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Using Fonts 101
by Bevi Chagnon
This isn't going to cover typography or go into the difference between serif and serif fonts. No, we're going to discuss the how's and why's of properly designating which fonts you're using to create a publication that will be professionally printed. Not the most exciting topic, maybe, but important nonetheless.
There
are differences between the two
platforms, of course, but regardless of whether we're talking about
fonts on a Mac or PC, this much is true: each individual weight has its
very own file. (Actually, PostScript® — or Type 1— fonts
have a matched pair of screen and printer files for each weight, but let's
make the discussion simpler and call it a font file when we really mean
a pair of font files, ok?).
So on their computers, by using My Computer or Windows Explorer or the Mac Desktop, people should be able to see an actual file for each weight — e.g., Times Italic, Times Normal, Times Bold, Times Bold Italic. Also note that all fonts and printing commands are controlled by the computer's operating system (OS) — Mac OS or Windows — not the actual software application such as Quark XPress or MS Word. So when a user launches an application like Quark, the OS tells the application what fonts are installed on the computer, and Quark then shows those fonts as being available in the font menu.
Then, when the user selects Times Bold in Quark, Quark turns around and sends the call for the font to the OS, which in turns prints it to the screen (made possible through the miracle of Adobe Type Manager — ATM — which acts as an add-on program to the OS, a.k.a. an "init" on the Mac or a "TSR" on the PC) or to the laser printer.
The following applies to both PS (Type 1) and TrueType fonts.
When Using a PC with Windows
When you want to use Times BOLD on a PC, you first select "Times" from your font menu. That's all you'll ever see in your font menu, just Times, not "B Times Bold" for anything else, because Windows shows only the font family's root name in the font menu, "Times," and not all the variations installed on your computer. Then, you must stylize it to get the bold weight, either through the style menu, or through a "B" bold button on a toolbar.
When "bold" is used in Windows, the Windows OS does one of two things: it searches for the true BOLD weight of the Times font (it looks for the actual font file, as described above) and uses that once it finds it. If it doesn't find it, Windows then creates a computerized "bolding" of the font. This simulated bold version of the font shows on the screen, and may even print on a laser printer, but it never prints correctly on an imagesetter. So if you want text bolded in your newsletter or other publication that's being professionally printed, you must use a font that has a true bold version, and the font must be installed on your computer.
Font designation all happens behind the scene, and the Windows OS is in control of everything. Windows never tells the user whether or not the bold weight is available (remember, it shows only the root family name in the font menus), so people can easily bold a font that doesn't actually have a bold version, which happens frequently with scriptfaces like Vivaldi or Kaufmann, both of which are available in just the one thin or light weight. (However, CorelDRAW!, Corel Ventura and Adobe InDesign do show the actual weights that are installed on the computer.)
When
Using a Mac
Naturally, the behind-the-scenes font action is different on a Mac. When Quark and other applications are launched, the Mac OS sends the application a list of all the fonts and their individual weights to Quark, which are shown in the font menu as B Times Bold, I Times Italic, etc. So a Mac user can always see exactly which weights are available on the computer because every available weight appears in the font menu as a separate item. If Adobe Type Reunion is installed, it will group all the weights together by family.
That's good. But people don't always use computer applications the way they should use them. They type in a paragraph of text and format it to use N Times Normal (or regular), then they select one or two words and click the B bold button, or select Bold in the pull-down style menu, because that's the easiest thing to do — and the software application lets them do this. But when "bold" stylization is used on a Mac, the Mac OS never goes out and tries to find the real bold font file like Windows does; instead it creates a computerized bolding of the font. As discussed above, this faux kind of boldness shows on the screen and may print on a laser printer, but never prints correctly on an imagesetter.
Which is the better way, Mac or PC? You think I'm going to handle that hot potato? Ha! The two camps battle enough over other differences. And hen there's OpenType, which (according to the TrueType Typography page) is "Microsoft and Adobe's collaborative attempt to 'end the font wars,' unifying the competing formats of TrueType and Type 1 (including multiple masters). Users will no longer need to concern themselves over the flavour of their fonts — or so the theory goes. In practice, it's likely that good TrueType-OpenTypes will be preferred on screen, while Type 1-OpenTypes will work better on old PostScript devices."
That "so the theory goes" modifier is telling — we don't recommend using open fonts for your print publishing at this time; they're still relatively new in the industry, and many service bureaus can't handle them.
So, back to which operating system handles fonts the best. In my opinion, they both have their stinking drawbacks. I wish the computer gods would develop a different way of handling fonts. Period. But if pressed, I will offer the following…
Drawback
using the PC: You never know which weights you have available unless
you view your active fonts in ATM and commit them to memory, so with some
programs, it's easy to bold a font that doesn't have a bold version. CorelDRAW!
and Adobe InDesign both do a nice thing for users: they go one step further
in its font menu by graying out (Corel) or not indicating (InDesign) the
bold and italic options when those weights are not available for a particular
font. So if you select Vivaldi (which has only one weight, normal), then
the Bold and Italic choices aren't options and can't be
used with Vivaldi. Thanks, folks! Can all your competitors to follow suit?
Drawback using the Mac: If you have a lot of fonts on your computer, then your font menus are about 23 miles long, because they list each individual weight of each font. The font menu is about four times longer on a Mac than on a PC, a serious problem on small monitors. This length is cumbersome, to say the least, and it can take forever to reach Zapf Dingbats at the end of the list. Adobe has an add-on program, Font Reunion (which comes free with Adobe Type Manager Deluxe) that revamps the font menu on Macs. It lists each font family's root name in the font menu and flies out little side menus with the individual weights that are available for each family — it's a nice little application. (Thank you Adobe, but still, can you take a look at how Corel handles this and follow suit?)
Drawback to being a cross-platform business: You can move documents between platforms, but you can't move fonts. Unless the document in question is a PDF file, the twain just doesn't meet. Times New Roman on the PC is different than Times New Roman on the Mac, whether you can see a difference or not.
Conclusion
So, to sum up:
- There really really really are individual font files for each individual weight of a Postscript font.
- The difference between Macs and PCs is what the operating system does when it sees a stylized "bold" or "italic" command.
- We must teach ourselves and our peers how to do it right on their platform of choice.
- The "pros" in the field must understand how both platforms handle fonts, and quit sighing and moaning about this platform or the other platform being better. Frankly, I think they both stink when it comes to fonts, and the debate gets down to preferring the lesser of two evils.
Tomorrow's Dissertation Topic: "Issues in The Cross Platform Transfer of Font Data (or why do my quantum physics equations always end up with little smiley faces when I send my word processing files to the desktopper?): The Pros and Cons are Debated and Contrasted to the Nth Degree"
— Bevi Chagnon