This document contains the text of a User Guide supplement that will be included in every FontMonger package (until we can get a new edition of the User Guide printed).
It contains some information that was included in the original Read Me file, plus some new information concerning version 1.0.4.
If you have a PostScript printer (such as the LaserWriter, LaserWriter Plus, LaserWriter IINT or LaserWriter IINTX) you may encounter problems trying to print with modified versions of fonts already in the printer, or with fonts converted to TrueType.
1. If you create a modified version of a font that is already in the printer, Apple’s printer software will not download your modified font, but will use the version in the printer instead.
Fonts “already in the printer” include those built into the printer’s ROM. Most PostScript printers have Times, Helvetica, Courier and Symbol fonts built-in. Many also have Avant Garde, Bookman, New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, Zapf Chancery and Zapf Dingbats.
Also included are fonts on any hard disk attached to your printer, as well as fonts that were manually downloaded to the printer BEFORE being modified.
To avoid this problem, you must save the modified font with a different name, using Save Font As… from the File menu.
2. If you convert a font to TrueType, Apple’s printer software will not download your TrueType version if it can find a PostScript version to use instead. This is true even if the TrueType version is used for screen display.
When this happens, your documents may not print correctly: some special characters may come out blank or be replaced by another character.
The printer software will “find a PostScript version” of your font if the font is already in the printer, or if a downloadable font file is available on your system.
If the font is already in the printer, you must save the converted TrueType font with a different name.
Alternatively, you can allow the PostScript version to be used, if you set the “Print with printer-resident PostScript fonts” option in the Family Options dialog (see below).
If the font is not in the printer, you can force the TrueType font to be downloaded by removing the downloadable font file from your system. Note that the printer software looks on ALL MOUNTED DISKS for font files, not just the startup disk, so you should make sure that you remove all copies of the font file from all disks.
These problems do not occur on non-PostScript printers, such as the LaserWriter IISC, Personal LaserWriter LS, ImageWriter or StyleWriter.
The Save Font As dialog has been simplified since the User Guide was printed, so the sections “Saving a Font” and “Creating a Suitcase or Family” on pages 7-8 are no longer accurate. They should read as follows:
SAVING A FONT
You save a font like a Macintosh document, by choosing Save Font from the File menu.
NOTE: If you opened the original version of a font, as described on page 6, FontMonger asks you to confirm that you still want to change the original version. If you do not, you can save the font in another family or create a new family to hold the font. Both of these are explained below.
If you choose Save Font As… from the File menu, you will see the Save Font As dialog.
• When saving as a TrueType font, you use the dialog to find the family you want to save in. To save your font with a font style name that is already defined in the family, choose one from the font name popup menu at the bottom of the dialog. Or, click on the New Style button to define a new style name for the family.
• When saving as a PostScript font, you must use one of the font styles from the font name popup menu at the bottom of the dialog. You cannot define your own font styles, because the list of available styles is set by the font’s manufacturer. Alternatively, you can use the dialog to create a new family, and save your font in that new family.
Click the Save button to save the font in the location you have chosen. Note that the Save button shows you the font’s format: PostScript Type 1 or Type 3 or TrueType.
You cannot use Save Font As…to save into a family that is installed in your system, or is installed with Suitcase II or MasterJuggler, or is in use by another application.
You can replace an existing font with Save Font As…, but FontMonger will ask for confirmation before making the replacement.
CREATING A SUITCASE OR FAMILY
You can save a font into a family only. When the Save Font As dialog displays the contents of a suitcase file or folder, it looks a little different.
The font name popup menu at the bottom of the dialog is dimmed, and the Save button changes to Open. The New button also becomes enabled, allowing you to create a new suitcase file or family to hold the font being saved.
Consult the on-line help for more detailed information about using the Save Font As dialog.
FontMonger has the capability of exporting characters as a PICT document that can be read by MacDraw and other graphics applications. This is in addition to the ability to export Illustrator and EPSF documents, as described on page 17 of the User Guide.
To export in PICT format, click on the PICT radio button in the Export… dialog.
When you are constructing a batch and FontMonger asks you to confirm that you want to add an original font to the batch (as described on page 10 of the User Guide), an extra checkbox appears below the Original/Cancel/Copy buttons.
Checking this box prevents the confirmation dialog from appearing again while you are constructing the batch. Whichever button you click (Original or Copy) is assumed be the action you want to take for any other font (from an unmodified family) that you add to the batch.
The Batch Convert dialog has a checkbox, not documented in the User Guide, that instructs FontMonger not to skip fonts that are already in the chosen format (TrueType, Type 1 or 3).
Normally, if you add fonts to a batch that are already in the format chosen from the New Format popup, FontMonger skips those fonts during the conversion.
However, you may want to have FontMonger process fonts that would normally be skipped, since in some cases FontMonger produces fonts that print better than the originals. Checking the checkbox tells FontMonger to read, apply hints and re-write all fonts in the batch, even when no format change is required.
You may get slightly different text line spacing when you use a font converted by FontMonger.
This is because most applications determine the “automatic” line spacing to use (when you do not choose an explicit spacing value) from the height of the available screen fonts, which may be altered by the conversion process.
For example, if you’ve already used Palatino for the text of a document, and then convert Palatino from PostScript format to TrueType format, you may find that the lines of text are slightly closer together or further apart. In a multi-page document, the page endings may be different when you use the converted font.
However, FontMonger tries to ensure that the line spacing of the converted font is very close to the spacing of the original. See also the description of the Family Options dialog in the next section.
