Any Way To Change A Font's Name?

Factual Questions
1

Can I change the name of a font in Windows XP? The “rename” option is disabled for fonts apparently…

[edited for spelling]

2
      • I don’t particularly know how WinXP handles font files, but in truetype fonts, the font file name and the displayed font name are two different things in two different places. The displayed font name is embedded in the font file. So you could rename the font file, and the displayed name would still be the same.
        …
  • There’s a trialware program named Font Creator that lets you edit all the embedded info in truetype fonts–it works for 30 days or whatever. The problem you may have is that FC doesn’t do hinting, and may damage the hinting when you open the font fine in it, making the font look all blurry and fuxed up at smaller sizes when you try to use it. -So, to get around that, you edit the font’s text info in Font Creator, and then open&close the font in some other program that does automatic hinting like Fontographer.
    -however,-
  • automatic hinting isn’t perfect. It’s way better than nothing, but not as good as manual hinting. The fonts print good though, they just look a bit less perfect than the originals when viewed on-screen.
    ~
3

Are you just curious or is the reason? There might be some other way to do what you want?

Do you mean the file name or the font name? The file name can be moving the file out of the font folder, renaming it, and moving it back. Don’t know about the font. I tried opening the file in a text editor and changing the name in there, but it does a checksome or something and found the file corrupt.

4

There’s a reason. I just downloaded several cartoon type fonts, and I wanted to preface them all with “Cartoon” so they would be grouped together, thus making it simple for me to choose whichever one works best. I want to change the actual font name, not the file name.

5

If you search google groups for some combination of ‘hints’ ‘font renaming’ etc, you some appropriate hits, including some applets designed to do this sort of thing.

I didn’t find if the common ones preserve hints but you could go and try.

6
7
      • I guess the above post might seem a bit more snotty than it should, but only because Font Creator is the only cheap/shareware truetype font editing program there is. The others (Fontlab, Fontographer, and the Macromedia one I can’t remember the name of) all cost $350+ and do not have trial versions available. So Font Creator is it.
        ~
8

Actually I have used Font Monster for font renaming and had a fairly good experience with it. You might try it, it’s shareware as well. Google will get you to it.

9

You can modify a font name or (better and safer) duplicate a font and change the name of the duplicated font and save it under a different file name.

Of course, your old documents, documents sent to you (or available over internet or other networks), etc., which reference the original font will NOT reference the newly defined/renamed font, and any documents you create using the new font will not display with either the new OR the old font (in all likelihood) when viewed on any other machine unless you distribute your new font along with the document.

Fontographer was the best tool for the job (cross-platform) a few years back. I haven’t kept track in recent years.