Why are Goudy postscript and Goudy Oldstyle Open Type fonts so drastically different?

Changing distribution format would not change the size of the font.  10pt is 10pt when the font comes from the same foundry.  Even cheap knock-offs are designed to be very similar in metrics to the original.

Example, Arial is a bastardized version of Helvetica, made to avoid paying licensing fees.  Microsoft's version was made to match the metrics of Helvetica (which is built into every PostScript output device).

Do you have side-by-side comparisons to show?

Also the sources of the two fonts?

Important to make sure that we're talking about the same flavor.  The name "Goudy" is used for many different versions of the same font, or different fonts designed by Frederic Goudy.

For instance, see "Monotype Goudy" from Monotype and "Goudy Old Style" from Adobe.  Both are called "Goudy" by designers, but are visually quite different fonts.

Here are two sample of Goudy Old Style.  See the difference in the capital B and the lowercase d & e?  Proportions are different.  Even with similar x-heights, the bowl shape in the lower sample is wider, meaning that the same type will set wider or longer.

Please let me know if you are unable to read my pdf attachment.
 
Goudy Open Type Properties
Title: Goudy Old Style
Type: True Type Font File
There is no information about the Licence description

Goudy Postscript Properties
Name GO____.PFM
Type: Type 1 Font file

Does the information I've provided help to diagnose the problem?

Am I looking in the right place for the Foundry information?

The foundry for the OTF font is URW++ (http://www.urwpp.de). No identity information is shown in your PDF for the PFM file. Do you know where it came from in the first place? Was it installed along with a product from Adobe, for example?

I don't have any historical data for the PFM file. It has been used for many years and has been passed along through many software and computer platform conversions. I assume it was installed along with a product from Adobe but I don't know for sure.

Thank you for your detailed information. I will contact Linotype and hope that they can lead me to a positive outcome.

You're welcome. Check back and and update us on how it turns out.

I sent this message to info@linotype.com with the attached examples on 10/07/09 and haven't gotten a response yet.

To whom it may concern,

The company I work for would like to switch from Goudy Postscript to Open Type in our current documents in order to work cross-platform with Mac users. unfortunately, I have noticed that the Goudy Postscript version is slightly larger than Goudy Old Style Open Type although the point size says it is the same (please see attached).

Is there a Goudy Open Type font that matches Goudy postscript exactly? The Open Type version I have of Goudy is from http://www.urwpp.de  I don't have any historical data for the postscript version I have. It has been used for many years and has been passed along through many software and computer platform conversions. I assume it was installed along with a product from Adobe but I don't know for sure.

Is there a way to verify my postscript version of this font and/or determine if your OTF version is a better match for my postscript font?

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

LinoType Foundary response: Thu 10/15/2009 7:10 AM

thank you very much for your email.

That question is actually quite hard to answer - we recommend purchasing one OpenType version, and then compare it. Should it match, you could purchase the rest. We do assume that it will not match completely, either, as OpenTypes are visualized differently by the applications, even if the outlines contained are identical.

Best regards


Jens Konrad

Linotype GmbH
Werner-Reimers-Strasse 2-4
61352 Bad Homburg
Germany

phone: +49  6172.484 - 418
fax: +49  6172.484 - 5418
info@linotype.com
www.linotype.com