Ken.Knight@p4217.f421.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Ken Knight) (05/06/91)
Here is the text to an article I wrote for the Washington Apple Pi Jounral (May 1991) that should answer most questions on using TrueType especially with things like ATM installed. Please excuse formatting quirks since this is just a straight copy/paste from the original. On March 11, 1991 Apple released two new low cost, high quality printers: the StyleWriter and LaserWriter LS. Along with these printers Apple released its long awaited TrueType Font technology. TrueType has been in the works for quite some time and is commonly considered a part of the forthcoming System 7.0 release. In this article we will take a brief look at what, in fact, TrueType is and who can take advantage of its abilities. To better understand why TrueType is a major step forward for the Macintosh user it is important to understand how fonts are handled on the Mac. Fonts on the Macintosh have, in the past, come in two types: bitmaps and outlines. Bitmap fonts are installed in your System with Font/DA Mover, and are actual representationsPpixel for pixelPof the characters in a specific font. This means that if you want a decent looking 12 point Geneva you must have a bitmap version of that specific font. If you want to use a point size for which no bitmap exists, then you are at the mercy of QuickDraw scaling. Worse yet, if you are using a scaled version of a font it becomes difficult to place letters effectively. In addition, bitmap fonts are limited in their resolution to the number of dots-per-inch (dpi) that were used to create the font. On the Mac this value is 72dpi, but even on an ImageWriter II the resolution rises to 144dpi. If you want the best possible results with bitmap fonts you need to create even more versions of the font at the higher resolution. This requires much more space to store the fonts and generally manages to confuse things. Outline fonts, on the other hand, are represented by a sequence of curves. They are defined in a general mathematical format. Since characters in the font are defined in this manner you can, for the most part, scale the font to any size and not lose any quality in the characters themselves. Outline fonts are also resolution independent. You do not need special versions of an outline font for 72dpi and another for 300dpi. Until mid-1989 the user was faced with having to worry about both bitmap and outline fonts. This was the case if you were using a Postscript or Postscript compatible laser printer. The printer (or, more precisely, the software that drove the printer) knew about outline fonts, and this accounted for the lovely text output we have always been able to generate on paper. However, the Mac itself did not know about outline fonts and only displayed bitmap fonts. So, although you could print a fantastic 11 point Times, you could not, unless you had an 11 point Times bitmap, display the text very effectively on screen. This could lead to no end of trouble if you wanted precision control, since it was impossible to realistically display the 11 point Times on the MacUs screen. Things began to change for Macintosh users with AdobeUs introduction of Adobe Type Manager (ATM). ATM gave anyone the ability to work with outline fonts on their computer screens and with any printer. However, ATM was far from perfect. It would build a bitmap from the outline definitions of an average Adobe Type 1 font and then display that bitmap on your screen (or print it to your printer). But this process was not especially fast, particularly on computers like the Mac Plus. You could easily get ahead of the display as you were typing a letter or report and then lose track of you had been doing. This , plus the simple fact that most people only use a few RstandardS sizes of a few RstandardS fonts, meant that many people (including myself) decided not to buy ATM. We were happy enough if we could get high quality fonts on our printers. All this brings us to TrueType. If you think of TrueType as a sibling of ATM you will have a good sense of what Apple has just released. TrueType, unlike ATM, does not use Postscript to process its outline fonts. Instead, TrueType uses a system created by Apple, with help from others, that is among other things (to this author at least) faster than ATM. TrueType is also part of AppleUs System Software and will be an integral part of the Mac from now on. As such it is available for now cost. Turning to who can use TrueType and how to use it, Any Macintosh that is running System 6.0.5 or later can make use of it. In other words, anything down to a Mac Plus can use TrueType. For those who have machines like the enhanced 512k Macs TrueType, in theory, could be run, but in practice one will need to have at least a meg of RAM to run System 6.0.5 and anything else comfortably. For the vast majority of Macintosh users, this will not be a problem. To actually make use of TrueType, following the list below will allow you to set-up quickly. 1. Place the TrueType INIT file into your System folder. 2. Reboot your system. That is all you need to do. 3. Run the new Font/DA Mover (4.1) and copy the fonts from the TrueType Fonts file into the System file. If you are using a product like Suitcase II or MasterJuggler, you can simply add the TrueType Fonts file as another Suitcase file. TrueType fonts can be treated just as any other type of font suitcase is treated by the user. You can install them into your System file or add them as a suitcase. This makes their use quite transparent. The above sequence of instructions only applies to people who will be using TrueType on Systems prior to 7.0. In 7.0 you can simply plunk font files into the System folder and they will become active at once. Under previous systems you would either have to install them with Font/DA Mover or use one of the Suitcase programs I mentioned. However, in both cases, using TrueType is a painless process. Right now there are only a few TrueType compatible fonts available. I have seen 5: the basic 4 that are part of the TrueType files (Times, Courier, Helvetica, Symbol), and one in the public domain called RGranite Sans.S But TrueType was not developed in a vacuum and several well known font companies are creating TrueType fonts for our use. These firms include Cassidy & Green, Agfa, and MonoType. The future for Macintosh users is bright. TrueType will make an already very useful and usable computer system even more capable. And since TrueType is an open-end technology, it has room to grow. We may, in time, see improvements that will make TrueType even better than it already promises to