There is conventional wisdom that says having TrueType and Type 1 fonts installed on your system is a recipe for disaster. In Adobe's font forum, Dov Isaacs sets users straight. The problem, he says, is primarily an "urban legend." Users can indeed run both types of fonts on the same system. The problem occurs only when the system has a TrueType and Type 1 font with the exact same name. "You should not have both Type 1 and TrueType fonts with the same EXACT font name even installed on your systems, much less used within the same page or document," he says.

Many users responded that they don't encounter this same-name problem on their Windows systems, but that many on the Mac platform have – and the result is a crashed computer.

Isaacs says this is because "Apple purposely duplicated the names for the 'base' fonts in PostScript printers for their host-based TrueType fonts without any consideration for the ramifications going forward -- and even after warnings of the damage they cause. When Microsoft produced their set of 'set width compatible' fonts emulating fonts in PostScript printers, they used 'knock-offs' with different names, thus avoiding the problem that the Macintosh, out-of-the-box, has."

The upshot? If you're working on a Mac, use caution when having both TrueType and Type 1 fonts installed. And whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, make sure the two types of fonts use different names at all times.