Fonts: Goodbye Type 1, Hello Variable, Hello Color

In case you hadn’t heard, PostScript Type 1 fonts will quit working in InDesign and other Adobe apps in 2023. Adobe and Monotype never offered upgrade prices for the equivalent OpenType fonts, and those new fonts use different family names. What should you do? Can your Type 1 font library be salvaged?

In this talk, Adam Twardoch will explain InDesign support for font formats old and new, from Type 1 options to Adobe’s support for two new OpenType sub-formats: variable and color fonts. He will demonstrate how you can convert your old but valuable Type 1 fonts to OpenType with FontLab’s TransType 4 app. But super important and often overlooked, he will explain the font name conundrum and how you can use the app’s features to keep or customize names and font family linking. Further, he will show how you can add even more value to your old fonts by turning them into variable OpenType fonts with FontLab 7.

About the Presenter

Adam Twardoch

Adam Twardoch is Director of Products of FontLab. He has also been a font consultant for MyFonts, Monotype, Google, Adobe and many independent font vendors, specializing in font technology, multilingual typography, CSS webfonts, Unicode and OpenType. Adam is a core member of the initiatives that created the OpenType Font Variations and OpenType SVG color font specifications.

He has co-designed several type families, including Lato (by Łukasz Dziedzic) and Milka (by Botio Nikoltchev). Adam teaches workshops in font creation and served on the board Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) for many years. He lives and works in Warsaw and Berlin.