Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!crdgw1!crdgw1.ge.com!barnett From: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) Newsgroups: comp.fonts Subject: Re: Open Fonts Message-ID: <53@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 17 Mar 89 06:32:29 GMT References: <26962@apple.Apple.COM> <25@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <622@maxim.ERBE.SE> <29@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <628@maxim.ERBE.SE> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) Organization: GE Corp. R & D, Schenectady, NY Lines: 85 In-reply-to: prc@maxim.ERBE.SE (Robert Claeson) In article <628@maxim.ERBE.SE>, prc@maxim (Robert Claeson) writes: >Yes, but one still needs to convert the fonts into, say, PostScript in >order to be able to use them in the favourite printer. And I somehow >doubt that it will be that easy, since, as Glenn Reid noted, the font >manufacturers most probably want to protect their fonts by using some >encryption scheme. Sun will probably be happy to supply us with a >conversion program (that costs $) in binary form to convert the fonts >into encrypted PostScript or a HP bitmap font or whatever. I don't quite know, as I only read the press release posted in comp.windows.news, but an educated guess might be: Getting a font in F3 format to print on a PostScript printer is painful. Downloading bitmap fonts with 300 dpi resolution is like doing a screendump. Unless some vendor with licenses to both F3 and Adobe makes a translator that converts the F3 paths and hints into the Adobe format. I believe the format of the fonts (F3) is public domain. Folio has most of it's value it their two programs, since they are not a font company. Making the format well known can only help them. Sun doesn't sell printers. yet. :-) One of their pride and joy is the program TypeMaker(TM) which which automatically creates intelligent outlines. They claim that a scalable font can be created from a raster image in 6 weeks. This sounds impressive, and also the claim to have "several hundred fonts within the year". The other program take the F3 data and produces the font on any raster device, at any resolution, fonts rotated and scaled any size. Now let's continue this thought.... The F3 fonts will be licensed. Some will be standard with Suns. Others will be extra. I hope the cost per site for a F3 font is cheap. I don't want to manage font licenses on onesy, twosy rate when people will have hundreds of workstations per site, with just a few places containing the entire font set. I also hope people will contribute fonts into the public domain. GnuFonts! -----Break in thought--------- The second program, TypeScaler, sounds like a program to be sold. If you own the program, you can take the F3 fonts and convert them into a format for your LaserJet printer. Or your PostScript Printer. Or Imagen. (Now *they* might be interested. You need large bandwidth for downloading bitmaps...) I guess the software will be bundled into some window servers. It would be nice if it were part of SySVR4. ? So OpenFont format won't give you a free lunch, until people develop tools that help contribute to the popularity. T-Shirts Labeling equipment, F3 terminals, F3 LaserToasters,... But I just read in the same week that Adobe is also licensing their font format, allowing Font owners to develop their own encoded fonts for PostScript printers. So the competition should make things better for us price-wise. I Hope. >Or maybe we will have to wait for the first printer running NeWS? >Now, THAT'd be nice! Yes, but NeWS have esentially the same imaging model and PostScript. If every tool had a method of outputing it's display list, instead of executing it, then NeWS to a postscript printer is simple, automatic, and efficient. Let me see... A NeWS printer has these pop-up pages, with mouse selection of the pages........ :-) -- Bruce G. Barnett a.k.a. uunet!steinmetz!barnett,