Re: [ft] Styles - Regular vs Black

[Werner LEMBERG]

> During our upgrade from v2.1.7 to v2.3.7, I've encountered a change
> in the way "family" and "style" fields are reported by FT,
> specifically in regards to an "Arial Black" font that is part of
> Windows.
> 
> Note that this font has different versions between XP (v2.35) and
> Vista (v5.0).  This change, in conjunction with the FT upgrade,
> seems to result in different information being reported by 'ftdump'

The new Arial versions most probably have

  TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_FAMILY
  TT_NAME_ID_FONT_FAMILY
  TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_SUBFAMILY
  TT_NAME_ID_FONT_SUBFAMILY

set.

> Using ftdump v2.1.7 and v2.3.7:
> 
>        |   ariblk.ttf (XP)  | ariblk.ttf (Vista) |
>  ------|--------------------|--------------------|
> v2.1.7 |family: Arial Black |family: Arial Black |
>        |style:  Regular     |style:  Regular     |
>  ---------------------------|--------------------|
> v2.3.7 |family: Arial Black |family: Arial       |
>        |style:  Regular     |style:  Black       |
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> So, I guess my first question is, is this change expected?

Yes.

> If yes, what does the style=Black mean, and where/how is it exposed
> by FT?  For example, I don't see any sort of FT_STYLE_FLAG_BLACK ...

Don't expect that the primitive algorithm used to expose the style and
family handles all cases!  Regarding Arial, it does the right thing, I
believe.

>    - Is it just an alias for Bold?

No, it's bolder.

>    - If yes, then how do you distinguish between Arial-Bold and
>      Arial-Black fonts
>    - If it is not exposed/supported/reflected by FT, then how do you
>      distinguish between Arial and Arial-Black fonts?

Please read this document for details:

  http://blogs.msdn.com/text/archive/2007/04/23/wpf-font-selection-model.aspx


    Werner