Font Priority in InDesign (What’s It Really Using?)

David Blatner

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I posed a question to Thomas Phinney at Adobe recently (master of all things font-related) regarding the priority that InDesign considers fonts. That is, if you have four versions of Arial or Times or some other font on your computer, which one is InDesign really going to use? In some cases, the answer is “All of them.” That is, if you have a TrueType version, a Postscript Type 1 version, and an OpenType version, you may see them all listed in the Font menu — each with its own little icon next to it, telling you which is which.

However, sometimes you don’t get that icon. For example, I have a TrueType and an OpenType version of Times New Roman on my system (I recently discovered) but only one shows up. Why?!

Thomas, never one to retreat from such a challenge, jumped in and found some answers, which he posted on his Typblography. While it’s somewhat esoteric reading, there are some surprises in there, including that InDesign considers the number of glyphs in the font! A later version will have more glyphs (one assumes).

He also considers the problem of font style synonyms. For example, how “Roman” and “Normal” are considered the same. He doesn’t mention here, but it’s worth noting, that in InDesign CS and earlier (yes, the good ol’ days), “Medium” was also considered the same as “Regular”, which caused a number of problems, so Adobe changed it.

Take a look at that post, and others on his blog. Good stuff! Thanks, Thomas!