Fonts

[tpenna]

VW2018 SP3

Windows 7

 

I've downloaded and installed a font called Neutra Display Drafting, which works on my desktop running Windows 10, but not on my laptop running Windows 7.  This is a new document, so there are no font mappings.  The Neutra font works in MS Word on the same Win7 laptop.  I had a similar problem in VW with another font, Graphite, but that is working now (not sure why).  Any ideas?

[Art V]

Is the font an OpenType font (TTF or OTF extension) or a TrueType font (TTF extension)?

If you open the font by double clicking it in the fonts folder then you should get a window that states at the top (usually 3rd line after font name and version) whether it is an OpenType or a TrueType font.

 

If it says OpenType, TrueType Outlines it is an OpenType font in TrueType format.

If it says TrueType Outlines and does not mention OpenType on the same line then it is a plain TrueType font.

 

All three fonts type should work in VW2018 though.

 

You may want to try removing and reinstalling the font, that may force an update of the font cache and have VW recognize it.

Are you using a font manager or is the font linked into the fonts folder instead of directly installed into the fonts folder? That could cause  fonts to not show up in some applications depending on how the font manager handles the fonts.

[tpenna]

It is OTF with PostScript Outlines (I have no idea what that means).  I tried re-installing it with no luck.  I am just using the Windows font manager.  Other downloaded fonts (Graphite ATT in particular) are working just fine, but they are TTF's.  I guess that's the issue.

[Art V]

5 hours ago, tpenna said:

It is OTF with PostScript Outlines (I have no idea what that means).  I tried re-installing it with no luck.  I am just using the Windows font manager.  Other downloaded fonts (Graphite ATT in particular) are working just fine, but they are TTF's.  I guess that's the issue.

Yes, in the past Vectorworks could not handle OpenType fonts with Postscript outline (other CAD software and other kinds of software cannot handle Postscript style OpenType fonts either, though DTP software should not have that issue).  Postscript uses a different way of defining contours than TrueType and its internal formatting is a bit different. As a rule of thumb non-DTP software works better with TrueType or OpenType TrueType fonts and does not always support PostScript or OpenType PostsSript fonts. DTP software (Illustrator, InDesign, CorelDRAW, Affinity, QuarkXpress, Photoshop etc.) should handle all these fonts without issues.

 

Vectorworks 2018 can use OpenType fonts in PostScript style since 2017, at least it does on my system, so it may be an issue with your font file.

Upon searching for the font I noticed it is a free font. There are good quality free fonts but are also quite a lot that do have some issues one way or another.

I've downloaded it and opened the font, it is from 2002 and probably uses Unicode 3.3 (current version is Unicode 6) and there are various OpenType format versions as well, OpenType version 1.8 being the most recent.

 

Maybe @JimW knows which versions of Unicode and OpenType Vectorworks support, as it may be that the Unicode and/or OpenType format version is older than supported by Vectorworks.

 

There is font conversion software (free and paid) that can convert from OTF to TTF and vice versa, so if you need or really want to use this font you may want to explore that option. Otherwise you could search Google for a TTF version, e.g. like this one https://www.fontyukle.net/en/Neutra+Display+Drafting.ttf

 

One more comment, this is a so-called Display font which means it is designed for use at large font sizes ( for posters, billboards etc.) so its spacing and shapes can be different from the regular versions. Using it at smaller font sizes could result in suboptimal readabililty, but you'll have to try and see if it works for you or not.

[PVA - Admin]