#Best Word Processor
10 messages in this thread
Arrgggh! Just what we need, another program with proprietary fonts. I
welcomed the arrival of Pagestream, because it allowed the use of scalable
fonts on non-postscrpt printers. However, there is only so much room on my
hard drive, and to have to replicate the same fonts in different programs
only makes it worse. Since WB 2 supports AGFA fonts, it would be real nice
it they would also.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
Alex,
I assume you were referring to FinalCopy? I agree. Although it's
a very good program, it's a shame that developers can't just use what's
here and proven instead of going the route of something proprietary.
I wasn't referring to final copy directly, (I've never used it), my
comments were of a general nature. If a program supports only proprietary
fonts, I am unlikely to buy it. I haven't found anything to cause me to
throw out my current software, and I am not about to go through all the
expense to duplicate all the fonts I currently have, for one piece of
software. (Unless of course it could do strange and wonderful things, that
no other piece of software could, and I couldn't live without it.)
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
Alex,
I can't disagree with you. I think you're quite right. Especially
now that 2.04 is out and the system fully supports outline fonts, there's
no reason for software not to fully utilize what's there, rather than
re-inventing the wheel.
>"If a program supports only proprietary fonts, I am unlikely to buy it."<
Alex:
Boy, do I agree 100%. Between special fonts, special drivers, special
libraries, it is amazing that my programs can find anything they need to
operate. And our system (Amiga) is much better of than PC/MSDOS!
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
I attended a presentation by the authors of Final Copy. They developed
proprietary fonts for two reasons: 1. When they began development of the
program, Commodore had not yet announced their decision to make the AGFA
fonts a standard. 2. The AGFA fonts take much longer to render than Final
Copy's proprietary fonts. They essentially render their fonts on the fly,
and on a standard Amiga 500 that program just blasted the text up on the
screen like regular bitmapped fonts.
I'm sure they had a reason to create their own fonts. (Nobody would do
that just for fun. Believe me! <g>) Wonder if their fonts are hinted for
quality reproduction at small sizes on low res devices. (laser jets are
considered low res at around 8 points.) Speedier screen displays are not a
reason for me to switch. Proprietary fonts have a way of receiving little
third party support. (ie. Pagestream internal fonts are found only from
Pagestream, or a few shareware/PD suppliers off BBS's (and those off the
BBS's are of varying quality.) On the other hand, there are tons of
Postscript fonts, of high quality, from lots of vendors. (Not to mention
the Shareware/PD off BBS's, which are also of varying quality. But the
Shareware fonts seem to be good for the most part, because there is more
competition, and more familiarity with the font structure.)
I agree that having a hard-disk full of a myriad of different font systems
is definitely a disadvantage, but I can understand the Final Copy
designer's problem. I have to say, their product is VERY impressive. It is
a ProWritelike word-processor — VERY convenient to use compared with
desktop publishing programs, and yet provides a lot of capability for fonts
and graphics that meet the needs of most applications without the burden of
the DTP type packages. I am sticking with ProWrite for now, trying to use
the CGFonts converted by Fountain. This yields VERY good results on my
Panasonic KX-P1124, BUT the Fountain font conversion isn't perfect, and
does not convert certain characters, including ' and ", which is very
unfortunate! I also have ProPage 2.1, and I get perfect results with that
using the CGFonts, but it isn't a convenient program to use for most
letters and memos.
Alex: There are actually lots of commercial fonts in PageStream's
proprietary format available. Computer Safari sells 25 disks of 3-4 fonts
each, FontAbility has 6 disks I think, Sol Guber sells 40 or so fonts,
Dennis Palumbo sells 5 disks of 3 fonts each (very high quality), Cherry
Fonts (now distributed by CodeHead) are being translated for PageStream,
(extremely high quality), MS Designs sells 80 or so PageStream fonts,
etc… There are hundreds of fonts available in PageStream format from
commercial developers.
Mike Soft-Logik Tech Support
Thanks for the info. I don't have PageStream, myself, but I'll pass it on
to friends who do.