[comp.fonts] Problems with Adobe Univers bitmaps

chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (10/28/88)

Has anyone else noticed the rather nasty problems with the bitmaps
for the Univers typefaces on the Mac? I originally thought I was having
problems with Brecher's Font Harmony while turning them into NFNT's, but
that isn't the case. 

Among other problems -- while 65 Univers Bold is supposed to be the bold of 
of 45 Univers light, the information is incomplete, and when you NFNT the
thing, the conversion isn't all there. 

Also, there's a rather major botch with 75 Univers Black. It's the bold of
55 Univers. The NFNT combines fine, but when you try to USE it, it shows up
as bold on the screen, but the system loads UniveObl into the printer, so it
prints out as the Universe 55 Italic -- definitely not what you want. The
Italic option of Univ 55 really prints out the black face, except that in
both cases the screen representation and the printed version are different
enough to make it worthless. 

Add to this the generic resource map botches in the bitmap files that give
F/DAM headaches, and you have some really hosed out screen fonts.

I'm in process of patching my bitmaps back together manually, since I really
like these faces (and OtherRealms depends on). But it's frustrating -- you 
would *think* that Adobe, of all folks, would know how to get these things
right. 

They should just byte the bullet, so to speak, and ship their fonts as
NFNT's in the first place, saving us all this hassle. In practical,
market-share terms, and Mac that doesn't support NFNT's by now isn't very
likely to be buying downloadable fonts in the first place, and they're
really impacting those of us who need the downloadable fonts by sticking to
outmoded technology. 


Chuq Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM		Delphi: CHUQ
Editor/Publisher, OtherRealms

kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (10/31/88)

In article <75128@sun.uucp> chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>Has anyone else noticed the rather nasty problems with the bitmaps
>for the Univers typefaces on the Mac? I originally thought I was having
>problems with Brecher's Font Harmony while turning them into NFNT's, but
>that isn't the case. 
>
>[problems deleted]
>
>They should just byte the bullet, so to speak, and ship their fonts as
>NFNT's in the first place, saving us all this hassle. In practical,
>market-share terms, and Mac that doesn't support NFNT's by now isn't very
>likely to be buying downloadable fonts in the first place, and they're
>really impacting those of us who need the downloadable fonts by sticking to
>outmoded technology. 
>
I was just thinking about buying some fonts. Can someone please tell me what
NFNT is, and what kind of Mac doesn't support it. Why do you want to turn a
font into NFNT?  Thanks.

Shirley Kehr











[dead space, so I can post this]







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terranova@vms.macc.wisc.edu (John Terranova) (11/01/88)

In article <67036@felix.UUCP>, kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes...

>I was just thinking about buying some fonts. Can someone please tell me what
>NFNT is, and what kind of Mac doesn't support it. Why do you want to turn a
>font into NFNT?  Thanks.

Have you ever noticed how stylized characters do not always (usually?)
look too good?  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to create a new font, say
14 point italic New York, and use it instead of having QuickDraw try to
italicize for you?

So you use a font creation program to create all the stylized fonts you
want.  Guess what.  You will have that many more fonts in your Font menus.
You need a way to tell the Toolbox to use your stylized font instead of
stylizing on the fly.  Just like using different sizes of a font.  Each
size does not appear in the font menu.

Enter NFNTs.  This resource allows you to group fonts into families.
New York fonts of all sizes and styles can be grouped together.  Now,
just like QuickDraw will use New York 20pt if available in the system,
QuickDraw will use New York 20pt italic bold, if it is available in the
system.

>Shirley Kehr

-------------------------+--------------------+----------------------------
John C. Terranova         \ What the Hell do  |  I'm not a Computer
  CS, BS to be             \ I know?  I come  |  Science undergraduate,
terranova@vms.macc.wisc.edu \ from Waunakee!  |  but I play one at school.
-----------------------------+----------------+----------------------------
It's awful hard to try to make love long-distance.
        --Billy Joel, "Just a Fantasy"

Robert Heibel: 08/30/41 - 09/21/88; R.I.P., you deserve it.