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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!news.duke.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!dsinc!jabber!candle!root From: root@candle.pha.pa.us (Bruce Momjian) Subject: Review of Microcosm fonts X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950726BETA PL0] Organization: a consultant's basement Message-ID: <DEK189.A5o@candle.pha.pa.us> Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 21:33:45 GMT Lines: 75 I have been using Groff/Ghostscript for occasional documentation under BSD/OS 2.0. I had several problems with character spacing and general character appearance using the default Ghostscript fonts. I finally decided to pay $49.90 for 35 outline Postscript Type-1 fonts from Microcosm (Tom Wright, tomw@sdsc.edu, 619-488-4462). They basically replace the GNU Ghostscript or standard Adobe fonts. Below are my experiences. With the GNU Ghostscript font ZapfChancery-MediumItalic, spacing after a capital F was always too large, and when ligatures were generated (i.e. fi, fl), the letters were on top of other letters. The maintainer of Groff correctly stated the cause was the Ghostscript fonts. I had also noticed that certain letters were jagged. I thought it may be my printer, and HP Deskjet 520 (300dpi). However, I noticed that larger and italicized letters looked worse. It turns out that many (all?) Ghostscript fonts are actually bitmaped fonts converted to Postscript Type-1 fonts, so as they are displayed larger, their underlying bitmaps become visible as jagged edges. The Microcosm fonts are true outline fonts and have solved all those problems. The ZapfChancery look-alike is 100 times better than the Ghostscript version. It is not heavy-looking, spaces well, and is much more elegant. The other fonts all print cleanly. Even in average point sizes the letters are much better rendered. I can even tell the difference after the Ghostscript output has been converted to tiff/fax format. Groff and Ghostscript have no problem using the new fonts. The dit files can be created using afmtodit, which comes with Groff (1.09). I created symbolic links from the old DIT font files to the new ones. The Microcosm fonts have the same Adobe Font Metrics (AFM) as the Adobe and Ghostscript fonts, so Groff documents do not need to be changed. You may want to edit the dit files to use the standard Adobe names for portability. When using afmtodit, remember to use the -s option when doing Symbols(Greek) fonts. There is not need to use the -e option. Microcosm ships a file to append to the end of your Ghostscript Fontmap file so all Postscript documents that use standard Postscript names automatically map to the new fonts. Because Groff fonts use the standard Adobe names, the Groff documents used the new fonts too. Basically, these fonts were a great improvement over the Ghostscript variety, and were easy to install. I am currently using the 5.0 beta version of the Microcosm fonts. The earlier version I had did not have all 229 characters in each font. Groff was trying to use characters that did not exist. The new version does. He supplied this new version for free. BTW, I can also recommend the Bitstream 500 Font CD($35, retail outlets), which is regularly recommended by comp.fonts posters. It provides a huge variety of fonts for all occasions. They are true outline fonts of good quality. In comparing the Microcosm and Bitstream fonts, I found two advantages of the Microcosm fonts. First, they have the same appearance and spacing as the standard Adobe fonts, so if you are generating Postscript for other people, the fonts are more portable. When printing postscript generated by others (i.e. via WWW), they print perfectly. Secondly, I find I prefer the Microcosm fonts for most applications. I have tried all the matching Bitstream fonts, but I still prefer the Microcosm fonts because the letters are thinner and there is more space between each letter. Basically, I use Microcosm for my daily work, and Bitstream for special jobs. -- Bruce Momjian | 830 Blythe Avenue root@candle.pha.pa.us | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026 + If your life is a hard drive, | (610) 353-9879(w) + Christ can be your backup. | (610) 853-3000(h)