be. Trouble-shooting Your TrueType Fonts Using TrueType can lead to some unexpected results. This side-bar is devoted to helping solve those pesky little problems and answering those nagging questions that you may still have about how to get along with TrueType fonts. This section is broken into a question and answer format for your convenience. Q: I have installed my TrueType Fonts as a separate suitcase file. I am using Suitecase II (MasterJuggler). I have my word processor set to default to Helvetica as the default font. However, the only sizes of this font that now seems to come up well are 12, 14, and 18 point. Why are these are the only sizes that are working well for me? A: The problem you are having with your fonts is a common one that you can run into when using a suitcase-type program like MasterJuggler or Suitecase II. The System is becoming confused because you have a version of a font, in this case Helvetica, in more than one place: you have a TrueType version of Helvetica in a suitcase file and you have 12, 14, and 18 point versions of bitmap Helvetica in another suitcase file. You must remove these extraneous bitmap versions of Helvetica. To do this, you should run Font/DA Mover and simply select and remove them. You should look in your System file first for these extra bitmaps, and then in any suitcases you may be using. Keep in mind that you can mix TrueType and old-style bitmap fonts. That is, if you really want to hold on to those 12, 14, and 18 point bitmap versions of Helvetica you simply need to place them in the same file as the TrueType Helvetica. However, the only good reason for keeping the old-style bitmap version of a font is the potential speed of font rendering. The bitmaps will * Origin: Kensington Ken - just a point (1:109/421.4217)
kenh@eclectic.COM (Ken Hancock) (05/11/91)
>things (to this author at least) faster than ATM. TrueType is also part of It is NOT faster than ATM. I wish people would do some REAL tests as opposed to just looking at it on the screen. Timing can play all kinds of tricks on the human eye. Try printing out a text waterfall using TrueType and ATM. That gives you a good sense of the rasterizer's speed. If you do that, you'll find that ATM 2.0 is TWICE as fast as TrueType. Ken -- Ken Hancock | INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Isle Systems | Compuserve: >INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Macintosh Consulting | AOL: KHancock | Disclaimer: My opinions are mine, | your opinions are yours. Simple, isn't it?
torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) (05/12/91)
kenh@eclectic.COM (Ken Hancock) writes: >>things (to this author at least) faster than ATM. TrueType is also part of >It is NOT faster than ATM. I wish people would do some REAL tests as opposed >to just looking at it on the screen. Timing can play all kinds of tricks >on the human eye. Try printing out a text waterfall using TrueType and >ATM. That gives you a good sense of the rasterizer's speed. If you do >that, you'll find that ATM 2.0 is TWICE as fast as TrueType. Printing may be different, but in my reasonably extensive tests on-screen, I've found TrueType to be 20-30% faster than ATM on average. It also seems to have a much better caching system, so fonts don't need to be regenerated as often. Speed on screen is more important to me than printing speed... I only print once, but I view it on screen many times. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "Lay me place and bake me pie, I'm starving for me gravy... Leave my shoes and door unlocked, I might just slip away - hey - just for the day."
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (05/12/91)
In article <150@eclectic.COM> kenh@eclectic.COM (Ken Hancock) writes: >>things (to this author at least) faster than ATM. TrueType is also part of > >It is NOT faster than ATM. I wish people would do some REAL tests as opposed >to just looking at it on the screen. Timing can play all kinds of tricks >on the human eye. Try printing out a text waterfall using TrueType and >ATM. That gives you a good sense of the rasterizer's speed. If you do >that, you'll find that ATM 2.0 is TWICE as fast as TrueType. REAL tests? I assume, then, that you have tried this on every different class of Macintosh (Plus, SE, Classic, II, IIx/cx, IIci, IIfx, IILC, IIsi with and without coprocessor), or at least a few representative samples, and with various different fonts. You have also taken into account caching. If so, I'd love to see your results. -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) (05/14/91)
In article <1991May11.214221.8871@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
...lots of stuff regarding the speed of ATM 2.0 vs. speed of TrueType
Out of curiousity, what have screen and printer tests of ATM 2.0 and TrueType
revealed on an 030 machine when the 030/881 optimized version of ATM is used?
I am very interested, especially since no one seems to have made this
distinction so far.
Jess Holletorrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) (05/14/91)
jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes: >In article <1991May11.214221.8871@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >...lots of stuff regarding the speed of ATM 2.0 vs. speed of TrueType >Out of curiousity, what have screen and printer tests of ATM 2.0 and TrueType >revealed on an 030 machine when the 030/881 optimized version of ATM is used? I use the 020/881 version of ATM, and TrueType is still faster for what I want to do. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "If it weren't for your gumboots, where would you be? You'd be in the hospital, or in-firm-ary..." F. Dagg
mcgredo@CS.ORST.EDU (Don Mcgregor) (05/14/91)
jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes: > Out of curiousity, what have screen and printer tests of ATM 2.0 and TrueType > revealed on an 030 machine when the 030/881 optimized version of ATM is used? > _Personal Publishing_ compared PostScript and TrueType speeds in their most recent issue. They did various tests on the Personal LaserWriter LS and Personal NT using both ATM and TrueType. They didn't specify what Mac they were using. They found that a Times waterfall printed in 2:06.99 using PostScript to the Personal LS, vs. 3:05.35 for TrueType, each using their respective native font formats. They stated that "TrueType seemed to render fonts on the screen more quickly than ATM," though they didn't attempt to time it--a glaring omission in my view, since snappy screen response is critical while slow printing is merely annoying. _Personal Publishing_ is generally pro-PostScript. Don McGregor mcgredo@typhoon.cs.orst.edu