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From: dkletter@adobe.COM (SUGAR in their vitamins?)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Adobe Courier versions
Message-ID: <8809@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 90 19:33:30 GMT
References: <}X}^8==@rpi.edu>
Reply-To: dkletter@adobe.UUCP (SUGAR in their vitamins?)
Followup-To: comp.lang.postscript
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
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In article <}X}^8==@rpi.edu> kibo@pawl.rpi.edu (James 'Kibo' Parry) writes:

>	When I got Adobe Type Manager 2.0 for my Macintosh, I was
>surprised to see (when printing fonts very large) that the included
>Courier font had slab serifs with _square_ ends, as opposed to the
>rounded ones commonly found on PostScript printers.
>
>	(I believe I've heard that the Courier in PostScript printers is
>a stroked font.  Since ATM uses only Type 1 fonts, which are outlines, I
>imagine Courier has been redrawn.  Still, is there a reason it wasn't
>drawn with rounded serifs?)

to which Kathy <clouds@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> responded:

>Hmm, I'm going out on a limb here, since I don't know this for SURE, but
>I believe that Courier has always had "slab" serifs. Perhaps you're thinking
>of American Typewriter?  Courier on Postscript printers is an outline
>rendering of a stroke font, and as such I would expect the ends of each
>serif to be square (or in the case of the end of a rounded stroke, to be
>square to the tangent of the curve at that point--as in the top curve of 
>the lowercase a).

not quite... 2:^) James was a bit closer to the mark... the original
versions of Courier (which are in the ROMs of a PostScript laser printer
as well) were stroked fonts with rounded end caps. i believe it was a
TRW design. because ATM does not handle stroked fonts, it was redone
as an outline, with slab serifs. some changes to character shapes were
made. notice the lowercase 'e' or the 'ae'. in any case, Courier is sort
of like Garamond. there are many many versions of it running around.
it was decided that the slab serifed version was more true to the correct
look of Courier and also produced better looking output at smaller sizes
on 300dpi printers. the only gotcha in this whole picture is that if you
have a PostScript printer, chances are you don't have these current
outlines in your ROMs. hence, when you print there will be some font
substitution going on, and the spacing between both versions is slightly
different. the work around for that is to download to RAM the outlines
that come with ATM because as you know, the priority for which fonts
get used is RAM, ROM, disk so what you are doing is tricking the printer
into using the "right stuff" essentially. 2;^)

hope this helps. --d

-- 
Yes.  Beautiful, wonderful nature.  Hear it sing to us: *snap*  Yes.  natURE.


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