Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: dylan@cs.washington.edu (Dylan McNamee) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: TypeSMITH version 2.02 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications Date: 13 May 1994 02:49:06 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 150 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2qupr2$p4l@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: dylan@cs.washington.edu (Dylan McNamee) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: fonts, Postscript, Compugraphic, outline, font editor, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME TypeSMITH version 2.02 BRIEF DESCRIPTION TypeSMITH is an outline font editor. It can edit and produce industry standard PostScript fonts (type 1 and type 3 format), Soft-Logik fonts, Compugraphic fonts, and Amiga bitmap fonts. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Soft-Logik Publishing Corp. Address: 11131F S. Towne Sq. St. Louis, MO 63123 Telephone: (314)894-8608 E-mail: tech@slpc.com LIST PRICE TypeSMITH 2.0 retail price $199.95 (US). Soft-Logik customers pay $125 (for a limited time, $110). Upgrade from 2.01 to 2.02 is free. A patch has been uploaded to Aminet in the file /pub/aminet/biz/patch/ts202pch.lha. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE 2 MB RAM required. 512K Chip RAM works. 1 MB or more Chip RAM recommended. Supports 68020 or greater processors, hard drives, and PostScript printers (among other things). SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 2.0 or greater. COPY PROTECTION None. Hard drive installable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2500/30, 1 MB Chip RAM, 6 MB Fast RAM. AmigaDOS 2.1. INSTALLATION Installation proceeded without any problems by following the included instructions. REVIEW This is a MAJOR upgrade to TypeSMITH 2.01, almost as big as the difference between TypeSMITH 1 and TypeSMITH 2. I'll review the whole program, trying to highlight the differences between 2.01 and 2.02, while still making sense to folks that don't own any version of TypeSMITH (yet). If you need to produce a high-quality outline font on the Amiga, I believe TypeSMITH is the only choice. Fortunately, it's a very respectable program, and it keeps getting better. Much like Fontographer on the Macintosh, this program lets users create their own publication-quality fonts that will print without "jaggies" on high resolution printers. It also lets users tweak an existing font to add a character, modify a character, or whatever. Its drawing tools are sufficient to create almost any kind of figure, and TypeSMITH can export character shapes as IFF DR2D drawings for use with other Amiga programs. I've used it to create a PostScript font of my handwriting (it actually looks uncannily real...) as well as to create a more normal text font. For the handwriting font, I wrote an alphabet on paper, scanned it (on a PC), and read the file into DPAINT 4 where I saved each letter as an IFF brush. TypeSMITH was able to read each bitmap, scale it appropriately, and put it in the background (in grey) to be traced over. It has an "autotrace" feature that makes the tracing task much easier. (You still have to do significant touch-up, but it saves a lot of mouse-work.) TypeSMITH has always been able to edit PostScript fonts, but version 2.02 makes this even easier by being able to read PFA format as well as PFB format fonts. (Previously, PFA files had to be converted with the "dl2pfb" program.) Using this feature, I've been able to examine all the fonts on the new Bitstream 500 fonts CDROM (windows version, only $30) as well as the other PostScript fonts I own. Among the new features in 2.02 is the ability to edit the character widths from the edit window, which is really nice. Also, points can be moved with fine precision now by clicking on them and pressing arrow keys with the shift key. All in all, the program has a very well-tuned feel to it. DOCUMENTATION I'm not much of a documentation reader, and with TypeSMITH, I didn't have to resort to reading the documentation much, except to figure out how "composite" characters work, and how they're edited (it's a bit tricky). All my experiences with the documentation have been fine. BUGS This release fixes a number of bugs that were in version 2.01. Being a beta tester for them, if there were any bugs I experienced, I would have told them already, and they would have been fixed. :) VENDOR SUPPORT The fact that such a major update to TypeSMITH is available for free on the net (as well as the recent announcement in c.s.a.announce) is clear evidence of Soft-Logik's continuing commitment to the Amiga. I think they're good folks. I am a beta tester for them (hence the quick review of this brand new release) and have been impressed with the company from all sides. CONCLUSIONS I give it a solid 4.5 stars out of 5. Not that I can think of anything lacking, but if the program continues to improve, I'll need room in the rankings to accommodate. In light of the strong support Soft-Logik is giving the Amiga, and that this is such a strong program, I'd highly recommend buying it if you do anything with desktop publishing or even just have an interest in fonts. Dylan McNamee, dylan@cs.washington.edu --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews