[mpeg-OTspec] Mac version string in 'name' table

[Ken Lunde]

Peter,

I am not sure whether this is an answer to your question, but we (meaning Adobe) have deployed several typeface families whose fonts completely lack Macintosh 'name' table strings, such as Source Han Serif (to include the Google-branded Noto Serif CJK), Ten Mincho (貂明朝), and a non-zero number of open source test fonts. We added the ability of our tools to omit these strings over two years ago, and I briefly wrote about it here:

  https://blogs.adobe.com/CCJKType/2015/11/whats-in-a-name-table.html

We have not received any reports whatsoever that would suggest that we would need to add Macintosh 'name' table strings to these fonts. When Source Han Sans (and Noto Sans CJK) Version 2.000 is released later this year, I fully intend to remove their Macintosh 'name' table strings.

Regards...

-- Ken

> On Feb 18, 2018, at 12:17 PM, Peter Constable petercon at microsoft.com [mpeg-OTspec] <mpeg-OTspec-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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> This gem dates at least as far back as October 2002/OT 1.4:
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> “For historical reasons, some applications which install fonts perform version control using Macintosh platform (platform ID 1) strings from the 'name' table. Because of this, we strongly recommend that the 'name' table of all fonts include Macintosh platform strings and that the syntax of the version number (name id 5) follows the guidelines given in this document.”
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> Is anyone aware of software that still requires the Mac platform version string to do version checking?
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> Peter
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