Non-proportional fonts?
14 messages in this thread
I have an urgent need for a NON-proportional font like Courier to use
with Pagestream 2.1. I am importing a huge text file that needs to stay in
columns. This file has over 19000 lines and I don't want to edit it. An
Adobe type 1 would be great! I have Dl'd some batches of Adobe fonts but
have not found a non-proportional one yet.
I used Pro-Page last time and used a bit-mapped Courier to format it. I
then saved it to disk as a Postscript file and borrowed a Laserwriter to
print it out. I would prefer to used an outline font and just print it on
my Deskjet for convenience. Now when I fire up Pro-Page 2.1 I can't seem to
use any fonts except the two Compugraphic ones which are proportional. I
also switched to WB 2.04.
….Mark 74335,1677
I have a large collection of fonts (>200) and cannot find a single one
that is not proportional. Courier seems the only real choice. If you
have the ProPage CompuGraphic Courier font, then you can use this in
PStream.
However, 19000 lines of text is a _lot_ and, even with the best of
everything, bit-dumping page images to your DeskJet is going to take
ages (a quick mental calc suggests around 30 hours of non-stop
printing).
The alternatives are to borrow the Laserwriter again, to use a WP with
the DeskJet's internal fonts or to edit the file to replace the
spacing with TABs.
In the meantime, I'll have another look and see if I can find a fixed
spacing font.
Mike,
I got a msg from SoftLogik that there are the following non-prop. fonts:
Olympia- PD Type1
Lineprinter- Soft-Logik Font Pack 1
Letter Gothic- Adobe type 1 from Adobe not SL LtrGoth
I am looking for Olympia or I might buy a font pack. I have printed an
earlier version on the DJ and it took a long time. I used bitmap Courier
from Pro Page. I have a 3000/25 so it doesn't take too long to regurgatate
the pages. I can't just use a regular dump to a printer of the text file
as I need to double column the thing to conserve space. It is over 300
pages! The Laserwriter is no longer available to me (rats).
Thanks for looking.
….Mark 74335,1677
Mark
I was aware that there were a couple of commercial fixed space fonts
around, Courier being one of them.
I also have the PD Olympia and it doesn't seem to be a fixed space font (at
least when used in PageStream) … it is also fairly ugly.
I can't really understand why there are so few fixed space fonts around. Of
course, DTP programs could quite easily be made to use _any_ font at fixed
spacing if the software writers chose to.
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Mike:
While PPage or PgS could make a font fixed space via software, it would
look terrible. A fixed width font has to be designed in such a way that all
the characters take up roughly the same space along the x-axis. If I went
into the Times .metric file in PPage and reset all the metric values to,
let's say, the bounding box x-width, that wouldn't account for the fact
that the letter "i" takes up alot less space horizontally than "W", for
instance.
Just being picky,
Gary
– Mirror Image Prod. (416) 495-7469, via WHAP!
Gary,
What you have just described is precisely what a fixed-width,
non-proportional font is. The width is constant, and the letters take up a
varying portion of that width. The advantage is, of course, that you can
place text in columns, and align everything. It doesn't look 'terrible' to
someone trying to read stuff that needs to be lined up.
-larry
Gary
I'm certainly aware of the limitations of application-created fixed-pitch
fonts
.. and it's true that some fonts don't look wonderful. But, there may be a
real need for a fixed-pitch font which outweighs the fact that it might not
look that wonderful.
Courier has been carefully designed to fill up the character space by using
exagerated serifs … and _some_ other fonts, including Times and Souvenir,
actually don't look _that_ bad as fixed pitch.
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Mike,
Now that's a good idea! Are those guys listening? Use any font as a
fixed-space non-proportional font as an option. Doesn't sound tough.
Would proportional fonts look funny if laid out this way?
Wouldn't be that tough, true, just take the width of say an M and use it
for everything, but non-proportional fonts are designed to look okay at
constant spacing. Proportional ones are not. Like Gary, said, an i would
look terrible. In a non-prop font, the i would be centered in its character
space. In a proportional one, faked to look like a proportional one, it
would look terrible. Besides, non-prop M's are narrower while proportional
ones are wider. We tried this, and decided no.
Mike
Mike,
I figured there might be a reason it hadn't been implemented. I will
just have to snag a good non-proportional outline font. I'm happy to hear
that S-L looked at the possibility anyway.
….Mark
I think it might be a useful facility to have anyway (although I doubt I
would use it very often). While some fonts certainly _don't_ work well like
this, one or two come out quite passably.
And, after all, PStream allows users to do other things to fonts which are
typographical no-no's (such as stretching and squeezing fonts) … okay, it
breaks the rules, but can be _very_ effective.
Sometimes the need outweighs the aesthetic considerations.
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Question answered in Soft-Logik AmigaVendor forum.
Mark,
The monospaced Adobe fonts are Courier, Letter Gothic, OCR A and OCR B.
Myself, I'd use Courier again. You _should_ be able to use the other
ProPage fonts still. It sounds like you need to make an adjustment to your
CLI switches or icon ToolTypes. Here are some things to check:
1) The ProPage fonts are in your FONTS: volume. (I assign fonts: to
propage:fonts before running PP and assign fonts: sys:fonts when I'm done.
Though I hasten to add that I'm using 1.3 cause 2.0 IS STILL NOT AVAILABLE
HERE.)
2) ToolType should be FONTS=ALL (as opposed to =CG or =Amiga).
3) Using -f in the CLI will use only Amiga fonts (assuming FONTS: is
correctly assigned). And using -c will use only CG fonts.
Beyond those three, I can't offer any other suggestions. Oh, one more: if
you use one of the "natural" sizes of Courier you should get pretty good
results with your DeskJet. The natural sizes are: 10, 12, 14, 18 & 24.
Malcolm
Malcolm,
I will look for the fonts you mentioned. I will go over my Propage
setup and see what has changed when I switched to WB2.04. I was able to
use the other fonts before. I am using an 8 point Courier and it looks
poor when printed on the DJ as a bitmap font. The density of the page
requires this size. It looks very good when printed on a Laserwriter.
So many fonts, so little time.
….Mark 74335,1677