Accented letters in font names

Yves Michel
Yves Michel Posts: 189
in Technique and Theory
Hello,
I designed a new "Art Nouveau" font and named it "Café-concert".
Am I right to believe that the font title is correct, even with the /é/ in it?
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Comments

  • Erwin Denissen
    Erwin Denissen Posts: 310
    Accented characters can occasionally pose compatibility issues in older systems or certain URL contexts, but most contemporary software and web platforms handle them without difficulty. Over time, general support has improved significantly, so it’s likely your font name will work fine on modern operating systems, applications, and online services.

    It is worth noting that some operating systems or programs might become confused if a font name begins with certain symbols (like the at sign) or includes commas, and there may be additional edge cases. Meanwhile, fonts in non-Latin scripts—such as Arabic or Chinese—illustrate that a wide array of characters is already in common use, though it’s always wise to test new fonts in popular desktop publishing software to avoid surprises.

    Ultimately, including an accent in the name not only reflects its French origins but also adds an appealing historical touch, especially for a design inspired by that period.

    Disclaimer: I’m a software developer rather than a designer or artist, so I’m not familiar with every popular software package.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,927
    About 23 years ago, accented characters in a font menu name were a problem... IIRC on Windows and specifically in Office. If you don’t care about ancient environments, I expect such issues have largely been resolved. If you care that it works perfectly everywhere, then I would probably be boring and still avoid it.
  • Yves Michel
    Yves Michel Posts: 189
    Thanks Erwin!
    I own Font Creator so I know you're an expert on font creation.
    It's not a question of software, it's a website on which I publish my fonts. I contacted them to signal the problem and am waiting for an answer.

    Thanks Thomas!
    I personnaly don't care about ancient environments, and maybe the concerned website will correct this retrograde detail.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,227
    What about long s?
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 300
    Font formats are old enough that certain assumptions about name data encoding were made at the time of their invention that would not be made today, and trying to shoehorn in anything outside of a subset of ASCII is looking for trouble. That definitely includes ſ.
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 261
    Erwin Denissen said:
    most contemporary software and web platforms handle them without difficulty
    figma is the major exception that I am aware of. it's annoying; font names appear correctly in the menu that displays the font once it's selected, but they fail in the font selection menu itself. I swear I saw one that worked, once, but can't remember the font. I had wanted to inspect its name table..

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,927
    It figures that somebody would still have a problem.

    Did you report the issue to Figma? This seems like the kind of thing they would address.
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 261
    Hmm, I don't remember, to be honest, but I suspect I didn't, because you're right, they are usually better about bug reports than the other major platforms. I did just verify that it's still a problem. What I'll do is report it from my day job where we have a large account with a dedicated rep, in case it affects the priority/triage process. I have to wonder if one of the menus is looking at name ID 6 or something, I'll link them to the spec
  • Matthew Smith
    Matthew Smith Posts: 93
    edited January 25
    For reference, here is an example of how Figma fails to show the preview correctly.

    Screenshot of Figma font menu

    Edit: I’ve reported this in the Figma Forum as I couldn’t find an existing thread for it.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,927
    So, the name fails to display correctly in the preview. But does selecting the font still work?

    When you wrote “but they fail in the font selection menu” I interpreted that to mean that selection didn’t work correctly. But now I am thinking this is just cosmetic, correct?
  • Matthew Smith
    Matthew Smith Posts: 93
    Correct! Just a cosmetic issue. The font still seems to function normally and is still searchable.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,927
    Ah, that is not a huge deal then.

    The old problem I think I am remembering in Word many years ago was more serious, where the font did not function properly. I don’t remember with certainty whether it failed to show up in the menu, or what.
  • jeremy tribby
    jeremy tribby Posts: 261
    thanks for reporting, matthew! if it's searchable I bet it's an easy fix
  • André G. Isaak
    André G. Isaak Posts: 636
    The only issue I’ve ever encountered with accented characters is the some applications (including InDesign) don’t alphabetize them quite right. i.e. café would come after cafu.

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