Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.answers,news.answers Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eff!news.kei.com!world!ora.com!norm From: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: Macintosh Info Message-ID: Followup-To: poster Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts. It addresses both general font questions and questions that are specific to a particular platform. Sender: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Supersedes: Reply-To: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. References: Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 16:27:45 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 16:27:32 GMT Lines: 341 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu comp.fonts:6513 comp.answers:3559 news.answers:14499 Archive-name: fonts-faq/part4 Version: 2.0.3 Subject: 2. Macintosh Information Subject: 2.1. Macintosh Font formats Postscript Type 1 fonts can be installed on the Macintosh only by using accompanying bitmapped fonts. Postscript Type 3 fonts are installed on the Macintosh in the same way that Type 1 fonts are. Truetype fonts: no bitmapped font is necessary with this type, though commonly used sizes are often supplied. Bitmap fonts: on the Macintosh, bitmap fonts also contain the kerning information for a font and must be installed with both type 1 and type 3 fonts. Their presence also speeds the display of commonly used font sizes. Subject: 2.2. Frequently Requested Mac Fonts Many fonts are available at various archives. The king of Macintosh font archives is mac.archive.umich.edu. On mac.archive.umich.edu, the fonts are located in the following folders: /mac/system.extensions/font/type1 /mac/system.extensions/font/type3 /mac/system.extensions/font/truetype The following fonts are in Type 1 format for the Macintosh. Some are also available in TrueType format. * Tamil Paladam, T. Govindram * Hebrew ShalomScript, ShalomOldStyle, ShalomStick, Jonathan Brecher * Japanese Shorai (Hirigana, with application) * Star Trek StarTrekClassic, Star TrekClassicMovies, StarTrekTNGCrille, StarTrekTNG Titles, TNG monitors, StarFleet, Klinzai (Klingon font) * Command-key symbol Chicago (TrueType or bitmap, key: Ctrl-Q), Chicago Symbols (Type3, key: 1), EncycloFont (Type3, key: d) * Astrologic/Astronomic symbols Hermetica (Type1), InternationalSymbols (Type 3, Mars and Venus only), MortBats (Type3), Zodiac (bitmap) * IBM OEM Line Drawing Characters Try Adobe PrestigeElite or Adobe LetterGothic. They have all the characters you want, but the `line draw' characters are unencoded -- you will need tools to reencode the outline font itself and make a new PFM metric files. Or try IBMExtended from Impramatur Systems in Cambridge, Mass. It already is encoded using IBM OEM encoding (some DOS code page). The IBM version of Courier distributed freely under the X11 Consortium also contains the appropriate characters. It is distributed in PC format, however. Again, the font will have to be reencoded for Windows. Appropriate AFM files for this font can be obtained from: ibis.cs.umass.edu:/pub/norm/comp.fonts. The file is called IBM-Courier-PC8-SymbolSet-AFMs.zip. Many of these mac fonts are available in files that are either entitled xxxx.sit or xxxx.cpt. xxxx.sit files are Stuffit archives. xxxx.cpt files are Compact Pro archives. StuffitLite (shareware $25) and Compact Pro (shareware $25) are available at the standard ftp sites. Uncompressors for these programs (free) are also available at the archive sites. Check the utilities/compression utilities folders. Subject: 2.3. Commercial Font Sources Commercial fonts can be obtained from a number of different companies, including the large font houses: Adobe, Font Haus, Font Company, Bitstream, and Monotype. At these companies, fonts cost about $40 for a single face, and must be purchased in packages. Adobe, Bitstream, and Monotype also sell pre-designated type collections for slightly lower prices. Image Club sells a wide selection of fonts for about $50 for a 4 font family. Other, cheaper companies sell fonts of lesser quality, including KeyFonts, which sells a set of 100 fonts for $50 and Casady & Green's Fluent Laser Fonts, a set of 79 fonts for $99. Casady & Greene also sells Cyrillic language fonts in Times, Bodoni, and Helvetica sell for about $40 for each 4 font family. Foreign language fonts, ranging from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Cyrillic can be obtained from Ecological Linguistics. Please consult the vendor list for a more complete list of vendors. Subject: 2.4. Mac Font Installation * System 7 Install the fonts by opening