Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!newsgate.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!paperboy.wellfleet.com!news3.near.net!amber.ora.com!not-for-mail From: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: Macintosh Info Supersedes: Followup-To: poster Date: 14 Aug 1996 10:34:44 -0400 Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Lines: 733 Sender: norm@ruby.ora.com Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Distribution: world Expires: 27 Sep 1996 14:34:08 GMT Message-ID: References: Reply-To: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) NNTP-Posting-Host: ruby.ora.com Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts. It addresses both general font questions and questions that are specific to a particular platform. X-Web-Homepage: http://www.ora.com/homepages/comp.fonts/ Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.fonts:48304 comp.answers:20518 news.answers:79239 Archive-name: fonts-faq/part7 Version: 2.1.5 Subject: 2. Macintosh Information Subject: 2.1. Macintosh Font formats Bitmap Fonts ============ 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. PostScript Type 1 ================= Postscript Type 1 fonts can be installed on the Macintosh only by using accompanying bitmapped fonts. PostScript Type 3 ================= Postscript Type 3 fonts are installed on the Macintosh in the same way that Type 1 fonts are. TrueType ======== Truetype fonts: no bitmapped font is necessary with this type, though commonly used sizes are often supplied. QuickDraw GX ============ This section was constructed from postings by Charles A. Bigelow, Peter Moller, David Opstad, and Michael Wang from Sep 93. What is it? ----------- QuickDraw GX (QDGX) is the new Mac OS engine for handling screen presentation. It has many advantages over older engines, among them the ability to get ligatures, swashes etc. on the fly. QDGX is also a 16-bit font format that allows for example users in Korea to run their machines in their native tounge as well as write. How is it related to Unicode? ----------------------------- Although QDGX is a 16-bit encoding, it is "orthogonal" to Unicode Unicode, to use a jargon term. A TrueType font, GX or otherwise, can be encoded using the Unicode standard, but that isn't necessary. However, a TrueType font, and especially a GX font, can contain glyphs for which there is no unique Unicode encoding, e.g. the 'fi' ligature, or a swash 'a' with a trailing curlicue. TrueType GX fonts, however, contain additional information and structure that allows the QDGX system to properly substitute variant glyphs for certain characters in the text. For the above examples, QDGX will, if requested, look for the sequence 'f' + 'i' and substitute the 'fi' ligature, or look for 'a' at the end of a line and substitute the glyph 'a-trailing curlicue'. It is really quite charming to see this happen, and it makes the font [...] a clever, trained circus dog that does tricks than a simple font. The GX fonts begin to show an additional personality beyond the image of the glyphs. In fact, the font can contain a state machine that controls the substitution process--in effect, a computer program. There is provision for another state machine controlling kerning as well, to get around the problems that can arise with simple pair-based kerning. David Opstad contributes the following: The bidirectional text reordering algorithm defined in Unicode is fully implemented in GX (in fact, during our testing of GX we uncovered some problems with the Unicode specification!) Also, and most unfortunately, since Unicode is the product of an international committee process there were certain compromises that were made in the design, so there really are Unicode character codes for certain ligatures and contextual forms (e.g. the "Basic Glyphs for Arabic Language" codes starting at U+FE70). Note, however, that GX does not use these; we do Arabic contextual processing the same way we do Roman contextual processing. Indeed, it is this uniformity of approach that is, I believe, one of GX's main strengths. One of my greatest hopes (that keeps me going after having worked on getting GX done for over five years now) is that we're going to see a real renaissance of fonts and creativity in font designs. GX finally gets us back to the elegance of calligraphy, with the repeatability and precision of the computer. What about rotation? -------------------- QDGX supports full 3X3 transformations (including perspective) on all objects in the graphics system, including text. Anti-aliasing is not included in GX 1.0, but we're looking at it for future versions. Is QDGX limited to TrueType fonts? ---------------------------------- Michael Wang contributes: Just to clarify, the component of QuickDraw GX that deals with font features like automatic ligature substitution is called the Line Layout Manager (which I'll abbreviate as LLM), and LLM features are independent of scaler technology. In other words, a Type 1 font can have all of the LLM features that a TrueType font can have under QuickDraw GX. In fact, Apple and Adobe bundle a GX version of ATM with the QuickDraw GX release along with a Type 1 GX