[comp.sys.mac.misc] TrueType glitch?

tisu@quads.uchicago.edu (Seth Tisue) (03/18/91)

Got TrueType off apple.com last night and I've done some playing around with
it.  The only problem or incompatibility I've noticed so far is when using
the Courier font in PageMaker 4.0; as a test, I typed in a large, centered
text block (large enough so that 5-6 lines pretty much filled a sideways
letter-size page), and the spacing was incorrect; the letters were too close
together (touching, in fact).  This didn't happen with smaller point sizes.
Perhaps someone else could perform this simple test and see if they observe
the same thing.  (BTW, yes I was careful to remove all other traces of
Courier, screen and laser, from my system.)  System 6.0.5, TrueType 1.0,
ATM 1.2.

Will the rest of the standard Apple laser fonts (Palatino, Helvetica Narrow,
and so forth) be available at no charge from Apple?  I don't have money to
spend on fonts, so TrueType won't be much use for me if nothing is provided
beyond Courier, Times, Helvetica, and Symbol.
-- 
---- Seth Tisue                     USMail: c/o Plaster Cramp Press  
---- (tisu@midway.uchicago.edu)                       P.O. Box 5975
"Please to be restful.  It is only a few           Chicago IL 60680
crazies who have from the crazy place outbroken."    --------------

wscott@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Wayne H Scott) (03/18/91)

In article <1991Mar18.085110.18717@midway.uchicago.edu> tisu@quads.uchicago.edu (Seth Tisue) writes:
>Got TrueType off apple.com last night and I've done some playing around with
>it.  The only problem or incompatibility I've noticed so far is when using
>the Courier font in PageMaker 4.0; as a test, I typed in a large, centered
>text block (large enough so that 5-6 lines pretty much filled a sideways
>letter-size page), and the spacing was incorrect; the letters were too close
>together (touching, in fact).  This didn't happen with smaller point sizes.

Did the letters touch when you printed it?

The problem I had was that the "smart-quote" characters are backwards in
Courier.  (option-[ and option-shift-[)  Other people check to see if I
am just crazy, but if you turn on smart-quotes in Word 4 and type something
in quotes they are backwards.  Changing to a different font fixes the problem.


>Perhaps someone else could perform this simple test and see if they observe
>the same thing.  (BTW, yes I was careful to remove all other traces of
>Courier, screen and laser, from my system.)  System 6.0.5, TrueType 1.0,
>ATM 1.2.
>
>Will the rest of the standard Apple laser fonts (Palatino, Helvetica Narrow,
>and so forth) be available at no charge from Apple?  I don't have money to
>spend on fonts, so TrueType won't be much use for me if nothing is provided
>beyond Courier, Times, Helvetica, and Symbol.
>-- 
>---- Seth Tisue                     USMail: c/o Plaster Cramp Press  
>---- (tisu@midway.uchicago.edu)                       P.O. Box 5975
>"Please to be restful.  It is only a few           Chicago IL 60680
>crazies who have from the crazy place outbroken."    --------------


-- 
_________________________________________________________________________
Wayne Scott             |  INTERNET: wscott@ecn.purdue.edu
Electrical Engineering  |  BITNET:   wscott%ecn.purdue.edu@purccvm
Purdue University       |  UUCP:     {purdue, pur-ee}!ecn.purdue.edu!wscott

tisu@quads.uchicago.edu (Seth Tisue) (03/19/91)

In article <1991Mar18.124746.22658@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wscott@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Wayne H Scott) writes:
>Did the letters touch when you printed it?

I didn't try printing it; but PageMaker does its own letter-spacing, so I
can't imagine that it would come out differently.  I tried the same thing
again and can give exact directions: type in centered 36-point Courier.

I have not yet switched to system 6.0.7, so this may be the problem.  I will
switch shortly and re-try it.

>The problem I had was that the "smart-quote" characters are backwards in
>Courier.  (option-[ and option-shift-[)  Other people check to see if I
>am just crazy, but if you turn on smart-quotes in Word 4 and type something
>in quotes they are backwards.  Changing to a different font fixes the problem.

The quotes aren't backwards.  They only LOOK backwards in small point sizes.
It's an annoying problem, but it's the sort of problem that's always going
to crop up in generating very small screen fonts from outline font data...
Only a human designer can ever get that exactly right.


-- 
---- Seth Tisue                     USMail: c/o Plaster Cramp Press  
---- (tisu@midway.uchicago.edu)                       P.O. Box 5975
"Please to be restful.  It is only a few           Chicago IL 60680
crazies who have from the crazy place outbroken."    --------------

glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) (03/19/91)

In article <1991Mar18.124746.22658@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wscott@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Wayne H Scott) writes:
> The problem I had was that the "smart-quote" characters are backwards in
> Courier.  (option-[ and option-shift-[)  Other people check to see if I
> am just crazy, but if you turn on smart-quotes in Word 4 and type something
> in quotes they are backwards.  Changing to a different font fixes the problem.