the suitcase containing the bitmap file and dropping the fonts into your system suitcase, located inside your system folder. You will need to quit all other applications before doing this. For a TrueType font, the icon for the font will have several letters in it, instead of just one. Dropping it into your system suitcase will make all sizes of the font available. For Postscript type 1 fonts, you also need to place the printer font in the extensions folder in your system folder. If you are using ATM you need to place these fonts in the root level of your system folder (not inside another folder). Using Suitcase, a font management utility, you can avoid cluttering your system folder with printer fonts. You can make new suitcases of fonts (generally not needed, but used by those who use Suitcase) by using Font DA mover. It operates the same as in system 6, except that the most recent version must be used. * System 6 Bitmap fonts can be installed using Font DA mover to move the fonts, located inside suitcases, into your system. You will need to restart your computer to make these fonts available. Printer fonts must be placed in the system folder, not inside any other folder. Truetype fonts can be used with system 6 if you get the Truetype init. Then the fonts can be installed in your system with Font DA mover. Suitcase can also be used under system 6. Subject: 2.5. Mac Font Utilities * SUITCASE Suitcase is a nifty little system extension that lets you avoid having to install fonts into your system. In system 6, it means that you can avoid restarting your system every time you want to install a new font. In system 7, Suitcase lets you avoid quitting all applications before making fonts available. Some programs, like Quark Xpress will automatically update their font list when you open a new suitcase, allowing much more flexibility in opening and closing font suitcases and making different sets of fonts available. Suitcase appears in your Apple menu in both system 7 and 6 and allows you to open suitcases, as though they were files, thus making the fonts contained in them accessible to programs. In addition, when suitcase is installed, printer fonts can be stored with the bitmap suitcases they correspond to, instead of having to drop them into your system folder. The most recent version of Suitcase is compatible with TrueType. Suitcase is about $54 from the mail order places. * Carpetbag A shareware program with functionality equivalent to Suitcase. * MASTER JUGGLER Claims to do similar things * ATM Adobe Type Manager is an Init and Control panel allows accurate screen display, at any size of PostScript type 1 fonts. It's function is replicated with Truetype (but for different outline font format). With it installed, you can print fonts of any size to non-PostScript printers. When using ATM, printer fonts must either be stored with the bitmap files opened with suitcase (when using Suitcase), or they must be stored in the root level of the system folder (with System 7.0, printer fonts must be stored in the Extension folder if you are not using Suitcase). ATM is now available, with the System 7.0 upgrade, as well as directly from adobe with 4 Garamond fonts. ATM is not built into System 7.1 as previously expected. With System 7.1, printer fonts must be stored in the Fonts folder if you are not using Suitcase. If you are using version 7.x prior to 7.1, the following hack allows you to have a Font folder (if you don't use Suitcase): Open the second 'DCOD' resource from the ATM 68020/030 file. Do an ASCII search for the string "extn" and change it to "font" (it's case sensitive). Save, close, and Reboot. This process should work for 68000 machines using the proper ATM file instead. * Super ATM This is a utility that will create fonts, on the fly, that match the metrics of any Adobe-brand fonts you don't have. It does a remarkably good job of mimicry because it uses two "generic" Multiple Master typefaces, serif and sans serif to simulate the appearance of the missing typefaces. (There is a 1.4 megabyte database file that allows Super ATM to simulate the fonts that aren't there.) You also get Type On Call (a CD-ROM), which has locked outline fonts, and unlocked screen font for all but the most recent faces in the Adobe Type library. * TTconverter A shareware accessory available at the usual archives will convert Truetype fonts for the IBM into Macintosh format. * Microsoft Font Pack If you work with a mixture of Macs and PCs running Windows 3.1, this is a good deal; 100 TrueType fonts compromising the Windows 3.1 standard set and the two Font Packs for Windows. This includes various display