version of Tekton Regular which includes lots of additional glyphs and supports most of the LLM features. If you are a Macintosh developer, there are beta GX versions of ATM and Tekton that you can play around with on the QuickDraw GX 1.0b1 release that is part of the WWDC CD. Lawrence D'Oliveiro contributes: One implication of GX for font installation is that Type 1 fonts no longer come in "bitmap" vs "screen" versions that live in separate files: under QuickDraw GX, they live in "sfnt" resources, and install no differently from TrueType fonts. As of 1 Mar 95, QuickDraw GX 1.0.1 is the current release. Subject: 2.2. Frequently Requested Mac Fonts Greek Fonts =========== This section was constructed from a posting by John Amanatides in Jan 1995. There are three ways to get Greek out of a Mac. Approach one is to simply use the Symbol font; this solution is the easiest but Symbol doesn't have accents and you cannot easily exchange files with friends in Greece. Approach two is go all the way and install Apple's Greek system software on your Mac. It would make it identical to a machine sold in Greece and is really only an option for the diehards. Approach three is to just get a Greek keyboard driver and Greek typefaces. This article talks mostly about approach three while it does also mention the others. First some background. Until the early '80s the Greek alphabet included quite a lot of different diacritical marks. Thus if you are interested in classical Greek you will need to get a polytonic version of the typeface. Modern Greek now only uses accents, simplifying the use of the alphabet and this is normally what you will get when you ask for a Greek typeface. There are several encodings of the Greek alphabet. ISO-8859-7 is the most standard. It is an 8-bit encoding that uses the regular 7-bit ASCII standard in the lower 128 positions and Greek in the upper 128. Unfortunately, Apple did not use it (sigh). Apple's encoding is slightly different in the upper 128 positions. All modern Greek typefaces for the Mac seem to use this encoding and if you use it you can exchange files with your friends in Greece (and use Greek dictionaries!). If you are interested in classical Greek things become a little trickier. I don't know if there is a standard but Linguist's Software's (see below) encoding seems to be the most popular. Sources of Greek Fonts for the Mac ---------------------------------- Apple ..... You can go all the way with Apple and get their Greek system software but getting it is non-trivial. In North America the only way to get it seems to be to get the "Apple Developer Mailing" from APDA. Designed for developers, you get a CD mailed to you monthly. The CD contains the most recent worldwide Mac system software along with a lot of other stuff. It costs \$250 US and you get updates for a year. The Greek system software contains TrueType versions of GrCourier, GrHelvetica, GrTimes and several bitmap versions of some of Apple's other typefaces along with the Greek keyboard driver. APDA 800-282-2732 US 800-637-0029 Canada 716-871-6555 A second place to get Greek system software is in Greece. Apple's distributor is: Rainbow Computer S.A. Elia Eliou 75 Neos Kosmos, Athens Greece 117 44 30-1-9012892 Voice 30-1-9012540 FAX Just because you have the Greek system software doesn't mean you have to install the whole system; you can just take the Greek typefaces and the Greek keyboard driver and use them with your current system software. Note: Linguists' Software (see below) also market version 6.0.3 of the Greek operating system. Linotype-Hell ............. Linotype sells a variety of Type1 Greek typefaces in both modern and polytonic versions and in a variety of weights/styles: Times, Helvetica, Baskerville, New Century Schoolbook and Souvenir. The easiest way to purchase them is to get Linotype's CD of locked typefaces (a new one is coming out in Dec. '94). The CD costs \$49 US and comes with 4 free fonts. A Greek keyboard driver comes with the typefaces. Linotype can be reached at: Linotype-Hell Company 425 Oser Avenue Hauppage, NY, 11788 USA 800-633-1900 516-434-3616 FAX These typefaces are also distributed by FontShop (see below) Note: the new CD works on both a Mac and a PC and when you unlock a typeface you unlock for both systems. FontShop ........ FontShop is an international chain of stores which supplies a wide variety of typefaces to both professionals and the rest of us. Their North American address is: FontShop Canada Limited 510 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario Canada M5V 3H3 800-363-6687 416-348-0916 FAX Monotype ........ Monotype offers two Greek typefaces on their locked CD: Times New Roman Greek and Arial Greek. Each typeface comes in four weights/styles. Their CD lists for \$49 and you get 8 free fonts (just enough for both of their Greek typefaces :-). You can reach Monotype at: Monotype Typography Inc. Suite 2630, 150 South Wacker Drive Chicago, IL, 60606 USA 800-MONOTYP (800-666-6897) 312-855-9475 FAX These typefaces are also distributed by FontShop. Note: you get a 5 CPU license. Linguist's Software ................... Linguist's Software has typefaces for over 250 world languages and gives several options for those interested in Greek. First, you can purchase the Greek operating system for the Mac version 6.0.3. This includes GrTimes and GrHelvetica (Type 3) as well as several bit-mapped system fonts. Second, you can purchase their modern Greek typefaces Olympus and Philippi (Times and Helvetica clones) in four weights/styles and in both Type1 and TrueType along with a keyboard driver for System 7. Finally, they have their own TrueType and Type1 typefaces in the LaserGreek package. These are of particular interest to Greek scholars since they include extra diacritics for ancient/N.T. Greek. This package now includes a Uncail typeface. LaserGreek: \$99; Modern Greek + keyboard driver: \$99; LaserGreek + GreekOS: \$139; LaserGreek + Modern Greek + keyboard driver: \$139. Linguist's Software PO Box 580 Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 USA 206-775-1130 206-771-5911 FAX Ecological Linguistics ...................... Ecological Linguistics also provides typfaces for a wide variety of world languages. They have a polytonic version of Times (GreekTimes) in their GreekClassical package and monotonic versions of Times and Helvetica (GkTimes, GkHelvetica) in four weights/styles in their GreekModern package. Both the GreekClassical and GreekModern packages are \$60 US each and come with a keyboard driver. Ecological Linguistics P.O. Box 15156 Washington, D.C., 20003 U.S.A. 202-546-5862 MacCampus ......... MacCampus of Germany provides Greek and other Eastern European typefaces. The Greek typefaces come in two flavors: those that are based on the modern Greek keyboard layout and those based on the Symbol font layout. MacCampus provides a keyboard driver so that you can use the former type on non-Greek Macs. The typefaces available are: Modern Greek (Greek layout): Olympia (Helvetica clone) and Tiryns (Times clone) in 4 weights/styles Classical Greek (extra diacritics, Symbol layout): Agora Times, Parmenides (light, sans-serif) MacCampus C. Kempgen An den Weihern 18 D-96135 Stegaurach Germany (0951) 296739 (0951) 296425 FAX MacCampus typefaces are distributed by FontShop. Font World .......... Another Greek typeface distributor is Font World. They also sell a variety of Eastern European typefaces. They provide a package of keyboard drivers for a variety of different world languages. The modern Greek typefaces are: FW Palace GK (Palatino?), FW Baskerfield GK, FW Peace GK (sans serif) & condensed version, FW Pithos GK (Lithos?), FW Stencil GK, FW Textbook GK, FW Tourist GK (Souvenir) and FW World GK (Times?). They come in a variety of weights/styles and go for about \$100-\$200. Font World, Inc. 2021 Scottsville Road, Rochester, NY 12623 USA 716-235-6861 716-235-6950 FAX SkepsiS ....... SkepsiS is a Greek publishing company that is heavily into Macs. They have created and sell several nice typefaces in several weights/styles: Corfu (New Century Schoolbook?), Ithaca (Souvenir?), Rhodes (University?), Mykonos (Courier?), Paros (Antique Olive?), Samos (modern serif), GtcFutura (Futura?), Naxos (Eurostile?), Ios (?) The cost for a package containing the above is 60,000 drachmas. SkepsiS Ltd El. Benizelou 184 T.K. 176 75, Kallithea Athens, Greece 30-1-952-2086 30-1-952-2088 FAX Magenta ....... Magenta is a Greek company that sells typefaces for Macs and PCs. Their catalog lists over 70 typefaces with names like MgBodoni, MgOptima, MgAvantGarde, etc in a variety of weights/styles. Most are modern Greek but they also have a few classical typefaces. Each typeface family goes for about 8,500 drachmas. Magenta Ltd Antimaxou 17 115 28 Athens Greece 30-1-722-9292 phone/FAX Note, I have tried to contact Magenta recently and have gotten no response. Fronteiras .......... Fonteiras is a German company that produces non-roman typefaces. They have 26 Greek typefaces, display and text, both polytonic and monotonic. Some of the families include clones of Dynamo, Stencil, Broadway, Revue, Futura Black, Lithos, Industria, Insignia, Palatino, Helvetica, Times, etc. Packages go for about \$150-\$200 US and include a Greek keyboard driver. The monotonic typfaces have kerning tables and some have real italics. (Most other vendors only have obliques.) Fronteiras Luisenstr. 22 D-60316 Franfurt Germany 49-069-4980498 phone/FAX 100443.1305@compuserve.com Freeware/Shareware .................. There is a free classical Greek typeface called Ismini that is available on the net at: mac.archive.umich.edu:mac/system.extensions/font/type1/ismini.cpt.hqx Unfortunately, I don't think it uses the same encoding as Linguist's Software. Other 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: http://www.ora.com/homepages/comp.fonts/FAQ-tools.html. 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 a stack of "A"s 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 Does 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. * reAdobe Converts text (PFA) format PostScript Type 1 fonts into Mac format. * unAdobe Converts Mac format PostScript Type 1 fonts into text (PFA) 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, Inc., 45 Walden Street, Concord MA 01742 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.