Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Adobe and type

Digital Typography -- twenty years later

shipbreaker — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:23:53 -0800

Way way back in the day I unlocked the Adobe AVENIR font family from my Adobe TYPE ON CALL CD-ROM, on a Macintosh that probably had a Motorola 68030 microprocessor inside. Do I still "own" those fonts, and does Adobe keep records of such things? I know for sure that I paid for it, and it was around fifty dollars, and I remember this quite clearly because that was a LOT of money for me at the time. I know I was able to move the font to floppy disks, or something like that. Well, here we are in the year 2012. I wish I could use that AVENIR font that I bought. Do I still have the rights to get at that font, or did I lose those rights when I lost the Mac?

How do I achieve crisp text in a Photoshop PDF?

roxie110 — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:21:12 -0800

How do I achieve crisp text in a Photoshop PDF, and how can I ensure that Photoshop-created type will come out OK when commercially printed? This is actually a two-part question. Feedback welcome on one or both parts.

1. I'm creating a one-page press release to email to potential book reviewers and venues for readings. Of the various formats (doc, jpeg, PDF), PDF seems best for this purpose. I don't have InDesign, so I created the press release in Photoshop; the file has 8 layers and is mostly text (plus two images). After converting the file to PDF, I'm also hoping to add hyperlinks in Adobe Acrobat.

My question is how to save the file as a PDF while ensuring that the text can be clearly read on screen at any size, and also when printed out? If you could provide specific instructions for either Photoshop 7 or CS3, that would be very helpful (do I flatten any layers? What boxes do I check or uncheck?). Also, how do I ensure the file isn't enormous, and won't take tons of time to print out, while still maintaining a crisp, clear look?

2. I've created the front cover and spine of my book in Photoshop as well (I know, I know, Photoshop isn't good for type). The designer asked me to save the PSD file as a layered TIF and is planning to somehow add that to her InDesign layout of the back cover to send to the printer.

Is this going to work (i.e., will the type turn out OK?), and/or should I be sending her a flat TIF or a layered PDF or some other type of file? My main concern is that the printed book cover turns out exactly the same as I designed it on screen--no type shifting, and crisp, clear type.

*Bonus question: what is this message I keep getting in Photoshop when I open my PSD file? "Some text layers may need to be updated before they can be used for vector-based output. Do you want to update them now?" *

Thank you so much, type gurus! I've spent so much time online searching for answers but only seem to come up with conflicting information.

Adobe sans-serif

Foam Pants — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:23:20 -0800

If you could pick one sans-serif family from Adobe, what would it be and why? I am trying to branch out from the Myriad Pro I got free with InDesign.

export illustrator paragraph styles

pinto — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:59:54 -0800

How can I extract the font and color information from an *Illustrator* file's paragraph styles and character styles? An ordered plain-text list would be great, coded CSS based on style names even greater. I know this is possible to do in inDesign using tags linked to styles, but I can't seem to figure out a way to do it in Illustrator. For that matter, how can I import my Illustrator paragraph styles to inDesign?

The metadata for the file revealed in Bridge lists all my palettes, but not just used colors, and it lists the fonts, but no specific size per paragraph style.

Thanks in advance!