NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/advocacy/11873

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-07 | 2.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!concert!ais.com!bruce
From: [e-mail] (Bruce C. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: No TrueType Fonts in OS/2 2.1 ?!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 7 Jan 93 22:11:02 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: na
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC
Lines: 44

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (R Douglas Botimer) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
> (Andy Tenne-Sens) writes:
>
> :I'm disturbed, however, that a recent posting stated that IBM has decided
> :not to support TrueType scalable fonts.  Does anyone out there know if
> :this is so?  Will IBM depend on Adobe for scalable-font capability?
> :If I run OS/2, will I still be able to use Word for Windows 2.0 and
> :some kind of scalable fonts?  Will I still be able to embed equations
> :and graphics into my documents?
>
> Why wouldn't IBM depend on Adobe, along with many other companies?  TrueType
> is is pure Microsoft.  [...]

This isn't true.  Apple also sells TrueType;  Microsoft didn't even invent
it (!).  MS _does_ sell the most successful implementation of it however,
both in terms of number of copies sold and, if the reviews of the Apple
implementation that I've read are accurate (I don't use Apple hardware),
in technical terms as well.

But you're correct that Adobe scalable fonts (and Postscript) are far
more common technologies, at least if you subtract off Windows.  (I'm
not quite sure how to count the Windows users because even most of the
high-end Windows desktop publishing users use Postscript and Adobe fonts
when they actually print their documents ... it's mostly the lower-end
word processing users who use TrueType exclusively;  but there's a _ton_
of those people).

Even with Microsoft and Windows, there are more Adobe fonts available
than TrueType, and many of the TrueType fonts that are available from
sources other than the major font foundries have been poorly translated
from Adobe format fonts.  The major advantage of TrueType fonts for the
end-user is that there are many font packages available at software
stores, because of the popularity of Windows.  You often have to send
for Adobe fonts by mail-order, which is slightly less convenient;  but
there is a wider selection of different fonts.

I don't think this is much of an issue either way;  and even if you _do_
do high-end DTP, it's quite possible and not at all difficult to use
TrueType on-screen and Adobe for printing, if you're using Windows;  or
to use Adobe for both, if you're using OS/2.  In most cases neither the
user nor the application will be aware of the font technology in use.

Bruce C. Wright