Fonts
11 messages in this thread
Amiga Fonts.
Can some kind soul please explain the difference between Compugraphic
Postscript, Adobe and standard Amiga bit-mapped fonts. And which can I use
with my Amiga 2000 (still WB 1.3 but soon to be upgraded to WB 2) and my HP
500C colour printer.
Michael.
I'm working on an article for Compute magazine about this very topic, but
it won't appear for several months. I'll let others jump in first, and I'll
help out later on…
Thanks, John, look forward to reading that. Regards, Michael, from London.
MIchael,
Bitmap fonts are just that: bitmaps. If you scale a bitmap, you usually
lose something in the translation. If you have Dpaint (or something
similar) print some text using one of the regular Amiga fonts, then scale
it. Jaggy city if you do any large amount of upsizing, and they tend to
collapse when shrunk.
Both Compugraphic and Adobe fonts are vector fonts. That means they're
capable of being scaled, skewed, maashed and compressed and still keep the
'edges' nice and smooth. They get 'drawn' rather than just plopped down.
The font description itself is just a series of instructions on drawing
the edges of the type i.e. 'draw a curve from here to there, then a line
from there to elswhere…" then filled with some parts being held
transparent (background masking) More exactly stated, it figures out what
area has to be filled using the vectors, then fills it, though you can
specify stroking (actually drawing the edges) and filling (or not).
Adobe fonts differ from Compugraphic in that Adobe uses some special
Postscript code (and some not so special) to do it, while Compugraphic uses
their own method. To confuse the matter, Compugraphic also makes Adobe
type 1 fonts.
Postscript is not a font, but a page descrition language. That's what's
needed to use Adobe fonts (they wrote and hold the rights to PostScript;
very tightly, too) And they come in different flavors, too: type 1, which
is the best, as they are hinted (routines to fit edges according to the
print-device's capability) and print fast due to their being encoded to
take advantage ofspecial features in PS, type 2 (considered obsolete) and
type 3 ('cheaper' version of type 1, using standard PS code to do the
drawing)
I could go on, but by now you get the idea. Bitmaps are usually quicker
to get on screen, as they don't have to be decoded. Compugraphic fonts get
scaled and turned into bitmap fonts, which then get blasted onto the
screen. Then there's kerning, tracking, etc. ad nauseum.
I hope this is enough to give you the basic idea of what's what as far
<continued>
as fonts are concerned.
Hope this helps,
Doug
Thanks, Doug, that is a great help. So it is worthwhile upgrading to WB 2
to get Compugraphic fonts, by the sound of it. I have not done so yet;
reluctant to take the plunge and risk my trusty 2000 with something new!
Regards, Michael from London.
Michael,
There is an article addressing just those issues in theis months Amiga
News. It is a newpaper periodical thqat has just recently been introduced.
Looks pretty good too at only .95 cents. If ya need it I can give your
their subscription address.
..Steve
Whap!ping from beautiful coastal South Carolina
Thanks, Steve, but I'm in rainy old London and I don't think we get that
here.
Regards, Michael.
> type 3 fonts … 'cheaper' version of type 1
Am I not correct in thinking that Adobe type 3 fonts can achieve effects
that can not be achieved with type 1 fonts?
Shraddhan – via Whap! from Hertfordshire in the UK
Shraddan,
Not any more. In the early days, when Type 1 was a deep, dark
ultra-secret known only to the trusted few, doing anything special with
them was impossible. That didn't last long, as Adobe cleverly allowed you
to acess them in a limited way while keeping their secrets deep in the
exec.
You can stroke and fill, and turn them into clipping paths, as well as
the standard scaling/scewing/rotating, without ever seeing hint one of the
hinting mechanism. "It just am," as said the philosopher.
Clever people did their digging, and found out how Adobe did their stuff.
Now they were privy to the secrets, and just as reluctant to release them
as Adobe- most likely because Adobe said, "License them from us, or be
inundated by lawyers."
Now, one of the main differences between type 1 and type 3 is that type 3
uses plain old PS to do it's thing. In fact, some badly designed fonts
won't clip; they just overwrite everything in their path. And they aren't
hinted in the least. Try printing a 6 point type 3 face at 300DPI. Now
try it using type 1. Big difference.
And that difference is the hinting mechanism. The type 1 fonts use
special functions that are 'hidden' deep within the exec. They also render
much, much faster as they're encoded to take advantage of those routines,
and they are hinted which ensures the best edges possible according to the
resolution of the device doing the rendering.
Adobe _has_ finally released the specs on type 1, allowing users to get
at type 1 to take it apart and do with it as they will. With the final
secrets released, you can do anything with a type 1 fonts (and a bit more)
that you could with a type 3.
Doug