<SMITHM@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> (03/13/91)
Yesterday I called Adobe to purchase the Optima soft font package for a LaserWriter connected to a Sun workstation. I was surprised to learn that Adobe only sells fonts for Mac or Dos platforms. Does this mean that nobody in the Unix world is using soft fonts? Or is there another supplier out there? Obviously width compatibility with Adobe's version of Optima is a must. Any help is greatly appreciated. Mike Smith SMITHM@QUCDN.BITNET Queen's University Michael.D.Smith@QueensU.CA Computing and Communications Services (613) 545-2024
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (03/14/91)
SMITHM@QUCDN.QueensU.CA writes: > Yesterday I called Adobe to purchase the Optima soft font package for > a LaserWriter connected to a Sun workstation. I was surprised to learn > that Adobe only sells fonts for Mac or Dos platforms. Does this mean > that nobody in the Unix world is using soft fonts?... No. Lots of people in the UNIX world are using "soft fonts" (or down- loadable fonts or whatever you want to call them). The problem seems to be that Adobe doesn't find it worthwhile (for whatever reason) to supply them in a format more directly usable on a UNIX system. I *DO* wish someone from Adobe would explain this--it's their choice, but I'd sure like to know why. The issue keeps coming up. What we do is get one of the existing formats and convert it. Unless you're deep in the Mac world, the DOS format is a lot simpler to deal with, and converting the font to a format usable in a UNIX system just requires running a little program over it. (The .afm file also needs a quick tr to get rid of ^M and ^Z.) >...Or is there another supplier out there?... That's your cue, Adobe! Actually, as long as you got blocked momentarily, it might be a good idea to rethink whether you really want Optima on a 300 dpi laser printer. Optima is an elegant design, but it has lots of very shallow curves which don't look that great on a low-resolution printer. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...But is it art?
spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) (03/15/91)
In article <91072.100648SMITHM@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> SMITHM@QUCDN.QueensU.CA writes:
Yesterday I called Adobe to purchase the Optima soft font package for
a LaserWriter connected to a Sun workstation. I was surprised to learn
that Adobe only sells fonts for Mac or Dos platforms. Does this mean
that nobody in the Unix world is using soft fonts? Or is there another
we use Optima from a Sun workstation. But then we have a hard disk
attached to the printer, so the download was a one-off job, and
thereafter all we needed was the .afm files for use by Unix
applications (TeX and troff). For downloads on a per job basis to a
non-hard-disk printer, I was reduced to ASCIIfying the .pfb files from
a PC copy of a font, and sending the result as a header file before
each print job. It works fine.
The question is the Unix software you will use. Does it understand
.pfb files, for instance?
Sebastian Rahtz
--
Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET)
Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet)
Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)