NOTE: PageMaker and QuarkXPress both use different methods to determine “automatic” line spacing. PageMaker’s method is unaffected by conversion, so you will always get the same results. XPress’s method uses family-wide spacing information that FontMonger retains during conversion, so unmodified converted fonts will normally give the same results as the original fonts.
The Set Family Options dialog lets you select options that apply to a font family as a whole. To obtain the dialog, choose Set Family Options… from the Keyboard menu.
There are two sections in the dialog: one to control the line spacing of fonts in the family, and a second to allow families converted to TrueType to use PostScript printer fonts.
The Line Spacing section affects fonts only when they are used with “automatic” line spacing in a word processor or page layout program.
Check “Use same spacing family-wide” if you want all fonts in the family to use the same line spacing. Uncheck the box if you want the line spacing of each font to be determined by the height of characters in that font only.
When the box is checked, the Ascent, Descent and Line Gap values specify the components that make up the line spacing. The ascent is the height allowed for characters above the text baseline; the descent is the depth allowed for characters that descend below the baseline, specified as a negative number; the line gap is the amount of clearance to be left between successive text lines.
By default, “Use same spacing family-wide” is checked when you first open or convert a font, and Ascent, Descent and Line Gap are set to the values supplied by the font’s vendor.
NOTE: These options apply family-wide, but some of the line spacing information is actually kept in individual fonts. Changing the family-wide options may cause all fonts in the family to need updating, not just the font that is open when the option is changed.
To make sure that your line spacing changes are effective, after making the changes you should open each font in the same family. If, immediately after you open a font, Save Font on the File menu is enabled, the font needs to be saved to update its line spacing.
The TrueType Family section applies only to families of fonts that have been converted from PostScript to TrueType, without any modifications to characters in the fonts.
When “Print with printer-resident PostScript fonts is checked”, you will be able to use a font of the same name that is already in your PostScript printer. This avoids the need to download the TrueType versions of the fonts to the printer.
See the on-line help for more detailed information about using the Set Family Options dialog.
When preparing Illustrator or Freehand artwork for import, you must take care to design it correctly.
Only the outlines of your artwork are significant. They define the edges of the character; the areas between the edges are automatically black-filled when the character is used in a font.
This means that any stroking (color, pattern and thickness) and fills (color and pattern) that you applied to the outlines in Illustrator or Freehand are ignored by FontMonger.
Also ignored is any text you may have placed in the artwork. If you want to include characters from existing fonts in your imported artwork, you must convert the text to outlines. (You need at least version 3 of Illustrator or Freehand to be able to convert text to outlines.)
“Compressing a Font” on page 18 of the User Guide states that FontMonger compresses the font the next time you save it.
In fact, FontMonger compresses and saves the font when you choose Compress Font from the Keyboard menu. At the completion of the save, the keyboard window is closed.
The following keyboard shortcuts are available in the Alter Character dialog:
• Command-Left Arrow and Command-Right Arrow are keyboard equivalents of the Previous and Next buttons.
• Type any character on the keyboard to make that character the current character for alterations. This only works when you’re not editing a Readouts field.
You can choose Undo from the Edit menu to return to the character you were altering before the switch.
• The arrow keys (without the Command key held down) “nudge” the position of the current character. Each keypress changes the Horizontal or Vertical Move value by 10 or 20 units (depending on the display scale). Hold down the Option key to change their values by 1 unit.
To change the character that separates the top and bottom of a fraction, open the Alter Character dialog for the fraction, then click on the Composite button.
In the Components field, select the current separator character and replace it by the desired character. (Use Choose Character from the Edit menu if you want to use a character that is not typeable from the keyboard.) Then click on the Fraction button again to reconstitute the fraction.
NOTE: By default, FontMonger user the Option-hyphen character as the horizontal fraction separator, and the Option-Shift-1 [numeral one] character as the vertical separator.
Keep in mind that FontMonger does not install fonts for you.
After you modify a font, you will have a new or revised suitcase file. If you saved in PostScript format, you will also have a new downloadable PostScript file.
To install a PostScript font under System 6, use the Font/DA Mover to copy the screen fonts into your System file, then drag the downloadable PostScript file into your System folder.
To install a PostScript font under System 7, use the Finder to drag the screen fonts into your System file, then drag the downloadable PostScript file onto your SYSTEM FOLDER ICON and let the Finder put the file into the Extensions folder. However, if you are using a version of ATM prior to 2.0.2, drag the font file into the OPEN SYSTEM FOLDER WINDOW, so that it is not placed into the Extensions folder.
To install a TrueType font under System 6, use the Font/DA Mover (version 4.1 or higher) to copy the TrueType font and the screen fonts (if any) into your System file.
To install a TrueType font under System 7, drag it and any screen fonts into your System file.
If you try to use TrueType fonts with some versions of Microsoft Word, you may find that lines of text display or print incorrectly.
The problem is within Microsoft Word, and may occur with any TrueType fonts, not just those produced by FontMonger.
Rearranging Characters in Fonts
Note that FontMonger can rearrange characters in fonts (via cut and paste), but it cannot rearrange keyboards.
For example, if you paste the A character onto the G key, then use the altered font in a word processor, you will see an A every time you press the G key (in that font). However, in spite of its appearance, the character is still “really” a G, and will be treated as such by spell-checkers and hyphenation routines.
Stroked and Shaded Fonts
FontMonger cannot alter “stroked” PostScript fonts. If you open a font and see all the interior areas of the characters (such as the center of the “O”) filled in, the font is probably a stroked font. Call the vendor from whom you purchased the font to get a replacement font in the correct outline format.
Nor can FontMonger preserve the gray or colored shading used in some decorative Type 3 fonts. When you open such fonts, all shaded areas become solid black.
