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# Font Info – Instances

Use the plus button in the lower let to add and static instance or Variable font settings.
You can edit several instances at once after you ⇧-click or ⌘-click the instance names in the list on the left.

## Style Name

This is the style name as it will appear in InDesign’s font menu. You can use a space in the style name, but non-ASCII characters may prevent the font from exporting.

## Weight and Width

These settings affect the order of fonts in the font menu. Sorting occurs first by width, then by weight, e.g.:

- Condensed Light

- Condensed Regular

- Condensed Bold

- Light

- Regular

- Bold

- Extended Light

- Extended Regular

- Extended Bold

## Axis Coordinates

The settings apply to the design space spanned between the Masters. For further details, see the chapter on Multiple Masters.

## Style Linking

Microsoft Windows applications support only the basic four styles per font family, i.e. Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. They are accessed via the ‘B’ and ‘I’ buttons in the toolbar. Mac applications can switch to linked Bold and Italic styles via the Cmd-B and Cmd-I shortcuts. Adobe InDesign does the same via Cmd-Shift-B and Cmd-Shift-I. If a font family is not style-linked at all, then each style appears individually in the font menu. In that case, clicking the ‘B’ or ‘I’ buttons may create a synthetic Bold or Italic.

Based on these conditions, the following strategy is recommended:

- Italic styles should always be linked to their upright counterparts. They must share the same family name.

- The Bold style should always be linked to the Regular.

- Larger font families require a carefully devised linking strategy.

Linking the SemiBold to the Light is sometimes practiced. If you choose to do so, only the Light will appear in the font menu and many users are unaware that they can access the SemiBold style by selecting Light and then choosing ‘bold’ However, if you want to link SemiBold to Light, enter the name of your Light style in the ‘Linked style’ text field of your SemiBold instance settings and check ‘is Bold’.

Some designers prefer a different strategy, according to which only the Bold, Italic and Bold Italic are linked to the Regular. For the rest, only the italics are linked to the uprights with the same name, e.g. Medium Italic is the Italic of Medium. No Bold setting is used furthermore.

### Related Topics

Font Info