Accessing a new font in the CSS

[Diana_BB]

Today, I installed a new set of fonts (Rotis Sans) that our marketing department likes to use. I'd like to use it for my headings to give the docs some of the corporate look and feel.

I do not see the font in Flare when I try to edit my CSS file. The font files have .pfb and .pfm extensions (if anyone needs to know that).

Any ideas of what I need to do to get Flare to "see" these newly installed fonts?

Thanks,
Diana

[Diana_BB]

Ah, it appears I have found my answer in this thread: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... nts#p42584

I'm betting Rotis Sans is not a font on most people's PCs, so I'm fighting a losing battle to try to use it. Bummer.

Thanks!
Diana

[SteveS]

Use a font family!

Declare rotis sans first, followed by (say) arial and then sans serif. That should satisfy everyone.

HTH

[Diana_BB]

Great idea!

D'oh! Should've been obvious to me!

Thanks!
Diana

[LTinker68]

I think Flare only works with TrueType fonts. I'm not sure if those extensions (.pfb and .pfm) you mentioned mean it's a TrueType or not. You can manually edit the stylesheet file and include the font you want as part of a font-family, but it may appear distorted in print output. Do a few tests to see how it looks in print output. Although if you're using it just for headers then it may not be a problem, but if you're using it for topic content (paragraphs) then test it in print output before you go much further. Although it's not that hard to change the font later, but still, better sooner than later.

[doc_guy]

I use corporate fonts in my PDF output (because the font only needs to be installed on my machine, which is the machine that builds the PDF). I use generic fonts and font families for my WebHelp, because I can't know what fonts will be available on the client computer when they view the help system.

[Diana_BB]

Lisa and Paul,
Thanks for the advice!

I will play with this until I get the results I want. Now is better.

Diana

[Diana_BB]

Paul,
I tried what you suggested, but I can't get the PDF to show the Rotis Sans Serif font that's installed on my system. My WebHelp looks great!

I may be missing something in the font family. I've tried different variations of the Rotis font name since I've seen it spelled a couple of different ways.

I've used these combinations without PDF success:
* 'Rotis SansSerif', Trebuchet MS, sans serif
* 'Rotis Sans Serif', Trebuchet MS, sans serif
* 'Rotis Sans Serif Extra Bold', Trebuchet MS, sans serif

I don't know CSS really well--I know just enough to get by usually. Am I making an obvious mistake in the font family, or missing something else entirely?

I'd appreciate the advice. Thanks!
Diana

[LTinker68]

First, if the font name has spaces in it, then you have to put single quotes around it, like you did in your examples (although you didn't have single quotes around the Trebuchet font).

Second, you need to figure out how it's really identified. You wrote several different versions of the name. When I Googled the name, I found references to "Rotis Sans Serif" and "Rotis Sans Serif Std", along with a few other versions. You might try to see how it's identified in another program, like Photoshop, or even Word. In fact, open a Word doc, type some text in that font, then save the Word file as a web page. Open that web page file in Notepad and find the declaration for the font and see how Word identified it.

[Diana_BB]

Thanks, Lisa,
I tried that. It turns out that the fonts are actually PostScript fonts. Flare doesn't support those yet. So I've contacted support. Perhaps they will support them soon.

Thanks for trying!
Diana

[LTinker68]

When I was looking at the fonts, I came across something that said it's available as TrueType fonts. If it's true, then you can purchase the TrueType version and use that.

[Diana_BB]

Yes! I thought the same thing and got my marketing guy to buy them for me. It's starting to shape up very nicely!

Thanks,
Diana