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From: Ken.Knight@p4217.f421.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Ken Knight)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: TrueType questions answered
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Date: 6 May 91 16:32:52 GMT
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Here is the text to an article I wrote for the Washington Apple Pi Jounral 
(May 1991) that should answer most questions on using TrueType especially 
with things like ATM installed. Please excuse formatting quirks since this is 
just a straight copy/paste from the original.
 
On March 11, 1991 Apple released two new low cost, high quality printers: the 
StyleWriter and LaserWriter LS. Along with these printers Apple released its 
long awaited TrueType Font technology.  TrueType has been in the works for 
quite some time and is commonly considered a part of the forthcoming System 
7.0 release.  In this article we will take a brief look at what, in fact, 
TrueType is and who can take advantage of its abilities.
To better understand why TrueType is a major step forward for the Macintosh 
user it is important to understand how fonts are handled on the Mac. Fonts on 
the Macintosh have, in the past, come in two types: bitmaps and outlines.  
Bitmap fonts are installed in your System with Font/DA Mover, and are actual 
representationsPpixel for pixelPof the characters in a specific font. This 
means that if you want a decent looking 12 point Geneva you must have a 
bitmap version of that specific font. If you want to use a point size for 
which no bitmap exists, then you are at the mercy of QuickDraw scaling. Worse 
yet, if you are using a scaled version of a font it becomes difficult to 
place letters effectively. In addition, bitmap fonts are limited in their 
resolution to the number of dots-per-inch (dpi) that were used to create the 
font. On the Mac this value is 72dpi, but even on an ImageWriter II the 
resolution rises to 144dpi. If you want the best possible results with bitmap 
fonts you need to create even more versions of the font at the higher 
resolution. This requires much more space to store the fonts and generally 
manages to confuse things.
Outline fonts, on the other hand, are represented by a sequence of curves. 
They are defined in a general mathematical format. Since characters in the 
font are defined in this manner you can, for the most part, scale the font to 
any size and not lose any quality in the characters themselves.  Outline 
fonts are also resolution independent. You do not need special versions of an 
outline font for 72dpi and another for 300dpi.
Until mid-1989 the user was faced with having to worry about both bitmap and 
outline fonts.  This was the case if you were using a Postscript or 
Postscript compatible laser printer. The printer (or, more precisely, the 
software that drove the printer) knew about outline fonts, and this accounted 
for the lovely text output we have always been able to generate on paper. 
However, the Mac itself did not know about outline fonts and only displayed 
bitmap fonts. So, although you could print a fantastic 11 point Times, you 
could not, unless you had an 11 point Times bitmap,  display the text very 
effectively on screen. This could lead to no end of trouble if you wanted 
precision control,  since it was impossible to realistically display the 11 
point Times on the MacUs screen.
Things began to change for Macintosh users with AdobeUs introduction of Adobe 
Type Manager (ATM). ATM gave anyone the ability to work with outline fonts on 
their computer screens and with any printer. However, ATM was far from 
perfect. It would build a bitmap from the outline definitions of an average 
Adobe Type 1 font and then display that bitmap on your screen (or print it to 
your printer). But this process was not especially fast, particularly on 
computers like the Mac Plus. You could easily get ahead of the display as you 
were typing a letter or report and then lose track of you had been doing.  
This , plus the simple fact that most people only use a few RstandardS sizes 
of a few RstandardS fonts, meant that many people (including myself) decided 
not to buy ATM.  We were happy enough if we could get high quality fonts on 
our printers.
All this brings us to TrueType. If you think of TrueType as a sibling of ATM 
you will have a good sense of what Apple has just released.  TrueType, unlike 
ATM, does not use Postscript to process its outline fonts. Instead, TrueType 
uses a system created by Apple, with help from others, that is among other 
things (to this author at least) faster than ATM. TrueType is also part of 
AppleUs System Software and will be an integral part of the Mac from now on. 
As such it is available for now cost.
Turning to who can use TrueType and how to  use it, Any Macintosh that is 
running System 6.0.5 or later can make use of it. In other words, anything 
down to a Mac Plus can use TrueType. For those who have machines like the 
enhanced 512k Macs TrueType, in theory, could be run, but in practice one 
will need to have at least a meg of RAM to run System 6.0.5 and anything else 
comfortably. For the vast majority of Macintosh users, this will not be a 
problem.
To actually make use of TrueType, following the list below  will allow you to 
set-up quickly.
1.	Place the TrueType INIT file into your System folder.
2.	Reboot your system. That is all you need to do.
3.	Run the new Font/DA Mover (4.1) and copy the fonts from the TrueType Fonts 
file into the System file. If you are using a product like Suitcase II or 
MasterJuggler, you can simply add the TrueType Fonts file as another Suitcase 
file.
TrueType fonts can be treated just as any other type of font suitcase is 
treated by the user. You can install them into your System file or add them 
as a suitcase. This makes their use quite transparent. The above sequence of 
instructions only applies to people who will be using TrueType on Systems 
prior to 7.0. In 7.0 you can simply plunk font files into the System folder 
and they will become active at once. Under previous systems you would either 
have to install them with Font/DA Mover or use one of the Suitcase programs I 
mentioned. However, in both cases, using TrueType is a painless process.
Right now there are only a few TrueType compatible fonts available. I have 
seen 5: the basic 4 that are part of the TrueType files (Times, Courier, 
Helvetica, Symbol), and one in the  public domain called RGranite Sans.S But 
TrueType was not developed in a vacuum and several well known font companies 
are creating TrueType fonts for our use. These firms include Cassidy & Green, 
Agfa, and MonoType.
The future for Macintosh users is bright. TrueType will make an already very 
useful and usable computer system even more capable. And since TrueType is an 
open-end technology, it has room to grow. We may, in time, see improvements 
that will make TrueType even better than it already promises to be.
Trouble-shooting Your TrueType Fonts
Using TrueType can lead to some unexpected results. This side-bar is devoted 
to helping solve those pesky little problems and answering those nagging 
questions that you may still have about how to get along with TrueType fonts. 
This section is broken into a question and answer format for your convenience.
Q:	I have installed my TrueType Fonts as a separate suitcase file. I am using 
Suitecase II (MasterJuggler). I have my word processor set to default to 
Helvetica as the default font. However, the only sizes of this font that now 
seems to come up well are 12, 14, and 18 point. Why are these are the only 
sizes that are working well for me?
A:	The problem you are having with your fonts is a common one that you can 
run into when using a suitcase-type program like MasterJuggler or Suitecase 
II. The System is becoming confused because you have a version of a font, in 
this case Helvetica, in more than one place: you have a TrueType version of 
Helvetica in a suitcase file and you have 12, 14, and 18 point versions of 
bitmap Helvetica in another suitcase file. You must remove these extraneous 
bitmap versions of Helvetica.
	To do this, you should run Font/DA Mover and simply select and remove them. 
You should look in your System file first for these extra bitmaps, and then 
in any suitcases you may be using.
	Keep in mind that you can mix TrueType and old-style bitmap fonts. That is, 
if you really want to hold on to those 12, 14, and 18 point bitmap versions 
of Helvetica you simply need to place them in the same file as the TrueType 
Helvetica. However, the only good reason for keeping the old-style bitmap 
version of a font is the potential speed of font rendering. The bitmaps will 
 * Origin: Kensington Ken - just a point (1:109/421.4217)