ESV Study Bible, TrueType vs OpenType

[Brett K.]

In the ESV Study Bible module, a TrueType font (like Optima) applies italics to apparently random words where an OpenType font (like Myriad Pro) does not. They both display italics for some words--and apparently the correct words. But Optima displays some italics where Myriad does not.

 

I've attached a screen shot with the differences marked in red. Optima (TrueType) is on the left and Myriad Pro (OpenType) is on the right. You can see that both fonts have the word "adam" italicized in the fifth line.

 

My question, which is correct? Are the words Optima is italicizing supposed to be italicized?

 

Thanks

 

--

Brett

 

[David Lang]

Brett,

 

I don't believe this has anything to do with OpenType vs. TrueType fonts. Rather, I suspect it has to do with the fact that you have an Optima italic font installed on your system but not an italic font of Myriad Pro.

 

A little known aspect of Apple's Quartz text rendering is that it requires an italic version of a font to be present before it will show italics. You can test this in any word processor. Enter some text in Optima and then apply an italic style to some of it. Now try changing the font to Myriad Pro. Do you lose the italics in the word processor?

 

In my opinion, this is a step backward from the classic Mac OS. The classic Mac OS would render italic text by using an italic font if one was present, but if one was not present, it would algorithmically angle the text. In OS X, that is no longer possible.

 

Consequently, when viewing text in Accordance, you want to use a font with a full complement of styles. Otherwise, you won't see styles like italic.

 

By the way, the italicized text you see no matter what font you choose is transliterated text in our own Rosetta font.

 

Hope this helps.

[Brett K.]

I don't believe this has anything to do with OpenType vs. TrueType fonts. Rather, I suspect it has to do with the fact that you have an Optima italic font installed on your system but not an italic font of Myriad Pro.

Thanks for looking into this. I am using the versions of Optima and Myriad Pro that are installed by default with OS X 10.5. Both of them do have italics. I've attached a screen shot of each font as displayed in Font Book so you can see they each have an italic option.

 

 

Enter some text in Optima and then apply an italic style to some of it. Now try changing the font to Myriad Pro. Do you lose the italics in the word processor?

No, the italics remained in place. I created a doc in TextEdit, typed a word, and changed the word's font to Optima Italic. I deselected then reselected the word and changed the font to Myriad Pro. It immediately chose the Italic version of Myriad Pro so the italics were not lost.

 

By the way, the italicized text you see no matter what font you choose is transliterated text in our own Rosetta font.

With that being the case, it sounds like it should not matter whether a font has italic capability since Rosetta italic will be used.

 

I'm definitely confused. Optima and Myriad Pro both have italics, Rosetta displays italics in Accordance, yet there are still differences as to which words get the italic treatment between Optima and Myriad.

 

I did look up the passages in the print edition of the ESV Study Bible and the Optima italicized words are correct. So Myriad is missing some italicized words.

 

Thanks

 

--

Brett

[David Lang]

Hmmm. If Myriad Pro does include an italic font, and it's being used in other programs but not in Accordance, then it would appear the problem is with Accordance. We'll certainly look into it.

 

It sounds like I confused you with my statement about Rosetta. When you set the font for a tool, that font change applies only to all the English text in the tool, but it does not apply to the Greek, Hebrew, and transliterated text, which continue to use Accordance's specialized fonts.

[jpkang]

One minor point of clarification: Optima is an Apple-supplied font, but Myriad Pro ships typically with Adobe Creative Suite apps.

 

Another difference between these fonts is that Optima is packaged so that all the styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, etc.) are in one suitcase (to use the older Mac OS terminology), whereas the Myriad Pro faces are individual files and so appear ungrouped in the font popups in Accordance (compare Times and Times New Roman for this same distinction in Accordance--you can do the nonsensical and choose Times New Roman Italic as your default "Roman" font).

 

Finally, and most crucially, the italic face of Myriad Pro is called Myriad Pro It, not Myriad Pro Italic, which is almost certainly the reason why it goes missing in Accordance's attempt to render italic text in that font. Note that choosing Adobe Caslon Pro or Adobe Garamond Pro or Arno Pro (which all have fully-spelled Italic variants) work, but not Adobe Jenson Pro (whose variant is called Ital).

 

So here's the technical fix: I think that if the standardized "Style Name" or "Full Name" fields in the font's metadata is used, it should work, since the naming conventions in the "FOND Name" field are not consistent.

[Brett K.]

inally, and most crucially, the italic face of Myriad Pro is called Myriad Pro It, not Myriad Pro Italic, which is almost certainly the reason why it goes missing in Accordance's attempt to render italic text in that font. Note that choosing Adobe Caslon Pro or Adobe Garamond Pro or Arno Pro (which all have fully-spelled Italic variants) work, but not Adobe Jenson Pro (whose variant is called Ital).

This does appear to be the case. Both Courier and Helvetica use Oblique rather than Italic. Neither of those display italics properly.

 

Thanks

 

--

Brett

[Brett K.]

Another difference between these fonts is that Optima is packaged so that all the styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, etc.) are in one suitcase (to use the older Mac OS terminology), whereas the Myriad Pro faces are individual files and so appear ungrouped in the font popups in Accordance.

This may be part of the problem, but I tested other fonts that are not grouped and they worked. Droid Serif, Liberation Sans, and Gentium Book Basic are all TrueType fonts with individual files for each style. The styles are applied correctly in Accordance. (All three are free fonts designed by Google, Red Hat, and SIL.)

[jpkang]

This may be part of the problem, but I tested other fonts that are not grouped and they worked. Droid Serif, Liberation Sans, and Gentium Book Basic are all TrueType fonts with individual files for each style. The styles are applied correctly in Accordance. (All three are free fonts designed by Google, Red Hat, and SIL.)

To clarify, I was simply pointing out differences between the two fonts in how they present to the user, and not claiming nor implying that this was a reason why a font would or wouldn't work (as my Times/Times New Roman example illustrates: both work, but present differently to the user).

[Brett K.]

So here's the technical fix: I think that if the standardized "Style Name" or "Full Name" fields in the font's metadata is used, it should work, since the naming conventions in the "FOND Name" field are not consistent.

I discovered another fix that isn't ideal, but it works. I have the free font creation app FontForge running on X11. I opened a copy of DejaVu Sans Oblique (which does not display as italic in Accordance) in FontForge. I edited the Font Info area so that anywhere the word "Oblique" appeared, it was replaced with "Italic". I saved it and re-installed it. Sure enough, it now displays properly in Accordance.

 

--

Brett