Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!sics.se!dan
From: dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: How flexible are the Macintosh outline fonts?
Message-ID: <1989Jul12.111024.10324@sics.se>
Date: 12 Jul 89 11:10:24 GMT
Reply-To: dan@sics.se
Organization: SICS, Swedish Inst. of Computer Science
Lines: 45

From the descriptions I have read about the new Macintosh "outline" fonts
several things are still unclear about their capabilities.

- Is there any support for rotating the fonts? How will the "hints" work
for rotated fonts?

- Is it possible to make variants of the fonts in the way it is done
in Laser FX or the Letraset fonts?  Laser FX is using PostScript to reach
those effects, and is uncapable of showing the final result on the screen.
The software from Letraset uses special fonts, which are only possible
to use with their software.

- Acorn DTP uses knowledge about the form of the letters to make the
kerning "perfect" and automatic. For instance, the pair "AV" can kern
very much due to the shape of the letters, whereas "VV" cannot kern much
at all.  This method for kerning should also be possible for the outline
fonts for the Mac as the shape is available.

- "Fuzzy fonts" are fonts where greyscale is used to make the edges
smoother. I've heard that fuzzy fonts are standard for the NeXT. Tests
have shown that fuzzy fonts are much more legible than fonts with sharp
edges.
The Mac already has support for color and grayscale fonts, but can the
outline fonts generate "fuzzy fonts"?

- In close relation to fuzzy fonts is the concept "subpixel addressing".
By varying the intensity of gray of the edges, the character may appear to
move smoothly between the pixels.  This method will effectively increase
the resolution of the screen several times.
The Acorn DTP already supports both "fuzzy fonts" and "subpixel addressing".
What about the forthcoming Macintosh "outline" fonts?

- The Mac already has support for color fonts. Will the outline fonts
also support color?

- Many fonts come in families that do not fit the model "Bold/Italic/
Underline/...". For instance some fonts have variants such as "light",
"extra heavy" but lack some of the standard variants. Will the new
font system support such font families better?


	/Dan Sahlin

email: dan@sics.se