Specifications
Classic Fonts and Applications
If you work with Classic applications, you’ll find that Mac OS X offers a number of fea-
tures that improve on the font management capabilities that were available to you in
Mac OS 9. Because you are essentially running two different operating systems side by
side—Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X—there are a few font issues you should know about.
Font smoothing
With built-in anti-aliasing technology for font smoothing onscreen, Mac OS X
eliminates the need to use extra applications such as ATM Light. However, if you use
Classic applications with PostScript fonts, you’ll need to install ATM Light version
4.6.2 or later. This application is a free download from Adobe at www.adobe.com/
support/downloads. If you run Adobe Photoshop in Classic, you don’t need ATM Light,
because Photoshop 5.5 and later versions handle their own font rendering.
Font folder hierarchies
Mac OS X uses font folder hierarchies to determine which fonts to use. For example,
if you have a PostScript version of Helvetica installed in the Classic Fonts folder
(<startup volume>/System Folder/Fonts), it will work fine for Classic applications.
But for Mac OS X applications, the system will use the Helvetica font located in
/System/Library/Fonts—a higher-priority folder for Mac OS X. As a result, you could
wind up using two different versions of Helvetica if you are running both QuarkXPress
in Classic and Adobe Illustrator in Mac OS X, for example.
To avoid this problem, be sure there are no font name duplicates between fonts
in your Classic Fonts folder and fonts in higher-priority folders such as /System
/Library/Fonts. (See Appendix D for information about folder priorities.)
Font suitcases
Panther lets you use all your favorite legacy fonts, including those that started as a
font suitcase in Mac OS 9. If you’ve brought a font suitcase into Mac OS X, the file
might contain both TrueType and PostScript versions of the same font. Mac OS X
will open and use both fonts, creating potential conflicts.
The best way to prevent this problem is to extract all screen fonts from the suitcase
and then install the specific fonts you need using Font Book or your third-party font
manager. You can open the suitcase in a Finder window on a Mac that has been
started up in Mac OS 9 or earlier and extract the fonts, or you can find and install a
copy of Font/DA Mover 4.1 and run it in the Classic environment of Mac OS X to
disassemble the suitcase.
See Appendix A for information about products that can help resolve suitcase issues.
Server-Based Fonts
By creating a central font location on a local or network computer, you can make fonts
available to multiple Mac users quickly and easily. What’s more, you’ll be certain that
everyone involved with a specific project—from initial design to final printout—is
using the same version of each font, no matter which Mac they’re working on. Having
a central font location can also reduce system administration efforts.
To store fonts centrally, mount the server volume on the local computer and point
your font manager at the fonts in that location to open them. Make sure that your
network can handle the extra font-sharing traffic. A 100BASE-T switched network or
better is recommended for font servers and clients.
11
Technology Tour
Advanced Typography
with Mac OS X