavor Type 1 fonts use a resource fork is especially troublesome. (Hell, the fact that there are platform-differentiated flavors of Type 1 is a problem, but at least Apple supports all three major flavors. Sort of.) Yes, there are workarounds such as repackaging the fonts as .dfonts; it is just another weight against Type 1 support.
#1 Tell them Adobe is exercising its MoneyGod-given right to monopolistic behavior.
#2 Send them here:
https://convertio.co/pfa-otf/
(Thanks to Ken Lunde for the ref.)
https://vetusware.com/download/Adobe OpenType Converter/?id=10319
Adobe OpenType Converter
Does anyone know if is from Adobe?
It works very well.
The real issue is that some font licenses do not permit format conversion, even though that conversion may be technically trivial—certainly compared to, say, converting a hot metal font into a photo font—, and some font vendors chose not to provide free or discounted upgrade licensing.
The above is a bit confusing to me. Wouldn't users be bound by the license in effect at the time of purchase? I have quite a few archived Type 1 fonts from Adobe, including lots of Berthold BE fonts and fonts from Monotype. If the license under which these were purchased allowed for modification (and, AFAIK, they all did), I don't see how Monotype, Berthold, or any of the other companies which later stopped selling their fonts through Adobe could retroactively change the term of those licenses.
But as Thomas has pointed out, there was at some point a split in license terms for Monotype-owned fonts, but that was essentially to address font embedding permissions and modification. I don’t think any Adobe EULA makes a distinction for format conversion, specifically. (That language can be found in §14.7.4 (“You may convert and install the font software into another format for use in other environments ...”).
Yes, the EULA treats “modification” and “conversion” separately. §14.7.6 includes: “The fonts listed on the website as non-modifiable may be converted in accordance with Section 14.7.4 above, but may not be otherwise modified in any way.”
As always, I am not a lawyer, and everyone should read their license and make their own judgements about what’s allowed.