Article # 314, added by Geoworks, historical record
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Everything you ever wanted to know about GEOS fonts.
Information about Geoworks fonts and different font formats. The world of outline fonts is somewhat complex. There are many companies involved at several different levels. This document will attempt to clarify some of the terms involved and where companies fit into the scheme of things, as well as describing ways to add more fonts to your Geoworks software. Overview ======== There are four different types of companies involved with outline fonts: foundries, rasterizer companies, application companies, and converter companies. Foundry - designs outline fonts. An example of this is URW, which designed typefaces such as URW Roman. Foundries license their typeface designs to other companies. Rasterizer Company - creates the software for rendering outline fonts for display. An example of this is Digital Typeface Corporation (DTC), which has a rasterizer known as Nimbus-Q. Companies that create rasterizers make money by either licensing the rasterizer algorithm to other companies, or by creating separate software which adds this capability to existing programs. Traditionally, the fonts used with rasterizing software are licensed from a foundry. For example, many of DTC's fonts were licensed from URW. Application Company - licenses rasterizing software for use in a PC application. An example of this is Geoworks, which licensed the Nimbus-Q rasterizer from DTC for use in Geoworks. The fonts for Geoworks were also licensed from DTC, who in turn licensed the designs from URW. Converter Company - makes software to convert between one or more of the font formats. This market has come into existence because of the large number of (incompatible) font formats. Conversion programs allow application users to use more fonts than might otherwise be available for the font format their application uses. An example of this is MI.EXE from MicroLogic Software, which converts Adobe Type 1 fonts into MicroLogic's MLS font format. To keep things interesting, a number of companies fall into more than one of the above categories. For example, Adobe has designed some of its own fonts (acting as a foundry), created its own rasterizer (acting as a rasterizer company), and also sells the rasterizer as an add-on product for both Windows and the Macintosh (acting as an application company). The Geoworks font format ======================== Geoworks licensed its rasterizer and fonts from Digital Typeface Corporation (DTC) which acquired the company that created the Nimbus-Q rasterizer and licensed the designs for its fonts from URW. Geoworks uses a derivative of the Nimbus-Q format, not the native Nimbus-Q format. Here are the original nine Geoworks outline fonts along with names of equivalent or near-equivalent fonts from other companies. Geoworks Name Is Similar To ============= ============= Cranbrook Century Schoolbook Cooperstown Cooper Black Sather Gothic Franklin Gothic Shattuck Avenue Park Avenue Superb Broadway URW Mono Courier URW Roman Times Roman URW Sans Helvetica URW Symbol Postscript Symbol There are a number of other ways you can make additional fonts for GEOS: + ATech Software published a conversion program called AllType which will convert a large number of formats, including Adobe Type 1, True Type, ATech's FastFont format, Nimbus-Q, and Geoworks into any of the other formats. Atech is no longer in business, but AllType is distributed by Page Technology: Page Technology Marketing, Inc. 10671 Roselle Street, Suite 100 San Diego, California 92121-1525 (619) 658-0191 Fax (619) 658-0194 Http://www.tfb.com/pagetech/ Email: pagetech@tfb.com + MicroLogic Software offers a font converter that can convert to Geoworks font format. You need MoreFontsImport to convert the Type 1 font to the MLS proprietary format. Then use MoreType to convert the font to Geoworks format. MoreType and MoreFontsImport from MicroLogic 1351 Ocean Ave. Emeryville, CA 94608 (510) 652-5464 Now that they're converted, what do I do? ========================================= Once the fonts are converted to the Geoworks format, simply copy the font files into the USERDATA/FONT directory. Restart GEOS and it will find the new fonts.