: How to determine correct font name between OSX and Windows with Adobe "Find Font" In Adobe Illustrator CC 2017, Edit: To everyone else who is experiencing this problem. It appears to

@Sarah814

After months of researching I have found many solutions to this problem.

You need to search for the PostScript name.

Windows font manager does not search for it. That's why it doesn't show up when you search for it. Don't worry, there's a way around that!



Option 1 (Nexusfont )


Download nexusfont (FREE)
(Optional) Uninstall all fonts except for Windows that came with Windows. (To prevent conflicts)
Organize fonts and then search for PostScript name.
Right click properties and it will give you more details on the naming.


Pros: Gives a lot of details. Doubles as a great FontManager with live type preview capabilities. Install and uninstall fonts directly from nexusfont.

Cons: All fonts are active until you close out of the program. It's not really a con unless you have too many fonts. Can cause certain programs to crash. You have to install the font, close out of NexusFont, finish your job close your job then open NexusFont then uninstall the font, then close NexusFont.

Option 2 (Windows Explorer Method)


Do NOT use Windows Font manager to search. It does not search PostScript names.
(Optional) Uninstall all fonts except for Windows that came with Windows. (To prevent conflicts)
Move all your fonts to a folder outside of the "Windows Font
Manager Folder." search your PostScript name in the search field. It
will show all fonts that contain that PostScript name.
To see the PostScript Name: Right click -> Properties -> Details -> Title


Pros: Do not need to download additional software.

Cons: Cannot read all the details because windows explorer is stupid and cuts it off with no way to expand the properties window.



Dishonorable mentions (stay clear unless you already have these):


Free trial of Suitcase Fusion by Extensis.
That's because it's 9.95 and it's really not that good except for the "Auto Activation" and "Temporary Activation" It might be worth it if that matters to you.
Universal Type Server by Extensis. Because it's so expensive they don't list the price and it doesn't manage a local database. It's slower than NexusFont and constantly crashes.




I could not find any other type manager that searched PostScript names with the ability to install and uninstall fonts. If anyone else has some other font managers that can do this comment and I will add them to the list. Thank you!

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@Twilah924

After checking the information provided by FontForge, it must be clear that the names are not completely different: the OTF specification restricts certain names to be only certain number of characters maximum. The different names displayed are the names of the same font taken from different fields in the same 'name' table.

To solve the problem, we have many pieces of information missing:


An illustrator file saves many attributes of the fonts in use. After checking a sample file I created, I see it saves the Font Name (or Full Name), Family Name and Font File. I cannot be sure how it saves the font name in a networked environment, and how it changes between Mac and Windows.
I cannot be sure which of the three attributes is used in each version (Win & Mac) of Illustrator to identify the font in use. They could be different in each case.


Suggested Edit: It appears in this case when using Windows instead of Mac, Illustrator is using the "PostScript name" in the "Find Font" window.


Also, I cannot be sure on how the Operating System reports the available fonts to the application in each OS.


The (wildly different) possible solutions I could see are:


Embed the font in the document, so you don't need to depend on a server (Problems are: is this allowed for you? The font license allows it?)


Embed Fonts (For Other Applications): Embeds all fonts that contain
appropriate permissions from the font vendor. Embedding fonts ensures
that the original font is displayed and printed if the file is placed
into another application, such as Adobe InDesign. However, if the file
is opened in Illustrator on a computer that does not have the font
installed, the font will be faux or substituted. This is to prevent
illegal use of the embedded font. note: Selecting the Embed Fonts
option increases the size of the saved file.
helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/saving-artwork.html
After checking that the fonts are effectively the same, you can do manual substitution of fonts (Problems: a lot of work! Not automated.).
Windows tends to make a mess of things with old fonts and organize and report the fonts using incorrect fields, so it could be possible to edit the font files to include only the name fields that are platform-independent (Problems: also a lot of work, and very technical. Also, the license for the font most probably will never allow you to do it).


For the moment, I cannot think of any other solution, it seems to be a messy problem.



Some technical info:


OTF Specification.

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