[Devel] Re: [Fonts]RE: Font family name problem

[Owen Taylor]

[ CC'ing address@hidden ]

Yao Zhang <address@hidden> writes:

> Owen Taylor wrote:
> 
> > A font that has ?'s in the output with the current FreeType
> > most likely has a TrueType name table with invalid contents ...
> > e.g. Chinese in the English name field.
> 
> That is not the case for the font I have here.  For example, the font
> FZHT_GB18030.TTF has two name tables:
> 
> Table 0:
>     platformID = Macintosh
>     platformSpecificID = Roman
>     languageID = English
>     Font Family = FZHei-B01 (in ASCII)
> Table 1:
>     platformID = Microsoft
>     platformSpecificID = Unicode
>     languageID = Chinese - PRC
>     Font Family = XXXX (Chinese in UCS-2)
> 
> There is nothing wrong with those two family names.  The problem is
> recently, FT2 has changed to favoring Unicode encoded name (Table 1)
> instead of ASCII encoded name (Table 0).  So I have this and another
> font family name as "????".  I don't know what is it and I don't know
> which one it is.

Hmm, looking at the tt_face_get_name() code, it does indeed favor a
Microsoft name in any language over an English Macintosh name.

If you look at the threads I referenced, there was at least 
one example:

 http://www.freetype.org/pipermail/devel/2002-March/003113.html

Where the Macintosh/Roman/English entry was not English; I don't
know if that was the reason for the current code or whether its
unintentional.

Still, it seems to me that if we don't have a Microsoft/English 
entry, we might as well take the Macintosh/Roman/English entry - 
it doesn't seem likely to be *worse* than using a known non-English
Microsoft/Unicode entry.

Regards,
                                        Owen