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              Using Adobe Type with Professional Page

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Part 2: Creating .metric Files Using ConvertAFM

After you unpacked your .sit file, or wherever you got your .AFMs from, you
can use ConvertAFM to make .metric files, which are essential for printing
to PostScript using PPage.

A PPage .metric file contains information for one to four typefaces,
including character widths, or FontMetrics, underline specs, capital,
ascender, and x-heights, and the typeface's PostScript name.  You can have
one plain, bold, italic, and bolditalic form of a typeface in one .metric
file, or any combination of styles.  You can have no fewer than ONE PLAIN
typeface in one .metric file.

EG: You can have the regular and bold, regular and italic, regular, italic,
and bolditalic, bold and bolditalic, and so on, and so on...  You just tell
ConvertAFM which ones to use by giving filenames for the ones you want, and
leaving the others blank.

Using ConvertAFM

You can run ConvertAFM from the CLI or Workbench.  Running from Workbench
opens up a CON: window so it makes no difference where you run it.  You are
asked for a path towards all the .AFMs (If you unpacked your .SIT to device
DF1: you would give a path 'DF1:').  You are then asked for the plain, bold,
italic, and bolditalic .AFMs you wish to include in the .metric file.

You are then asked for a new .metric filename and path name.  Just type in
the name you want to call the file (Without the .metric extension).  If you
exclude the path name, the new .metric file will be written to
PPageUtil:Fonts for the sake of convenience.  If this has been relocated to
a hard disk, it will still write to where you assigned it.

It then provides you with information on the .AFMs you selected.  A key
thing to watch for is the typeface's encoding scheme.  If the typeface uses
'AdobeStandardEncoding', that's your cue to use Amiga Standard encoding when
asked for the encoding scheme you want.  The scheme you select is carried
over to the other styles of the typeface, so you need only give this
information once.  Just type 'A' for Amiga standard, or 'F' for Font
Specific.  If the typeface uses Apple Standard or Font Specific encoding,
and the screen fonts came from a Macintosh, you should use Font Specific
encoding.

Encoding is simply what ASCII values are given to what characters.  The
first 127 characters are the same from Amiga to IBM to Mac, but the
Alternate characters may be different.  Selecting Amiga Standard encoding
will re-map the characters in the .metric file so that an 'AE' character is
SHIFT-ALT-A (Amiga Standard) for example.

********* Kerning *********

Kerning is the action of moving two characters closer or further apart to
achieve a better fitting word.  For example, the characters 'Y' and 'e' must
kern closer to fit better.  PPage supports automatic kerning when the
'Kerning' menu item is checkmarked.  PPage then looks in the .metric file
for kerning information, and automatically kerns letterspaces on screen, and
in PostScript.

Adobe's .AFMs also have kerning information (Most Adobe Typefaces have over
100 kerning pairs defined) and these are entered into the .metric file also.
This capability of ConvertAFM has been tested with 'Adobe Garamond' which
has over 600 (!) kerning pairs.  For better legibility, get used to using
the automatic kerning features of PPage.  Combined with Adobe standard
kerning, you're guaranteed to get the best on screen, and printed results!

Anyway, when the program is finished with one .AFM it then generates what is
called a 'metrics vector'.  This is a string that is interpreted by PPage
and holds all the typeface's information including sizes and kerning pairs.
If some information (such as no kerning pairs) is omitted in the .AFM, it
will write a '00' in its place.  This lets you create a compatible .metric
file for any typeface that has either six characters with no kerning (like
the Ornament typeface) to 256 characters with 65536 kerning pairs (Again,
this has been tested with Adobe Garamond's 600 pairs) and in case of many
kerning pairs, it attempts to compress the information.  Two .AFMs for Adobe
Garamond and Adobe Garamond Italic with 600 kerning pairs each, resulting in
two .AFMs of 30K each, compresses to one .metric file that's 15K.  Not bad,
eh?

A .metric file can have one to four metrics vectors.  ConvertAFM creates one
metric vector per .AFM and forms a .metric file automatically, once you've
given it the four .AFMs, output filename, and encoding scheme.  When it's
finished it ask you if you want to create another .metric file.  Just answer
'Y' or 'N' and you know the rest.

On to creating screen fonts!