They look fine to me!  Maybe you just weren't expecting the style of
"smart-quotes" used by Courier?  Just in case we're all crazy: what you
should see for opening quotes is a (pair of) short diagonal stroke(s) where
the weight is concentrated in the bottom of the stroke(s).  The closing
quotes have the weight concentrated in the top of the stroke(s).

--
Glenn P. Parker       glenn@bitstream.com       Bitstream, Inc.
                      uunet!huxley!glenn        215 First Street
                      BIX: parker               Cambridge, MA 02142-1270

eaeu137@orion.oac.uci.edu (Andrew Theodore Laurence) (03/19/91)

In reference to backwards smart quotes in Word with TrueType....

Whenever I want to use smart quotes (read: always), I just check "Smart 
Quotes" in Preferences.  Works every time.  None on this command-option-[ 
stuff.

Of course, I haven't tried TrueType yet.  :-)

--Andrew Laurence
  eaeu137@orion.oac.uci.edu

gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) (03/19/91)

I just upgraded to system 6.0.7 and the truetype init.  It worked
well, except when I went to print.  Our printers are imagens.
Truetype decided (apparently) to download bitmaps of the fonts it was
going to print.  After 2 pages I had to quit the print dialogue
because my disk was full (The "PostScript" file was 1.1 meg of hex
code).  TrueType had only downloaded 2 fonts.

Is truetype going to do this with all its fonts, on non-laserwriter
printers?  If so, truetype is unusable to me.  I used to think it was
excessive when a 25 page document required 350K of postscript; now it
seems that a 25 page document may well require 4 Mb of postscript in
order to print.

I have downgraded to my old patched system 6.0 printing tools until I
can find some workaround to this problem.


Don Gillies	     |  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
gillies@cs.uiuc.edu  |  Digital Computer Lab, 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana IL
---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
"UGH!  WAR! ... What is it GOOD FOR?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"  
	- the song "WAR" by Edwin Starr, circa 1971

-- 

sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk (Stewart T. Fleming) (03/20/91)

In article <1991Mar18.085110.18717@midway.uchicago.edu>,
tisu@quads.uchicago.edu (Seth Tisue) writes:

>Will the rest of the standard Apple laser fonts (Palatino, Helvetica Narrow,
>and so forth) be available at no charge from Apple?  I don't have money to
>spend on fonts, so TrueType won't be much use for me if nothing is provided
>beyond Courier, Times, Helvetica, and Symbol.
>-- 

This is what I want to know as well, and preferably before I buy a
Personal Laserwriter LS...The thing that has stopped me buying the LW SC
has been the ugly font issues.  TrueType looks like it has solved that
little problem.

One other thing : Where can I get the TrueType font standard ?  Is it
available in any published or electronic form ?  Other than that :
TrueType looks Just Great (tm) - one up to Apple !

>---- Seth Tisue                     USMail: c/o Plaster Cramp Press  

[I also upgraded to System 6.0.7 today, so I'm stuck with an American
system for a few months :-(  Dealers over here have just started
shipping 6.0.5 !!!]

Stewart
--
sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk                        ...ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!sfleming
"Every political/monetary/computer system is doomed to collapse;
   the trick is not being there when it happens."

aptagliabue@amherst.bitnet (03/20/91)

In article <27E52F1F.7319@orion.oac.uci.edu>, eaeu137@orion.oac.uci.edu 
(Andrew Theodore Laurence) writes:

> Whenever I want to use smart quotes (read: always), I just check "Smart 
> Quotes" in Preferences.  Works every time.  None on this command-option-[ 
> stuff.

Not true! Programs using a "Smart Quotes" option DO NOT get it right every
time. Try typing a year like '91 or a word which needs an apostrophe at the
beginning like 'til. Smart Quotes will enter an opening single quote, not
an apostrophe (same as a closing single quote). On a college campus one
quickly notices this problem with so many documents with references to
people's class years (John Doe '91). It's a sign of careless DTP to see
uncorrected single quotes.

Drew Tagliabue
aptagliabue@amherst

gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (03/21/91)

From article <1991Mar21.115231.1410@covax.commerce.uq.oz.au>, by bellamy@covax.commerce.uq.oz.au:
> In article <2578@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk>, sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk (Stewart T. Fleming) writes:

>> One other thing : Where can I get the TrueType font standard ?  Is it
>> available in any published or electronic form ?  Other than that :
>> TrueType looks Just Great (tm) - one up to Apple !

> Actually I think that Microsoft also had a lot to do with TrueType.

I think all that Microsoft did was license TrueType from Apple. In
exchange, Apple got a license to use the Postscript clone which Microsoft
bought from Bauer. Rumors are that the clone may be a bust, so Microsoft
may have gotten the better of that deal.

Gary Davis