hastings@scam.berkeley.edu (Mark Hastings) (01/11/89)
After looking at the recently posted Adobe screenfonts (from the sumex archive), I found that I preferred them to the standard Apple screenfonts. But before I start using them full-time, I wanted to ask a few questions: 1. Why are they different? Politics? Artistic differences? 2. Which is more accurate in terms of the actual spacing on a 300dpi page? 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... 4. When I used the Font Harmonizer utility from Suitcase II, which supposedly fixed up some resources in the Adobe fonts, the suitcase file still contained resources for the semi-bogus 7, 8 & 9 point fonts, yet they weren't advertised as available in programs like Word 3. Does that mean I have to fool around with the Font/DA Mover to get them added to the FOND resource? (I don't have my suitcase II manual handy, or else I'd check there). Thanks, Mark Hastings hastings@scam.berkeley.edu
chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (01/12/89)
> 1. Why are they different? Politics? Artistic differences? Good question. I've heard rumors, but don't have a definitive answer, either. > 2. Which is more accurate in terms of the actual spacing on a 300dpi page? The Adobe bitmaps are significantly better. Once you start using non-plain styles, they're pretty much essential. > 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have > a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... Except in a few instances, Adobe never had 9pt fonts. I think the primary reason is that for most faces, 9pt on a screen is getting close to unreadable. If you really want them (I really want them, too) the best bet is FontSizer, which will let you create any size font you want. > 4. When I used the Font Harmonizer utility from Suitcase II, > which supposedly fixed up some resources in the Adobe fonts, the > suitcase file still contained resources for the semi-bogus 7, 8 & 9 > point fonts This sounds like the infamous Avant Garde resource map problem. Read the Suitcase II manual -- it talks about the problem in there. Chuq Von Rospach Editor/Publisher, OtherRealms chuq@sun.COM And now a message for the eyes of only those people with Commander Chuqui Secret Decoder Rings: 7-3-6-27-24-4-10-6-27-3-2-23-27-23-10-7-27-3-24-24-4-20-11-7-24
bezanson@adobe.COM (Brian Bezanson) (01/12/89)
In article <8711@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> hastings@scam.berkeley.edu (Mark Hastings ) writes: > After looking at the recently posted Adobe screenfonts (from the sumex >archive), I found that I preferred them to the standard Apple screenfonts. >But before I start using them full-time, I wanted to ask a few questions: > 1. Why are they different? Politics? Artistic differences? Adobe includes fonts for not just the roman face, but also italic, bold-italic, and bold. There are some political differences as to why Apple doesn't distribute our version of the screen fonts. People seem to like ours better for spacing, etc... > 2. Which is more accurate in terms of the actual spacing on a 300dpi page? I'd say ours are. But then I'm biased ;-) > 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have > a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... Adobe has 10 point and up fonts. There is no 9 point because in layout work it isn't used much and 9 point can't produce a 'nice' enough screen font. > 4. When I used the Font Harmonizer utility from Suitcase II, > which supposedly fixed up some resources in the Adobe fonts, the > suitcase file still contained resources for the semi-bogus 7, 8 & 9... These are old versions of the screen fonts. Newer versions should just contain 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24 point fonts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bezanson bezanson@adobe.com Adobe Systems Standard Disclaimers apply. These are my words and all mistakes are mine too ;-)
briand@tekig4.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm) (01/12/89)
> 1. Why are they different? Politics? Artistic differences? > 2. Which is more accurate in terms of the actual spacing on a 300dpi page? > 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have > a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... > 4. When I used the Font Harmonizer utility from Suitcase II, > which supposedly fixed up some resources in the Adobe fonts, the > suitcase file still contained resources for the semi-bogus 7, 8 & 9 > point fonts, yet they weren't advertised as available in programs > like Word 3. Does that mean I have to fool around with the Font/DA > Mover to get them added to the FOND resource? (I don't have my > suitcase II manual handy, or else I'd check there). Having just converted all these to NFNTs, I can answer some of these questions. (BTW, for those interested in the NFNT versions, sumex is getting distribution permission from Adobe, and if all goes well, they will be available there). 