The recent release of FileMaker Pro 10 is very exciting.  However, it got me thinking about a font problem I recently had and I began wondering if FileMaker, Inc., might have fixed the issue in the new release...

 

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We've all had font issues, but I suppose I've mostly ignored them.  I've said repeatedly "FileMaker isn't a page layout program" as an excuse for things such as poor pagination, poor variable control over object placement, cross-platform issues with sizing, etc.  However, up until recently I'd never actually hit a brick wall.  Up to this point I could always either "talk around" the issue or build a substitute (ask me about my technique for displaying "Page 2 of 10" at the bottom of a printed report).

 

While working on a complex printed event registration form for a certain college in Cambridge, MA, I was busy focusing on the problems, including the disparate display of registration items (some have options, varying ticket types, checkboxes, counts, etc), pagination (they wanted the first page to be fixed and all the registration items to be on the second page--but not a third page), fixed layout elements along with a variable number of items (we wanted the "payment" box to always display at the bottom of the second page regardless of how many registration items were on that page); I never considered that we'd have a fundamental font problem.

They had a specific font in mind.  On the face of it, not an unreasonable request at all.

Well, "that's no issue", I said, "send me the font and I'll use it".  They sent it over, it was a PostScript Type 1 font--full of AFM (Adobe font metrics), PFM (printer font metrics), INF (informational text file) and mt1 (anybody?).  Here's where it gets murky...

They were on PC.  I fired up my trusty copy of Parallels and installed the font (several fonts, actually, all part of the same family).  I opened FileMaker and the font wasn't listed.  I opened another program and it was there.  I thought, "oh, of course, I have to restart FileMaker to see the new fonts".  After a restart, nada...

I did some Google searches and stumbled across a page at FileMaker.com that summarized the problem:

Use only TrueType fonts. The Windows version of FileMaker Pro does not support any other font formats, such as OpenType, PostScript Type 1, bitmap, raster, or vector fonts.

That page, which used to be here, is now missing from FileMaker.com, but is still available for now via the Google cache.  Perhaps they've fixed the issue (which, put succinctly, is this, "FileMaker should support any and all installed fonts on the platform on which it's running").  One can hope.

The "solution" in the short term...use a Mac. I'd be interested in hearing if others out there have had PST1 woes on Windows as well. Also, look forward to seeing if this has been addressed in the new version.