hermit@.ucsc.edu (William R. Ward) (11/05/90)
OK, folxs... I've had Windows 3 for a few weeks now and I've heard a bit of talk about ATM, a utility to add/improve fonts on the system. I just would like some clarification, if y'all don't mind.. 1. I'm using W4W 1.1. What affect will ATM have on it? Will it add fonts, and if so, how many and what kind of variety? How will it affect speed? 2. How much does it cost and from whom can I order it? 3. Comments on it vs. competing packages. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R. Ward | UC Santa Cruz, CIS | [backbone]!ucbvax! (408) 426-7267 | hermit@ucscf.UCSC.EDU | ucscc!ucscf!hermit UCSC-Cowell-787 +-------------------------------------------------- Santa Cruz, CA 95064 | Disclaimer: Nobody reads this anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) (11/06/90)
Some answers to recently posted questions... Q: Does it give more fonts? WHich? A: It comes with the base 13 fonts found in the original LaserWriter which is Times Helvetica Courier and Symbol and the bold, italic and bold italic versions of the first three. Q: How much does it cost and where to order? A: Well list is $99U.S. from Adobe or you can get it for $59 from PC Connection. Q: What alternatives are there? A: I know of two alternatives. Bitstream Facelift and Zenographics Superprint are competing technologies. Facelift gives the same capabilities but I understand it allows you to pre-make bitmaps for your laser printer to speed printing. Trade speed for hard disk space on this count!! Zenographics SuperPrint is screen/printer font technology plus some souped up printer drivers for windows for laserjets and (I think) some colour film recorders for slide making. Facelift list is $99US and SuperPrint is $199US list. Your mileage may vary. What these will do is give your dot matrix or laser printer that ability to print typefaces that are PostScript. You can purchase or use other PostScript typefaces. (the USE above refers to using ones you already bought, don't go out and steal PostScript typefaces!!) It looks astounding on my dotmatrix 9 pin Star NX1000 and allows me to proof pages at home and then print on the PostScript laser or typesetter at work knowing the lines will end in exactly the same place as when I proofed the page. Things look great on screen. Simple to install. Easy to add new fonts. Flaw: The only flaw I have found is lack of a good tool provided by Adobe for when you are printing to a PostScript printer with ATM. You need to mark (set, indicate or whatever) that these fonts for this printer need to be downloaded cause they aren't resident. Currently if you call Adobe they provide (after LONG times on hold) the information that on the line in win.ini that lists the font name (pfm file) you add the path to the pfb file (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.pfm,d:\psfonts\xxx_____.pfb). Then windows will automatically do the downloading. There are certainly some flaws here because what is missing is the Mac method of interogating the printer to see what needs to be sent. Windows flaw. PC parallel port flaw. Flaws flaws everywhere. How about multuple printer setups. One for your postscript laser that has the fonts on disk, another for your postscript laser that doesn't. End ramblings... I have not experienced lockups so far with ATM but I have been using it with simple stuff right now. PaintBrush, Write, PageMaker. tj