************************************************************ Using Adobe Type with Professional Page ************************************************************ Part 3: Converting Macintosh Screen Fonts Before you download any screen fonts from your service bureau, please ensure that they do the following: 1) Separate each font package into indvidual packets, or 'suitcases' of multiple point sizes. 2) Exclude any Italic versions of screen fonts, unless the typeface itself comes as italic or bolditalic only. 3) Pack each individual suitcase along with the .AFMs in a single .SIT file. Point 1 is required because using Macintosh NFNTs there is no way of telling what font is what after you unpack it. Point 2 is required because PPage automatically makes italics on screen, and it would be a waste of disk space otherwise. If the bureau complains about font spacing, tell them that PPage takes spacing information (for printing and screen display) from the .AFMs, so no problem there. Point 3 is simply a convenience. If their .SIT is larger than 880K and you don't have a hard disk, don't let them use StuffIt's Segment option! Tell them to create individual archives no larger than 880K! UnSIT cannot join a segmented archive file. If your bureau does as you ask, then when you unpack a .SIT file you may get something that looks like the following in a DIR listing: OptimaRegular.R HelvConReg.R HelvConBol.R Optim.AFM.D OptimIta.AFM.D OptimBol.AFM.D OptimBolIta.AFM.D HelvCon.AFM.D HelvConObl.AFM.D HelvConBol.AFM.D HelvConBolOlb.AFM.D What the bureau has done is: Made the Optima Regular screen fonts up in one resource file, Helvetica Condensed Regular in one file, Helvetica Condensed Bold in one file, and included all the related .AFMs. The font resource files are also called 'suitcases'. Use the .AFM.D files with ConvertAFM to create .metric files. Using MacFont MacFont by Rico Mariani was designed to convert Macintosh screen fonts to Amiga screen fonts. Amiga screen fonts are those fonts that can be used by standard applications like Deluxe Paint, VideoTitler, PageSetter, and such. PPage also uses them to represent PostScript typefaces on screen. Unfortunately, MacFont was designed around the older FONT resource, which is still around today, but causes Font ID problems in today's Macintosh applications. Now, Apple and Adobe use NFNTs which are like the FONTs, but have no internal names, and have a different resource name: NFNT. Because of this, MacFont's Unpack program cannot recognize NFNTs. To try and fix this, I've hacked at the original program so it looks for NFNTs instead of FONTs. I simply used a sector editor and changed wherever I saw 'FONT' to read 'NFNT'. This works except for one major problem: Since NFNTs don't contain the names of themselves, UnpackNFNT can't properly give names to the output files it produces. This is why the service bureau must make separate suitcases containing the same font in different point sizes ONLY! Another drawback of this is it tries to pull filenames out of thin air, often GURUing in the process. To properly open up a suitcase file, you MUST FIRST reset your Amiga with the power switch. That's right, turn it OFF, the back on. Next, keep tapping CTRL-D to stop the startup sequence before it even starts. Next, type SetPatch to patch the system as the startup normally does. Now, CD to the directory or disk with the suitcase files, and type: UnpackNFNT suitcasename For each resource file, you'll produce at most five files with filenames like .67 or some other number. Adobe screen fonts come in 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24 point sizes, and the larger the file the larger the point size. If there are more files don't worry. After it has unpacked the suitcase, rename each file so that the name matches the name you give the .metric file you created (or will create) using ConvertAFM, like: Rename .83 Optima.12 Make sure that each file has the same name with a different number at the end. This is supposed to represent a name.pointsize format that the next Convert program uses. The number doesn't matter, though, but make sure that the name is the same for all. Next, unpackNFNT your next suitcase. If it GURUs then turn off the machine and set it up as before. Rename each output file as you did before, until all of your suitcase files are unpacked. Now, you can reboot your machine properly. **FINALLY**, you can convert them to Amiga fonts. First, assign FONTS: to someplace convenient, as it creates a new font and .font file for each font or group of fonts. A great place to assign FONTS: is to the PPageUtil disk like this: Assign FONTS: PPageUtil:Fonts To convert an individual point size, use the ConvertFNT Command: ConvertFNT Filename.size To convert a whole bunch of files, use the Workbench 1.3 SPAT script: SPAT ConvertFNT #? Make sure that nothing but unpacked font files reside in the current directory. You can also do this: SPAT ConvertFNT df1:unpacking/#? if all of the unpacked fonts reside in a common directory. You can read all about SPAT and DPAT in your 1.3 suppliment. They give single and double pattern-matching to commands or programs that don't normally support pattern matching, such as ConvertFNT. You'll find that the screen font sizes are off by a point or two. For example, AdobeGaramond.12 may become AdobeGaramond 13 point. This is because on the Mac, sizes are recorded by printed point size, but on the Amiga they're recorded by pixel height. You can use Fed or Calligrapher to make it back to normal size, but it really has no effect on PostScript output with PPage, just with how screen fonts look on screen. It usually works out anyway: You wind up with a 13 and 26 point pair that works just like the 12 and 24 point pair. The ConvertFNT program works on either unpacked NFNTs or FONTs. The original Unpack program (Now called UnpackFONT) still works for the original FONT resource files, and works properly with no bugs or GURUs. NOTE: UnpackFONT and UnpackNFNT support an -x option which skips a MacBinary header if you downloaded an individual font resource file (or suitcase) by itself. If the resource file came from a .SIT archive, the -X option MUST be omitted, or it won't work! Finally use the Workbench 1.3 command FixFonts to clean up all the .font files in the current FONTS: directory by just typing 'FixFonts' or 'SYS:System/FixFonts'. And they're all ready for use in PPage, or in fact any program that uses Amiga screen fonts! Have fun!