v16 fonts weird with bold and italic

[procyon]

In v16 the bold and italic buttons are greyed out for some fonts in text tool settings.
For example if I create some text in Arial Black both bold and italic are greyed out.
I can still achieve the italic effect if I convert the text to some other font (for example Arial) then select italic and convert back to Arial Black.
It looks correct but when exporting to PDF the italic is removed.
With Garamond both bold and italic buttons are available, but if I click bold then italic is greyed out. But if I click italic first then bold still stays available and in this order both can be selected.
Tested same behaviour on three computers, Win XP 32bit and Win 7 x64.

[greenmorpher]

You need to think it through, procyon. The bold and italic buttons are grayed out because Arial Black has neither bold nor italic. It doesn't have bold because it is black already -- blacker than bold. It doesn't have italic because it doesn't.

The bold and italic buttons are active when you switch to Arial because it offers both bold and italic. You can switch from Arial italic to Arial black and get a faux black italic on screen, but it doesn't PDF or print because it doesn't actually exist.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[bkh]

You can switch from Arial italic to Arial black and get a faux black italic on screen, but it doesn't PDF or print because it doesn't actually exist.

I totally agree with Geoff's explanation about missing fonts. However, I think that it is a bug in the Win version that it shows a faux black italic version on screen (the Mac version doesn't), since PL seems to have decided against faux black or italic versions (a wise decision, as far as I am concerned).

Apart from this, I think that it makes sense that PL retains the "bold" or "italic" information, even when switching to a font that doesn't have such a typeface - once you switch to another font which supports that attribute, the text is properly formatted again. Of course, it would be nice for the user to have some sort of warning if one of the attributes is not supported by the chosen font.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[procyon]

You need to think it through, procyon. The bold and italic buttons are grayed out because Arial Black has neither bold nor italic. It doesn't have bold because it is black already -- blacker than bold. It doesn't have italic because it doesn't.

When I look in my fonts folder I see "Arial Black Italic" is installed. So there is an italic version of Arial Black.

And the behaviour with Garamond is certainly buggy, since the order in which I select bold and italic shouldn't change the options available.

[bkh]

When I look in my fonts folder I see "Arial Black Italic" is installed. So there is an italic version of Arial Black.

Maybe it isn't recognized as italic version of Arial Black? Then you probably have "Arial Black Italic" as a separate item on your PL font list. Do these fonts work together in other programs?

And the behaviour with Garamond is certainly buggy, since the order in which I select bold and italic shouldn't change the options available.

Now the interesting question is if you have a Garamod Bold Italic font alongside Garamod Bold and Garamond Italic …

Cheers

Burkhard.

[greenmorpher]

You need to think it through, procyon. The bold and italic buttons are grayed out because Arial Black has neither bold nor italic. It doesn't have bold because it is black already -- blacker than bold. It doesn't have italic because it doesn't.

When I look in my fonts folder I see "Arial Black Italic" is installed. So there is an italic version of Arial Black.

And the behaviour with Garamond is certainly buggy, since the order in which I select bold and italic shouldn't change the options available.

Right, you have a point. I've just checked on the Mac and find that both Bold and Italic options show and register as clicked, but nothing happens to Arial Black on screen (I don't have an Arial Black Italic installed).

This is wrong -- the B and I buttons should be grayed out to show they are inactive.

And yes, that Garamond behaviour certainly indicates a bug.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com