Installation notes for PC users: Don't forget to make the WIN.INI changes required to allow the font to download to your printer. Included in this archive are two versions of GoodCityModern: the first one uses Adobe Standard Encoding, meaning that many of the odd characters in the 'upper 128' of the ASCII sequence will appear in the places that PC keyboarders expect them to be. The second version uses sequential encoding (as did the original upload of the PC version of GoodCityModern). Sequential encoding means that a lot more characters will be available for typing from the PC keyboard, but they will not be in the positions that PC keyboarders expect them to be. You will need to make a choice between the GOCMASE_.* font and the GOCMSEQ_.* font. The first is Adobe Standard Encoded (characters where PC expects them but fewer characters available), the second is Sequential Encoded (all the characters available, but they're in different positions than PCs expect them). DO NOT INSTALL BOTH VERSIONS AT ONCE OR YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS. Also, both these versions have been run through the FOGFIX program, to make sure none of the anomalies that can be caused by having nulls or upper ASCII in the .PFB file will ever show up. Welcome to GoodCityModern, GoodCityModern 1.1 Read Me Thank all of you for downloading my font. I never in my wildest dreams would think so many people wanted this obscure, yet historical, font. To date, well over 3500 people have retrieved or received GoodCityModern. I have received letters, cards, and phone calls from all over the world. I am pleased that you are pleased. Ah, like software development, there is always the needed 1.1 after the first version ships. Quite a lot has happened to GCM (GoodCityModern): lots of tweaking of path points; corrected accented characters; improved some character widths; a few new characters added. Enough about the software. Since GCM's 1.0 release, I have been busy reading about Latin grammar. I learned several things. The original kerned pairs that Gutenberg created (po, pe, pp, etc...) are actually special abbreviations for Latin prefixes, suffixes, and phrases. He attempted to carry over the medieval scribe's style of spelling and 'shorthand' for fitting long words at the end of lines. Some have complained that the spacing for GCM is uneven or too tight. Go look at a Gutenberg Bible reproduction and see for yourself. It's far easier to unkern a few pairs to one's liking than try to know which pairs should be kerned. Until Apple releases the Line Layout Manager, there is no smart way to duplicate how Gutenberg typeset his 42 line Bible. The main new 'feature' of this version is a set of Lombardic caps to be used as initial caps with GCM. The original caps will be another font down the way. Remember: Blessed is one who teaches another to scribe the Letters. Shalom. ------------------------ GoodCityModern 1.0 Read Me Naturally, you may be asking yourself, 'How did he create this font?' It started late one night, restless... Glancing through some type books, I stopped upon a reproduction of the Gutenberg typeface; thought, that would be a great typeface to do in Fontographer. Thinking further, perhaps several weeks in the library and several more at my Mac with Fontographer 3.0 and I would be done. Hmm, things do not happen quite that way. Murphy's law was determined to be bothersome. There were only fragments of pages to go by... My Mac and scanner broke, requiring costly repairs. However, while visiting my parents (near C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville, New York), I found a full character set to copy at the college library. Work could commence. The reproduction was small and the copier worse, but I managed. Studying the page, I quickly realized several key points. One: Gutenberg designed the font with a deep understanding of Latin grammar and spelling. He had kerning pairs based on repeated letter usage throughout the Bible and kerned small words into tight units (i.e., "our," "of," and "and"). Second: That he posited key geometric guidelines to aid in creating the font. He was doing more than just capturing the scribe-like strokes of his day, but in addition had a respect for the metal and ink to be used in printing his Bible. This second point made it possible to actually create the font; because of the smallness of the reproduced letters, I had to re-create (for techies, 'reverse-engineer') them. My loupe and the page became very close friends! After some hand drawings to 'feel' the letter forms, I scanned the page at 150 dpi and made a bitmap font using Fontastic Plus(tm). Sometimes, I felt another hand on my mouse while fat-bitting away late at night... Then, I typed Latin text into Fontastic Plus' sample text edit window to see the typeface in actual context. Next, using the bitmap font, a PostScript printer, and Apple's print driver, I printed a page of characters at 200% enlargement with the option 'smoothing' (to partly smooth out the jaggies) checked from Apple's print driver. Thus, one could scale and smooth out a bitmap font -- without fatbitting a lot. Finally, I cleaned up the scan in MacPaint(R). I did preliminary versions in Fontographer 3.0.5 thru 3.1. As the in-house tester for FreeHand 3.0, I was naturally thinking mostly in terms of FreeHand, constantly experimenting with new ways to use it. At one point, I wondered "how much of my font could I do in FreeHand?" So, I placed the scanned image into FreeHand 3.0 to trace and refine -- using all its new features to accomplish the task. For example, while Fontographer has layers, I preferred the naming and ordering of the layers palette that FreeHand offered. Yes, bcp by bcp, the font came alive. There were days I felt a presence in the room... Once the character paths were done, I simply option-copied them from FreeHand into Fontographer 3.2. Once paths are in Fontographer, one can create the needed ligatures. Finally, after upgrading from Fontographer 3.2 to 3.3, I created kerning pairs. Based on the same careful study Gutenberg did on Latin letters, I needed to create 800 pairs! Now as of 5:15 pm, June 18, 1991, using Fontographer 3.3, I was finished. A few historical notes. The original typeface was created for Latin, not for modern English; hence, the 'modern' in the name of my translation. I had to create a full Roman set everyone can use. However, there is an exact Latin version which is not done. The 'goodcity' part of its name comes from German: guten-good, burg-city (or fortress), (actually, Earl Allen, a fellow Altsysian coined the term: Thanks, Earl!) [Earl notes that he goofed on the translation from German, mistakenly translating 'berg' as if it were spelled 'burg.' A better translation would be GoodMountModern, since 'berg' should actually be translated 'Mountain' rather than 'City,' as anyone who knows what an iceberg is would have done. Apologies for the mistranslation, but Andrew has decided to stick with the name for now.] Enjoy and use in good health. Andrew S. Meit Altsys Tester (and Stackhead) Altsys Corporation If you have any comments you'd like to pass on to Andrew you can send them to him at CompuServe: 76004,2071; MCI Mail: ALTSYS; America Online: Altsys; AppleLink: D0590. If you'd prefer to call, the phone number is (214) 680-2060 and the FAX number is (214) 680-0537. Andrew appreciates any and all feedback you can give him.