Fickle Fonts

[Jim Stauffer <jims@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm running Frame 5.5.6 on Windows 98 and just upgraded Acrobat to
v4. In the two days since this "auspicious" upgrade, I've spent
the majority of my time trying to figure out the fonts -- where
they are, how they work, why won't they do what I want when
generating PS files. 

I write manuals for a technical audience and don't do anything
fancy with fonts -- I use Times and Helvetica, period. For
generating PS files, I created a new printer instance with the
4.3.1 driver and adist4.ppd. When selecting this printer from
within Frame, it converts all fonts to New Times Roman (TT). The
printer property settings are to send TT as Type 42 and PS as
native. (A lot of good that setting does!)

I spent hours trying this and that, experimenting with different
drivers and ppd's. I installed Adobe's ATM -- which did nothing
but add reams of TT fonts, but doesn't have Helv or Times PS
fonts. My final solution was to create a new printer instance
defined as an HP postscript printer, change the driver to Adobe's
4.3.1 and keep HP's ppd file. This probably violates somebody's
licensing agreement... I DON'T CARE, IT WORKS.

I have to admit I've never understood how fonts work on a PC. It
appears that any given application will access fonts that it finds
anywhere on the PC. Helv and Times appear to come from the
printers themselves. The printer instance from Adobe's 4.3.1
install shield doesn't have my needed PS fonts, so it converts all
my docs! I suppose if I could find the Helv and Times files they
could be added to ATM so I wouldn't be printer dependent, but I'm
really tired of dealing with this for now.

My question to Free Framers is, does this story make sense? Did I
find a reasonable solution? Can anybody suggest something more
eloquent? I'm one of those "lone tech writers" in a small company
and don't have anyone else to talk to about these issues.

Thanks... 

-- 
Jim Stauffer
Senior Technical Writer
ArrayComm, Inc.
www.arraycomm.com

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