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From: bezanson@adobe.COM (Brian Bezanson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: ATM (Adobe Type Manager) Problems
Keywords: Adobe ATM Type
Message-ID: <1325@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 18 Oct 89 20:45:44 GMT
References: <45@fleet.UUCP> <1321@adobe.UUCP> <46@fleet.UUCP>
Reply-To: bezanson@adobe.UUCP (Brian Bezanson)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Lines: 49

In article <46@fleet.UUCP> mel@.UUCP () writes:
>Brian, I did use several of those supposedly ATM compatible programs such
>as Write Now, and Word 4.0.  It was on these that the irregular spacing was
>the most noticeable.  Word does have a fractional spacing option only when
>the LaserWriter driver is selected under the Page Setup menu.  What about
>the imagewriter driver?  There is no fractional selection for it.  Write Now
>gives you no option to switch fractional spacing on/off and the display
>of many Adobe fonts to the sreen and printer was less than impressive with
>those unsightly wide gaps between numerious "character pairs". 
>
>And even in Word 4.0 with the LaserWriter driver selected and fractional
>spacing on the display/output was inferior to that of Pagemaker. Perhaps
>the way these manufactures wrote their spacing algorithms doesn't follow
>all of Apple rules?
>
>I love ATM but this irregular spacing could very well be the fly in the
>ointment that may spoil the goods for alot of folks.

Mel,
  WriteNow use of fractional widths is to go into Page Setup and click on the
box that says "Use Printer Spacing". Word doesn't use fractional widths when
using the Imagewriter driver, using the LaserWriter or LaserWriter SC or 
GCC PLP driver you can set fractional widths on. I can't comment on why Word
does this or why it doesn't look as good as PageMaker - again this seems like
an application related issue.
  With fractional widths on, WriteNow text looks nice (in my opinion). I've
always found bugs in Words spacing - like Word 4 can't justify/right justify
properly using non-prebuilt sizes (with or without ATM). This would make me
personally think Word does something non-standard for spacing at those sizes.
  Applications like FullWrite, PageMaker, XPress really look great on the
screen and printer. My personal opinion is that ATM will kick-start a lot 
of developers into beefing up their applications now. From what I've heard 
about Royal fonts and what they'll be doing, current software will have 
the same spacing problems under System 7. I think those developers that will
show spacing problems will work with their users (and Adobe) to find solutions.
  ATM is in the hands of users who placed orders with Adobe and many dealers
so I'd love to hear more experiences in using it with everyones favorite
Word Processor (mine's FullWrite :-). MacWrite II 1.1 (available is general
release soon) supports fractional widths and they have used ATM to test it.
WriteNow needs the above mentioned checkbox selected. Word needs to use a
driver other than the Imagewriter, and the page layout applications have
their own ways to select fractional widths [see their documentation].

  I hope this message doesn't sound too jittery. After our nice little earth
quake, things are a little jumpy around here (no pun intended).
-- 
Brian Bezanson                                          bezanson@adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated           The opinions expressed above are my
                                     own and may not represent those of Adobe.