How to install Fonts - Family & Single Fonts

Installing on Mac OS 9 | Installing on Mac OS X | Installing on Windows | General considerations

Family & Single Fonts

Font installation
Please contact our Support Team if you have problems installing your fonts after reading the following instructions.

What is the difference between “Single” fonts and a font “Family”?

Most of the fonts from Linotype are arranged in Mac OS and/or Windows either as “families” or as “single fonts,” independent of whether you are using PostScript, TrueType or OpenType format fonts.

Font Families:

A font family can consist of up to four individual fonts, e.g., Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. When using Windows, it is most common to have these four fonts installed as a “family.”
In an application’s font menu, only the “base” font (usually called Regular or Roman) will appear. If you would like to use the italic or bold version of the font, you must activate it using the style buttons, usually indicated with an “I” for italic and “B” for bold.

Single fonts:

Fonts that do not have links to other fonts and appear separately in the font menu of applications are called “single” fonts. Styles (italic, bold, etc) may be applied, but these will be generated electronically through the application, and may vary in appearance to “true” italics or bolds. It is always advisable to have the correct italics and bolds installed to prevent unwanted, poor-looking renderings on screen, or in print.

Attention:
“Family” and “Single” fonts are treated differently on the MacOS and Windows operating systems. When installing only one member of the font family in Windows, the name of the base font will appear in the font menu (e.g., Frutiger Roman), independently if you have installed a non-base font (e.g., Frutiger Bold).
On Macintosh systems all members of the font family are listed in the applications font menu, contrary to Windows applications. But if you have purchased only parts of the font family (e.g., Frutiger Bold), only this particular font will display correctly. All other fonts will appear jagged on screen and in printouts.
See also: What happens if I install just two fonts from a bigger font family?

Using “Family” and “Single” fonts

On Windows systems it is very common to select the desired font from the font menu of your application and then apply a style to it (e.g., italic or bold). If you install single fonts and you choose to activate a style, e.g., italic, via the style menu, your application will italicize the text automatically. Depending on your software and printer equipment, outputs can be of different quality. For instance, while some printers print out the “false” italics or bolds, others do not print correctly at all. Therefore, you should install family fonts when using Windows.

Mac OS organises fonts differently in applications. Usually Macintosh users will activate the desired font styles directly without using the style buttons, because all members of the font family appear in the font menu. The major problem is when work files, which are produced on the Mac, are exchanged with Windows. Since Mac users activate the styles directly and Windows users in majority use style buttons, the document created on the Mac will not be recognized on Windows. The same thing happens when exchanging file from Windows to Mac.

What’s the solution when exchanging documents cross-platform?

When exchanging work files cross-platform it is always advisable to do the following:

1. Use the same fonts from the same font vendor for MacOS and Windows. There are various versions of fonts available (e.g., Officina, Helvetica, Rotis, etc). Mixing old and new fonts will result in chaos.
   
2. Use the most current version of the fonts to minimize incompatibility with hardware and software, as well as to receive a product that is produced according to current production guidelines for fonts.
   
3. Use either just family fonts, or just single fonts. If you decide upon using family fonts, then you should work using the style buttons on the Mac. This will assure that the file can be opened correctly on the PC. When using single fonts, be sure not to use the styles. Instead activate the fonts directly from the font menu.
   
4. Never install family and single fonts at the same time!
   

What happens if I install just two fonts from a bigger font family?

Depending on which operating system you are using there are several things to be aware of:

Macintosh:
If you install the family version of the two fonts (e.g., roman and bold), you will receive one suitcase plus two printer files and two *.afm files. Included in the suitcase are the bitmaps for all four members of the font family. Still, all four fonts that are part of the family appear in the font menu. Now, if you select italic or bold italic for printing, the screen display and print will not look smooth because of the missing printer font files, while roman and bold look smooth because the printer fonts are included. Install the single fonts if you would like to have the fonts available in your application, which have the accompanying printer fonts.

Windows:
When using Windows, unlike the Macintosh only the base font will appear in the font menu. You can select all styles (italic, bold, bold italic), although only the bold is “true” and not electronically generated.

Why family and single fonts?

Linotype offers both family and single fonts. Some of our clients only need a single font from a specific font family for a project in which they are involved. Therefore Linotype sells the majority of its font products on a “per-weight-basis.” This saves cost for the customer.

Which files need to be installed when downloading fonts from the website?

When downloading fonts from the Linotype webshop, they will arrive packaged in *.zip files. These need to be extracted using StuffIt Expander (Macintosh), or Winzip (Windows). After extracting the file LT_xx-123.zip you will find the following items:

Documents – This is folder where the License agreement and Trademark files are stored
Fonts – Find the actual purchased font files here
html – This folder contains accompanying files for Readme.html
Readme.html – This file includes extra information on the downloaded files

Have a look inside the “Fonts” folder. When the fonts folder is opened, the following items will be viewable, depending on the purchase:

Mac/PC PS Family – This folder includes the family oriented fonts
Mac/PC PS Single – This folder includes the single fonts
Mac/PC TT Family – This folder includes the family oriented fonts
Mac/PC TT Single – This folder includes the single fonts
OT/Family – This folder includes the family oriented fonts
OT/Single – This folder includes the single fonts

Depending on which fonts you choose to install, the appearance in the font menu will vary as explained above.