Postscript type 1: If you see an icon with a single "A", you're looking at the "screen font" portion of a Postscript font. The "printer font" portion of a postscript font should be located in the same folder as the suitcase (hopefully!). You can identify Postscript type 1 "printer font" files by their truncated names, which follow the 5+3+3... standard - meaning that the printer font for HELVEtica BOLd ITAlic will be named Helvebolita. For example, if the suitcase "Helvetica" contains the following screen font files:
- B Helvetica Bold 10
- B Helvetica Bold 12
- BI Helvetica Bold Italic 10
- BI Helvetica Bold Italic 12
- Helvetica 10
- Helvetica 12
- I Helvetica Italic 10
- I Helvetica Italic 12
then you should make sure that the following printer font files reside in the same folder as the suitcase:
- Helve
- Helvebol
- Helvebolita
- Helveita
You MUST supply both the screen and printer fonts for Postscript type 1 fonts! If you're missing the screen font, you won't even be able to access the font from your applications, so it's hard to get into trouble there. If you are missing the printer font, the font will seem to work on your computer, but when you go to print, the printer will use the only thing it has to work with: the screen font. You won't like the jagged, pixelated results.
TrueType fonts: If you see an icon with 3 letter "A"s, you're looking at a TrueType font. TrueType fonts don't have separate screen and printer font files.
The Postscript vs. TrueType Debate
In the past, prepress houses have discouraged designers from using TrueType fonts, as they have a history of causing endless problems at the printing stage, including compromised output quality, slow printing and aborted print jobs. The popularity of the TrueType format over the last few years has driven the development of software solutions to deal with these problems, and we would like to cautiously reassure our clients that we rarely have trouble any more with TrueType, so go ahead and use them. If you have two formats to choose from, pick the Postscript version and stick with it - never supply both TrueType and Postscript type 1 versions of the same typeface.
Supplying fonts:
If you use a font, you need to supply it (see legal notice below for important caveats). Sounds simple, doesn't it? Nevertheless a very large proportion of prepress problems are font related.
The first step is to check which fonts you're using in your page layout software program. In Quark, you do this with the Utilities>Font Usage command. Click on the drop down menu, and see what's listed. If it's there, you need to supply it. If you see something that you don't expect to, you have two choices: 1) supply it, or 2) hunt it down and replace it. It's probably a <space> or a <return> character somewhere that you failed to select when you were changing the font for a block of text. It doesn't matter if it's just one lousy space; failure to supply fonts means failed print jobs, delays and annoying phone calls to you.
The second step is to check any linked EPS files that you're using and see whether or not they require any fonts. You need to do this file by file, since Quark won't check for you.
Wouldn't it be nice if the Quark's File>Collect for Output command collected fonts as well as linked graphics? Too bad it doesn't work that way. If you feel like coughing up some cash, there are many commercial utilities that will collect everything, including fonts. The most popular programs are Flightcheck from Markzware, and Collect Pro from Extensis.
If you're using a font management utility such as Suitcase, Font Juggler, or ATM Deluxe, you know where your fonts are. If not, you'll find the fonts you need in the "Fonts" folder within your system folder.
Legal notice
Fonts are the intellectual property of the software companies that create them. You do not purchase the fonts themselves, you purchase a software license which gives you the right to use them under a limited set of circumstances. While most font licenses will allow you to submit your fonts to service bureaus for output, there are exceptions, and it is your responsibility to check what each license actually allows.
Don't use the font style keys!
Helvetica wasn't bold enough, so you went with Helvetica Bold. But it still wasn't bold enough. So you hit the bold key.
Bad move. It looks the way you want it to on screen. It looks the way you want it to when you print it on your inkjet printer. But when the film house tries to send that file to the imagesetter, you're not likely to get what you want. It's not going to print double bold, it's only going to print Helvetica Bold, without further modification. Either that or Courier.
Why? There's a complicated explanation of how the font style keys work available, it you really want to know. You don't need to know; just don't touch them and everything will be fine. If you need a bold version of Helvetica, select the bold version "B Helvetica Bold" from the font menu. If that still isn't bold enough, tweak the type in Illustrator or some other Postscript drawing program, or better yet, get access to Helvetica Black, the next weight up from Helvetica bold (which isn't distributed with the standard Helvetica fontset, and must be obtained seperately). |
