TRUETYPE FONTS ON THE APPLE IIGS - IT'S POINTLESS!!!
By Wayne Short
Copyright (c) 1992 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
POINTLESS is a font management utility for the Apple IIGS that incorporates TrueType font technology into the GS/OS System Software. Instead of the ragged text you sometimes get with current fonts, POINTLESS creates smooth crisp and clean text at any point size, both on screen and on the printed page.
POINTLESS is written by Alan Bird formerly with Beagle Bros. and now with WestCode software in the USA.
Bit-Mapped Fonts and their Limitations.
All standard GS/OS application programs use bit-mapped fonts. With these fonts, each character consists of a pattern of dots that are displayed on the screen. These bit-mapped fonts are created in specific sizes, usually 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 points. If you select any other size, you will get the "jaggies" - characters which are difficult to read because of their rough stair-stepped appearance.
The GS Font Manager has tries to scale or shrink the existing font, but the results are mixed to say the least.
It is also important to remember that printers offer greater resolution than the GS screen, so printed text requires fonts with more detail than the fonts used on the screen.
The Print Manager will select a larger font than the screen image and 'scale it down' in order to provide a greater resolution, hence attractiveness of print.
This scaling varies according to the printer being used:
ImageWriter II - fonts 2x larger will be selected if available
ImageWriter LQ - fonts 3x larger will be selected if available
LaserWriter or StyleWriter - fonts 4x will be selected if available
If you have these large bit-mapped fonts then your results will be just fine. Unfortunately the larger font sizes are not readily available and require a large amount of disk space.
What are POINTLESS FONTS?
Pointless allows the IIGS to use TrueType fonts, the industry standard font format used by the Apple MacIntosh and Microsoft Windows 3.1. TrueType fonts are scaleable or outline fonts. Each character is stored as a mathematical formula that describes the lines, curves and points that make up the shape of each character. Since each character is not a pattern of dots, re-sizing is possible while accurately retaining the shape of characters.
Also, as a single TrueType font file can be used to create any point size - disk space is saved and font management/installation is made easier.
Installing POINTLESS
Pointless is supplied on a single 3.5 inch disk. This contains both the program and several truetype fonts. On the disk is an installer program which will automatically copy all the necessary files to your System startup disk.
In order to install and use POINTLESS, you must have at least 32k of free disk space on you System Startup disk. Pointless Requires System 5.0 or higher to function. If you are using System 6.0 you will only be able to use POINTLESS on a hard disk unless you are using a 1.44 megabyte drive.
The POINTLESS Control Panel
Pointless is configured via a Control Panel Device (CDEV) and may be accessed anytime by selecting the Control Panel Option from the Apple Pull-down menu.
When you select the Pointless Icon you are presented with a list of all TrueType fonts currently installed. There are four configuration options available:
Add: Adds TrueType fonts to the Pointless font list, which controls what fonts will appear in the standard Font Menu. This option also selects the disk location of each font.
Remove: Remove the currently selected font from the list, and consequently the Font Menu.
Configure: Selects which characters in each font will be generated by pointless. When a font is initially added, a limited character set is generated as a default. You may tell Pointless to access the entire character set (up to 256). The drawback of this is that additional RAM is consumed while using this font in an application.
Save Bitmap: Save a bit-mapped version of a TrueType font file in a specific point size. The Font Manager will always choose the bit-mapped font version of a particular size first in preference to the TrueType equivalent. This provides a faster response for generating and printing fonts. The drawback of this is the additional disk space required to store the bit-mapped font.
POINTLESS creates configuration file TRUETYPE.LIST in the *:SYSTEM:FONTS folder. It is updated upon closing the CDEV window. NOTE: the latest changes made to a font do not become active until the FONT MANAGER is restarted. This will only occur when you change applications (i.e. go to another program from the Finder).
Both Bitmapped and TrueType fonts will appear in the Font Menu. The most obvious differences in the menu will be that TrueType Fonts have no default point sizes for selection - you can select any size you wish. When generating and printing fonts the normal watch cursor is replaced a by a round cursor which changes colour from white to red. This pause occurs each time a new point size is generated for a particular font. There is no delay if the font has already been generated in an application.
Where do I do Get TrueType Fonts?
Along with the Pointless CDEV, WestCode have released a limited set of fonts: Chicago, Courier, Courier Bold, Geneva, Monaco, New York, Symbol
Using the System 6.0 HFS file system translator you may access a font 'suitcase' (a collection of fonts stored in a single file) or individual fonts on a Macintosh disk.
Public Domain fonts are available from the AUG's bulletin boards (both Apple and MAC). There are also several MAC HFS format disks available in the Public Domain Library with TrueType Fonts.
WestCode have indicated that they aim to release some disks with TrueType fonts in the near future.
Where to Store Additional Fonts?
POINTLESS is flexible in that your truetype fonts are NOT restricted to storage in the folder *:SYSTEM:FONTS on your boot volume (usually a Hard disk)
What are its limitations?
Pointless sometimes gives unpredictable results. What usually happens is that the requested fonts just aren't generated and you get the SHASTON font instead - ugly! This is caused in most cases by one of two problems:
A. Insufficient memory. You can use Pointless on a GS with 2.25 megabytes of installed RAM. However, the more fonts or the larger the point sizes the greater the likelihood of running low on memory. You should seriously consider purchasing more memory (RAM) if you are consistently creating documents requiring 3 or more fonts. Point sizes exceeding 48 points also consume large amounts of memory.
B. Although POINTLESS gives you the capability of creating very large size fonts up to 255 points, many GS programs impose restrictions on the maximum point size allowed within the program.
Among the most popular programs, the following have point size limitations:
AppleWorks GS 48 points
GraphicWriter III 96 points
HyperCard GS 80 points
HyperStudio 125 points
Platinum Paint 100 points
C. If you don't own an accelerator card (TransWarp GS or Zip GS) the font generation process can be slow. This is made worse by using a large number of fonts in a document.
Despite all of this, POINTLESS is great piece of Software. The bugs are minor compared with the advantages gained.
Program : POINTLESS V1.0
Written by : Alan Bird
Publisher : WestCode Software
Hardware : Apple IIGS, 1.25MB Ram (2.25MB is realistic)
System version : GS/OS System 5.0 or higher
Distributor : Two Series Software (02)606-9343
Price : $85 (AUD)

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