This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (33 messages)
The AFM files are more for reference than anything else. The Mac doesn't actually *use* the AFM files since all the font metrics are contained within the font itself. What AFM files are useful for is helping other programs "load" font widths. For instance, Magnatype uses AFMS to load font…
Generally speaking, when font vendors claim their face is "identical", what they really mean is that the font metrics are the same. For instance, when the Birmysetter first came out, it used Bitstream fonts exclusively. Their claim was that the Bitstream fonts had the same metrics as Adobe's and hence…
Such questions (stealing someone else's work) are no doubt why the legal community has had such a difficult time establishing any sort of intelligent way of protecting intellectual property in the computer field. Is a slightly changed Times Roman a rip off or a new and improved face? Ya got…
I've known color printers who printed *all* colors under the black to get a really dense, rich black. Sounds like overkill to me, but, hey, I'm not a printer…
I do work nights … and I work with Bill … so count us both out unless it's a slow night, in which case we'll go online from work. (I can just see trying to explain to the boss what it is that we're doing…. maybe I could call it…
Such a camera would never fly! Kodak would go out of business … 99% of the photo processing in the country would come to a screaming halt! Come to think of it, such a concept would have the same effect on DTP .
No doubt, both Adobe and Bitstream are breathing a little easier because of that ruling. I wonder what effect this might have on Metamorphosis? If the program actually copies some of the code instead of generating it's own code I could see some interesting legal battles shaping up. The fact…
I don't know of *any* cases of outright font copying with photo or digital type. Cg's Helios and Triumverate are definitely *not* the same cut as the original Helvetica. Same goes for Swiss. Bitstream's Times is not the same as Adobe's Times… Paladium is not exactly the same as Palatino,…
I seriously doubt if being publicly known as a "bad guy" is the real reason why font libraries are not copied. See the thread I uploaded from the legal forum for their opinions on the subject. I just have a gut level feeling that if I dup'd all of Adobe's…
That's it! You called me mellow! Where's my Tagamet?! My ulcer's flaring up again. Just for that, I'm forced to tell everyone that your favorite song is actually Doris Day singing "Que Sera, Sera"…. BTW, I finally got the font program to work. I had some misc. crud hanging around…
Actually, we have a slogan at our company…. "Bucket Brains Welcome!" "Send Us Your DTP Monstrosities and Break Our Hearts!" Every once in a while I try to remember that they're just beginners and will improve with experience. Every once in a while I believe it…
I *like* that idea, Blaise! Perhaps RIP 4 will have a routine built in that automatically refuses to print ugly pages. I'd just love to tell a customer that their job was just too ugly to print! I can hardly wait…
I posted a message on the lawyers' forum asking for more information on copyrights, etc with regard to font designs. The responses so far have not been particularly enlightening (but since when do lawyers come up with "yes or no" answers…). I'm still at a loss to explain why Cg…
Tapcis has done it again … somehow I missed the second part of your message and can't seem to find it now. I think we're in agreement, that it's really the *people* running the software that are to blame for most of DTP's shortcomings. (Rather, I should say the untrained…
I'm highly confused about the ability to copyright font outlines … If this cannot be done, why have so many foundries gone to great lengths to make *minor* but detectable changes in fonts? Cg has had several versions of Helvetica over the years. If only the name can be copyrighted,…
Obviously I've been working with you too long … I've begun to throw out my own piles! This has got to stop!
You can achieve the same effect with ATM (creating screen fonts on the fly, that is). As for portability … screen fonts are not the only present problem with Adobe. Printer fonts, as well, are not transportable across platforms except by resorting to the subterfuge of creating ASCII versions of…
Occassionally, I have to remind myself that DTP is a very new technology and the people using it are also new to producing typeset pages. I know when I first started setting type, I certainly did a crummy job of it. The same holds true for DTP. It is my…
Unfortunately, I'd have to recommend Adobe fonts. They work with ATM, every service bureau worth its salt has them and that's that. I've yet to hear from an Art Director who complained about the cut of Adobe fonts and frankly, I just don't think Mr. & Ms. J.Q. Public would…
Actually, I was just trying to get a rise out of Kathleen… instead got one out of you. For the record, I've been in advertising typography for 15 years now. Our clients are all major ad agencies and Fortune 100 companies. They are *very* demanding. Given that background, obviously I…
I love your definition of good type. BTW, our favorite phrase around the shop these days is: "We're just whores for typography!"
Well, let's hope the folks at Adobe and Aldus are listening … I tried tinkering with the wordspace values in Xpress with similarly bad results. However, it *is* possible to set up an alternate H&J definition and apply that to an individual paragraph (or style) in Xpress. It's still clunky,…
With Xpress, it's hard to tell … I've had files that blew up as soon as I opened them on the Mac. Could it be the customer had set the file up to download fonts? I've noticed when TOPS tries to download a font when it's already on the hard…
I agree that you could manually go in and kern character-by-character, but my experience with changing the space band parameters has been disasterous because it has a global effect. Changing space band and tracking parameters for just a line or two is a common method for traditional typographers to "cheat"…
Why would Illustrator be substituting Courier, Jon? I've never had that problem since the program works with font names. I've run out files with no idea what fonts it had and everything worked fine. Could it be that the service bureau doesn't actually have all the fonts on-line on the…
After doing ad work for years, if there's anything "scientific" about the way agencies approach things I must have missed it. My friends who work for agencies are not so kind in their assessment. I have heard of the book you mentioned before and it comes highly recommended.
Thanks for the info. I have one client's large collection of fonts on our system so as an experiment I'm going to harmonize and then examine the fonts with VariTyper's utility to see exactly what changes were made. Since 99% of our clients use one of the big four (PM,FH,Illus,Xpress)…
You brought up an excellent point but it can't be done in PM (i.e., change word space for 1 line). I thoughtlessly tried that once at the tail-end of a long document, only to watch it reflow for the next 5 minutes. It's that sort of line-by-line, word-by-word control that…
Your comments reminded me of an old newspaper publisher I used to know. He owned the most successful small daily in Minnesota (their readership surveys came out over 100%; an interesting exercise in survey samplings…). His favorite line was: "They may not know *why* it looks good, but they know…
I've been telling my customers to steer clear of harmonizing their fonts because I was under the impression it would change the font numbers and thus affect printing at a service bureau. Is the process only changing the NFNT numbers or the FONDs as well? Put another way, is it…
RE "proof" of the effect of quality type: you haven't seen any nor *will* you. Advertising is not that scientific. I could quote readership studies 'til I'm blue in the face concerning layout, typeface, retention rates etc ad nauseum. They're *all* meaningless. The bottom line is the marketplace decides. In…
I'm afraid your position is rather unclear to me. In your note to Jon you mentioned specifically TNT, neg lead etc. in a disparaging fashion. Now you say they're just dandy. Amen, indeed.
Great idea! I too get tired waiting and wondering what it's doing. It's nice to get some feedback. There's always a thought in the back of my mind that it's busily reformatting my hard disk… I'll give your addition to the utility a whirl.