dmr@csli.Stanford.EDU (Daniel M. Rosenberg) (06/09/91)
I have some questions that I couldn't find the answers to on the Adobe
file server. I'm interested in buying a package or two of fonts for
my Slab, scheduled to arrive pretty soon. I assume I can get these
at NeXTConnection or something? Anywhere else?
Do they come on floppies? And do they include the bitmap versions of the
smaller sizes that the NeXT seems to use?
Any hints appreciated,
--
# Daniel M. Rosenberg Stanford Univ CSLI Opinions here are my own
# dmr@csli.stanford.edu {apple,ucbvax}!labrea!csli!dmr BIT:dmr%csli@stanfordglenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (06/09/91)
Daniel M. Rosenberg writes > I have some questions that I couldn't find the answers to on the Adobe > file server. I'm interested in buying a package or two of fonts for > my Slab, scheduled to arrive pretty soon. I assume I can get these > at NeXTConnection or something? Anywhere else? > > Do they come on floppies? And do they include the bitmap versions of the > smaller sizes that the NeXT seems to use? Currently the only place you can get Adobe fonts for the NeXT is through our company, RightBrain Software. We usually ship on the same day we get your order, on floppies, and we have over 1,000 fonts in the library. These fonts are actually mastered at Adobe, from their data, so they include the bitmap versions for smaller sizes and they are manufactured in NeXT format directly (they're not converted from the Mac format, for example). The fonts are supported by both us and Adobe. If you're interested in a font calendar and brochure, give us a call at 1-800-4-RBRAIN, send Email to "fonts@heaven.woodside.ca.us", or call 415-326-2974 if you're outside the U.S. or Canada. We can also just send you fonts, if you already know what you want. We ship all orders Federal Express for free. > Any hints appreciated, Sorry if this sounds more like an advertisement than a hint :-) -- Glenn Reid RightBrain Software glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
jbn35564@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson) (06/09/91)
In <521@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: >These fonts are actually mastered at Adobe, from their data, so they >include the bitmap versions for smaller sizes and they are manufactured I was wondering why anyone bothers publishing "sizes" of scalable fonts if the whole point in having this type of font is that they are "stretchable" without losing quality. If you've got the formula (or whatever) to generate a single character, can't you just plug different numbers for sizes in to get different sizes out? Thus never needing to go to bitmapped fonts again? I know this isn't a technical way of describing it, but it just seems logical to me that if you've got a stretchable font like these proportional fonts are then you shouldn't need more than one file to describe the whole font (the descriptions for every character that that font can do are in that one file). >-- > Glenn Reid RightBrain Software > glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers > ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977) Jeff -- jeffo@uiuc.edu
39clocks@violet.berkeley.edu (Peter Marinac;;;4159743128;KL75) (06/09/91)
In article <1991Jun9.152516.18035@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jeffo@uiuc.edu writes: >In <521@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > >>These fonts are actually mastered at Adobe, from their data, so they >>include the bitmap versions for smaller sizes and they are manufactured > >I was wondering why anyone bothers publishing "sizes" of scalable fonts > >If you've got the formula (or whatever) to generate a single character, can't >you just plug different numbers for sizes in to get different sizes out? >Thus never needing to go to bitmapped fonts again? > This is true with large font sizes, but at smaller sizes, particularly those at which most text is usually set at (9,10,11,12 pt), the _low_ resolution of the screen becomes a problem. Scalable fonts in small sizes often look terrible. Take a close look at the text you are reading now and you will see that for any given portion of a character, there are relatively few places that you can drop a pixel and still have the character look right. At 400dpi on the printer there are quite a few more. The bit mapped fonts are meant to maintain the general appearance and correct character spacing of the font and maximize its legiblility on the screen. Peter
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (06/11/91)
J.B. Nicholson writes > I was wondering why anyone bothers publishing "sizes" of scalable fonts > if the whole point in having this type of font is that they are "stretchable" > without losing quality. > > If you've got the formula (or whatever) to generate a single character, can't > you just plug different numbers for sizes in to get different sizes out? > Thus never needing to go to bitmapped fonts again? > > I know this isn't a technical way of describing it, but it just seems logical > to me that if you've got a stretchable font like these proportional fonts are > then you shouldn't need more than one file to describe the whole font (the > descriptions for every character that that font can do are in that one file). Well, you're right, in principle. With a scalable outline font, you don't need any bitmap screen fonts. In fact, on the NeXT you can delete all the bitmap fonts and the outlines work just fine. However, there are advantages to having the bitmap fonts for small sizes. Although outline descriptions are very good, there is a point where you simply run out of pixels, and scan-converting algorithms have to do a lot of dancing to try to render a complex letterform with four or six pixels vertically and three or four pixels horizontally, which happens at point sizes of 8 to 10 points on a typical screen display. So, the bitmaps are edited by hand, by human beings, to help the software out a little bit. But more importantly, the widths of the individual characters have to be rounded off to the nearest pixel on the screen, which can lead to some inaccurate character placement and line display as this error is accumulated across a line of type. With the hand-tuned bitmaps, some care is taken to distribute the round-off error evenly across the characters, making some of the letters round one way, and some the other, in such a way that the average line length comes pretty close to being accurate, statistically speaking. So yes, you're right that they're not really needed, but they do have some advantages, and they are still built for all known screen display systems, even when they're not strictly necessary. The NeXT fonts come with 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24-point screen fonts. I think the Mac and PC fonts are the same. -- Glenn Reid RightBrain Software glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)