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From: lemon@adobe.com (David Lemon)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: revised fonts
Message-ID: <2836@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 29 May 90 20:02:54 GMT
Sender: news@adobe.COM
Reply-To: lemon@adobe.COM ()
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
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In  article 830, Dan Sears writes about revised fonts from Adobe:
>PostScript fonts and the printers they run on are not cheap.  Downloadable
>fonts usually cost more than $100 each and Adobe PostScript printers sell at
>a premium of well over $1000 to non-PostScript printers that use identical
>marking engines.  Having invested large sums of money in PostScript fonts
>and printers, it seems reasonable that a customer can expect a font upgrade
>option that is at least slightly cheaper than repurchasing the font *for each
>printer*.  The vendors of popular software packages like WordPerfect, Lotus123
>and Adobe Illustrator-88 have such policies.  Is there such an upgrade policy
>for Adobe fonts?

As you probably know, the primary reason for the difference in price between
printers with PostScript interpreters and those without is that the
interpreter is itself a decently-powered computer whose components don't
come free. Yes, a small part of the cost also goes to Adobe for royalties;
in turn, Adobe pays royalties to Linotype for the fonts.

Because the revisions in Adobe's fonts are comparatively minor and tend to
affect few actual users, Adobe does not upgrade revised fonts unless a
customer requests it. This is in contrast to changes in format (eg, the switch
to non-copy-protected format, and the switch to AppleNFNT format), when Adobe
has contacted all registered users and offered the chance to upgrade. This
applies to the downloadable fonts. If you bought a downloadable font from
Adobe and believe you need the upgrade, contact Customer Support.

Fonts in ROM were not purchased from Adobe but from your printer's
manufacturer; Adobe does not manufacture or sell any ROMs. It's possible to do
a "field upgrade" of the ROMs in many imagesetters; contact your printer's
service representative for details. As far as I know, no laser printers have
been made which can have similar upgrades. I agree this is a shame, and
suggest you tell the manufacturer what you think about it. He'll suggest you
buy a newer version, of course...

>(RE downloading the most recent version to RAM):
>In a small configuration of a single computer and a single printer, this is
>a straightforward task.  But in a large network of several printers and
>computers this quickly becomes a big system management problem.  Do you have
>any advice on how to deal with this problem other than to upgrade every
>printer in lock step?

No. I should emphasize that Adobe takes great pains to minimize any possible
compatibility problems when revising fonts. No shapes are changed without a
compelling reason, and *absolutely* no widths are altered. It should cause
no problems to run more than one version of a given font on a network. We do
it all the time. As I said earlier, these revisions are generally quite subtle
and may not even be discernable. I hope I can allay your apparent concerns;
the revised versions are simply not a big deal.

- David Lemon
  typographic staff