This is the contents of Font Harmony’s Options online Help window
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An example of a styled font for a plain font named “Bryan” might be “BI Bryan Bold Italic”. Choosing “Bryan” from a Font menu and “Bold” and “Italic” from a Style menu would cause the “BI Bryan Bold Italic” font to be used for drawing on the screen. “BI Bryan Bold Italic” closely represents PostScript printer output for bold, italic Bryan with respect to character spacing and line width.
Older Macintosh technology required that such styled fonts be separate font families — with the result that the names of the styled fonts appeared in font menus and font lists. Current Macintoshes, with Font/DA Mover 3.8 or later, do not require that styled screen fonts be separate families; they can all be part of one family (“Bryan”) so that font menus and lists are not cluttered with style variation names.
However, most applications do not have choices on their Style menus for Condensed (Narrow) or Extended styles. Therefore, Condensed (Narrow) and Extended styled fonts should normally remain separate families so they can be chosen from the font menus or lists of such applications.
Even if you choose to merge styled font families with the main family, you may still find some styled family names on your menus. This happens if the font maker did not provide a reference in the main family to the styled family. In such cases, the styled family really is, technically speaking, an entirely separate family — even if the name of the styled family makes it appear otherwise.
If you choose to merge all except Condensed and Extended styles, then the Condensed and Exended styles will become completely separate families. Example: N Bryan Narrow will be a separate family from Bryan. This means that Condensed and Extended can be obtained only by selecting their family names from font menus; the alternative of selecting the plain style from the font menu and Condensed or Extended from a style menu will no longer work. (Of course, this is relevant only with applications which allow Condensed and Extended style choices; with most applications, you couldn't select Condensed and Extended anyway.) This restriction is necessary to stay compatible with Font/DA Mover while still merging styles other than Condensed and Extended, and merging the Condensed and Extended families themselves (e.g., merging NI Bryan Narrow Italic into N Bryan Narrow).