fonts, the Windows Wingdings font, and the Lucida family. A variety of programs, for example, Font Harmony, etc. will allow you to change the names and ID numbers of your fonts. Fontmonger and Metamorphosis will let you convert fonts among several formats (type 1 and 3 and Truetype for the Mac and PC), as well as letting you extract the font outlines from the printer fonts. Subject: 2.6. Making Outline Fonts This is very, very difficult. Many people imagine that there are programs that will simply convert pictures into fonts for them. This is not the case; most fonts are painstakingly created by drawing curves that closely approximate the letterforms. In addition, special rules (which improve hinting, etc.) mandate that these curves be drawn in specific ways. Even designing, or merely digitizing, a simple font can take hundreds of hours. Given that, there are two major programs used for font design on the Macintosh, Fontographer ($280) and FontStudio ($400). These programs will allow you to import scanned images, and then trace them with drawing tools. The programs will then generate type 1, 3, TrueType and Bitmap fonts for either the Macintosh or the IBM PC. They will also generate automatic hinting. They also open previously constructed outline fonts, allowing them to be modified, or converted into another format. As far as I know, there are no shareware programs that allow you to generate outline fonts. Subject: 2.7. Problems and Possible Solutions 1. Another font mysteriously appears when you select a certain font for display. This is often the result of a font id conflict. All fonts on the Macintosh are assigned a font id, an integer value. When two fonts have the same id, some programs can become confused about the appropriate font to use. Microsoft word 4.0 used font id's to assign fonts, not their names. Since id's can be different on different computers, a word document's font could change when it was moved from one computer to another. Other signs of font id problems are inappropriate kerning or leading (the space between lines of text). Some font ID problems can be resolved by using Suitcase, which will reassign font ID's for you, as well as saving a font ID file that can be moved from computer to computer to keep the id's consistent. Font ID problems can also be solved with several type utilities, which will allow you to reassign font id's. Most newer programs refer to fonts correctly by name instead of id number, which should reduce the frequency of this problem. 2. When using a document written in MSWord 5.0, the font mysteriously changes when you switch from your computer at home to work, or vice versa. This is the result of a bug in MSWord 5.0. The MSWord 5.0 updater, which can be found at the info-mac archives at sumex (in the demo folder), will fix this bug. Subject: 2.8. Creating Mac screen fonts Creating Mac screen fonts from Type 1 outlines ============================================== Peter DiCamillo contributes the following public domain solution: BitFont is a program which will create a bitmapped font from any font which can be drawn on your Macintosh. In addition to standard bitmapped fonts, it works with Adobe outline fonts when the Adobe Type Manager is installed, and works with TrueType? fonts. BitFont will also tell you how QuickDraw will draw a given font (bitmapped, ATM, or TrueType) and can create a text file describing a font and all its characters. BitFont was written using MPW C version 3.2. It is in the public domain and may be freely distributed. The distribution files include the source code for BitFont. Berthold K.P. Horn contributes the following solution. This is a commercial solution. A font manipulation package from Y&Y includes: AFMtoPFM, PFMtoAFM, AFMtoTFM, TFMtoAFM, AFMtoSCR, SCRtoAFM, TFMtoMET, PFBtoPFA, PFAtoPFB, MACtoPFA, PFBtoMAC, REENCODE, MODEX, DOWNLOAD, SERIAL, and some other stuff I forget. To convert PC Type 1 fonts to Macintosh use PFBtoMAC on the outline font itself; then use AFMtoSCR to make the Mac `screen font' (repository of metric info). You may need to use PFMtoAFM to first make AFM file. To convert Macintosh font to PC Type 1, use MACtoPFA, followed by PFAtoPFB. Then run SCRtoAFM on screen font to make AFM file. Finally, run AFMtoPFM to make Windows font metric file. Y&Y are the `TeX without BitMaps' people (see ad in TUGboat): Y&Y makes DVPSONE, DVIWindo, and fonts, for use with TeX mostly, in fully hinted Adobe Type 1 format. Y&Y, 106 Indian Hill, Carlisle MA 01741 USA (800) 742-4059 (508) 371-3286 (voice) (508) 371-2004 (fax) Mac Screen fonts can be constructed from outline fonts using Fontographer, as well.