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From: hyc@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov (Howard Chu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.atari.st.tech
Subject: Re: Using Mac fonts
Message-ID: <1991May28.010004.2754@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 28 May 91 01:00:04 GMT
References: <49233@ut-emx.uucp> <42569@cup.portal.com> <1991May24.090304.19797@cged.co.uk>
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When I set about converting PD Mac fonts using NeoCept Fontz!, I had access
to a nearby Mac as well (my roommate's, at the time.) I used a Mac app called
Font Librarian to split up Font sets into individual files, and then MacArc
to collect them into a single .ARC file. Then I just used Ymodem to transfer
to the ST. (Stupid Mac doesn't have a free Zmodem that I'm aware of. Of course,
this was also a couple years ago...) Unarchive the files on the ST, load
into Fontz!. There's nothing particularly difficult, it is just very very
tedious/time-consuming. You need to spend a great deal of time touching up
the scaled bitmaps for your particular output device. The Mac fonts are
generally for screen and imagewriter, which are both 72x72dpi output devices. 
The ST screen is 80 or 90dpi depending on how your monochrome monitor is
adjusted... Fresh out of the box an SM124 gives you 90dpi (and that 1 inch 
black border...). If you're not too fussy, and more than a little bit lazy,
like me, you can use the screen fonts directly without scaling them, just
setting the proper amount of spacing. 

Scaling for your printer is a big hassle, one that I only did for a select
few fonts. Best advice is to take the largest available screen font, then
scale that to the largest desired printer font. When that is done, it'll be
less work scaling down to the smaller printer font sizes.

My biggest gripe with working with the printer was that I had no real
control over the actual resolution. (Using a KXP-1091i, and the FX driver.)
I really wanted to write my own GDOS printer driver for the KXP, but never
took the time to do it. I guess this is now a moot point since FSMGDOS
is coming out...
-- 
  -- Howard Chu @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
	Disclaimer: How would I know, I just got here!