1. One of the reasons appears to be that Apple wanted to provide 9-pt versions of everything. But the certainly extended the Adobe versions incorrectly. For example, compare Apple's 9-pt Symbol with Apple's 10-pt Symbol, and you will find that the line leading for 9-pt is greater than 10-pt! 2. Given the above, I would believe the Adobe versions as being more accurate. 3. I'm not certain Adobe "dropped" the 9-pt, I think Apple took the Adobe families and tried to build on a 9-pt. 4. Adobe "orphaned" several smaller sizes of fonts in the families. This means that they appear in the files, but are not linked in with the family in the FOND resource. Font Harmonizer discusses these orphans, and describes in much greater detail than can be distributed here, the way that you can bring in these orphan sizes after the two separate steps of harmonization. It is unclear why Adobe orphaned these. In Times, they provide plain only 7- and 9-point, in Helvetica, they provide plain only 7- and 9-point, but also the entire set of style variations of 8-point. In Avant Garde, they include full style sets of 8- and 9-point. In the case of Avant Garde, you should note that the bold styles APPEAR identical to the non-bold; only the character spacings are different. Therefore, it might appear better on the screen to not include the style variations for these sizes and use only the plain (roman). This might explain why these were orphaned by Adobe. Two final notes about this subject may be of help to those using style variants. First, once you install the fonts as they come from Adobe, you will have two methods of accessing the style variants: 1) Choose the roman form from the Font menu (e.g. Palatino) and then choose the style from the Style menu (e.g. Bold), and 2) Choose the style font directly from the Font menu (e.g. B Palatino Bold). DO NOT USE THE SECOND METHOD! This will cause future compatibility problems if later you go to the NFNT versions, or if you mail your stuff off to a Linotronic service bureau that uses NFNTs. The reason is that in the non-NFNT world, each style variant is a font family, with a font family number. Programs that remember font assignments by number (no longer a recommended practice) will lose the font assignment if you later change to an NFNT scheme. You may find your styled text suddenly appearing in Geneva once you go to NFNTs. (NFNTs let you drop the style variations from your Font menus, so that only the roman version appears, but the styles are still available.) Not all programs will do that. Second, if you use Harmonize, or Fontastic Plus 2, to change the Adobe font families to NFNTs, these programs will change the font family number as a side-effect of the process. This will make the above-described font assignment loss happen for ALL styles of these fonts, including the roman, UNLESS you use ResEdit to re-establish the original font family numbers. THIS IS TRICKY. You must note the family number of the roman fonts BEFORE conversion, then change the numbers in the Name field of the FONDs and also in the second data field of the FONDs. YOU MUST ALSO THEN CREATE A DUMMY (zero-length) FONT OF 128 TIMES THE FAMILY NUMBER, ESTABLISHED WITH A RESOURCE NAME IDENTICAL TO THE FAMILY NAME. If you fail to do that last step, the Font/DA Mover will crash when you try to remove these fonts from any file, and will leave large fonts around where they cannot be accessed, resulting in very large files. The tricky part of it all is getting ResEdit to deal with zero-length FONT dummies; you must use Open General the FONT list (not inside the FONTs window). To repeat the above, it might be easiest to wait until the NFNT versions are available from sumex; these will have the conversions corrected and will have the family numbers re-established. They also have all the orphan sizes included and integrated in the families. The only linkage they won't have is between Helvetica and N Helvetica Narrow, where choosing the Condensed/Expanded version of one will not automatically select the other. Finally, some time ago, I offered to mail these to people if they sent me a set of three blank disks and an appropriate SASE. I rescinded the offer over questions of the legality of the process, but subsequent checking with Adobe says that this is acceptable to them. So, if you want a copy of the Adobe screen font files properly converted to NFNT form, you can either wait for it on sumex and download them (it will take you hours) or you can send 3 disks and SASE to: Brian Diehm 14611 Uplands Drive Lake Oswego, OR 97034 I will have them in the return mail within 48 hours. I also reserve the right to make only minimal effort to cover for inadequate packaging, inadequate return postage, etc. If you are in the EEC, it costs about $2.40 for the trip from here to there, and if you include that amount in any negotiable form I will use it to attach the proper postage and get it to you. -Brian Diehm (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply) Tektronix, Inc. briand@tekig4.TEK.COM or {decvax,cae780,uw-beaver}!tektronix!tekig4!briand -- -Brian Diehm (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply) Tektronix, Inc. briand@tekig4.TEK.COM or {decvax,cae780,uw-beaver}!tektronix!tekig4!briand
hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen) (01/12/89)
In article <8711@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> hastings@scam.berkeley.edu (Mark Hastings) writes: > > After looking at the recently posted Adobe screenfonts (from the sumex >archive), I found that I preferred them to the standard Apple screenfonts. >But before I start using them full-time, I wanted to ask a few questions: > > 1. Why are they different? Politics? Artistic differences? The Adobe fonts are "tuned" more to reflect what your actual line lengths will be off a PostScript printer. In addition, Adobe offers screen fonts for the bold, italic, and bold italic versions of the Apple LaserWriter fonts. These, once again, provide more accurate spacing than when you use the Apple fonts (to make one of the Apple fonts italic, the font is "slanted" on the screen; this looks terrible, is hard to edit, and does not correspond with what a printed line of this text will look like (in some cases)). > 2. Which is more accurate in terms of the actual spacing on a 300dpi page? See above. > 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have > a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... Because it's difficult to develop 9 point faces that look good on the screen and are accurate. They only did them for a few faces, anyway. > 4. When I used the Font Harmonizer utility from Suitcase II, > which supposedly fixed up some resources in the Adobe fonts, the > suitcase file still contained resources for the semi-bogus 7, 8 & 9 > point fonts, yet they weren't advertised as available in programs > like Word 3. Does that mean I have to fool around with the Font/DA > Mover to get them added to the FOND resource? (I don't have my > suitcase II manual handy, or else I'd check there). Yes, what you have to do is copy all of the fonts in that file into a new font file; this will fix up the FOND resource so that the 7,8,&9 point faces are now referenced along with the other sizes. This is one of the primary advantages of Suitcase II over its competitors. It has a much better manual (at least when dealing with fonts), powerful font utilities (Font/Sound Valet for compression, Font Harmony for font repair, NFNT conversion, and ID conflict resolution) and so on. One of the only problems with Adobe fonts is the fact that their resource maps are defective, since the screen font files are created on a Sun, and not a Mac. Font Harmony is capable of fixing these problems (which can make the Font/DA Mover do nasty things when you try deleting things from an Adobe font file). /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu | uwmcsd1!uwmcsd4!hammen / / Delphi: HAMMEN | GEnie: R.Hammen | CI$: 70701,2104 | MacNet: HAMMEN / / Bulfin Printers | 1887 N. Water | Milwaukee WI 53202 | (414) 271-1887 / / 3839 N. Humboldt #204 | Milwaukee WI 53212 | (414) 961-0715 (h) / ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen) (01/12/89)
In article <84832@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >> 3. Why did Adobe drop the 9 point fonts? Ok, a few of the fonts have >> a single 9 point resource, but only in the basic style... > >Except in a few instances, Adobe never had 9pt fonts. I think the primary >reason is that for most faces, 9pt on a screen is getting close to >unreadable. If you really want them (I really want them, too) the best bet >is FontSizer, which will let you create any size font you want. Except that FontSizer will only generate screen fonts in point sizes 12-127. Anything smaller than 12 point is just too difficult to scale into decent- looking screen fonts. (side note: FontSizer does its magic by having the LaserWriter build a bitmap of each character of that font at the requested size. It then grabs the bitmap back from the LaserWriter and makes it into the appropriate screen font. Pretty slow, but still pretty neat). Robert /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu | uwmcsd1!uwmcsd4!hammen / / Delphi: HAMMEN | GEnie: R.Hammen | CI$: 70701,2104 | MacNet: HAMMEN / / Bulfin Printers | 1887 N. Water | Milwaukee WI 53202 | (414) 271-1887 / / 3839 N. Humboldt #204 | Milwaukee WI 53212 | (414) 961-0715 (h) / ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
jpearce@ucl-cs.UUCP (01/12/89)
From: jpearce@uk.ac.ucl.cs
Chuq Von Rospach has suggested using Fontsizer to create the
missing 9pt screen fonts but my version will only create sizes
between 12 and 127 pts.
John R. Pearce
P.S. Fontsizer seems to have a problem with helvetica narrow -
the vertical spacing seems off, causing problems with
descenders
jpearce@uk.ac.ucl.cs
Computer Science Dept.,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London,
WC1E 6BT,
ENGLAND