Foundries that allow font upgrades

[charles_e]

With all due respect Jens, these don't indicate the black art of type design, or really, making an Opentype font. They're simply questions of someone very new to writing OT features.

What bothers me about the the notions in this thread is the model seems to be that everything can be segmented, that each person can do one task and that's all that's needed from them. The author writes the text. The editor edits it. The book designer gives specifications, and the typesetter sets up styles -- fills out a chart according to the book designers specifications -- then simply flows in the text.

Maybe that's typesetting, but it isn't composition. Easy examples. There is an eng in the text, but no eng in the font. What to do? Set it in Ariel? By the way, proof is due in 1 week. It isn't that hard to make up an eng from an n and a piece of the j, or the f, depending. Or a schwa needed. Just double flip the e & reset the sidebearings. In the font, so it can be properly coded, so the text file is right.

"Oh," the type designer says. "I could have made better ones." But in fact, even if the could have, they didn't make any at all. Mine are better than mixing Times Roman or Ariel in with with the fonts used for the text.

Good editors have to know about (text) design, and a bit about type and composition. Good designers have to know about editorial styles and composition. And good compositors have to be able to work with type, have to understand both editorial and (text) design compromises. Been going on since the 1450s. I can come up with lots of examples, from hand-set foundry type, from Monotype, Photocomp, PostScript, and now OpenType, but I think this has gone on long enough. It is sheer arrogance for type designers to think "only they" can do the job. More than arrogance, because they're wrong, often enough, doubly wrong.

[rajehn27]

pretty

[Ralf H.]

I say it again: If YOU can do font modifications and are fine with the results (and all possible side-effects), then great! We can't argue with that.
But we can tell from our experience that font modifications will likely cause problems for many users, and we can also easily explain why this happens from a technological standpoint. There is also no arguing about that. It's not a matter of opinion. There is nothing for you to disagree.