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8.7 What if I have a PostScript font has not been ported to NEXTSTEP?

Many PostScript fonts port to NEXTSTEP with little effort.

The easiest case is a font generated by Fontographer version 3.2 or above (a comment near the top of the file should say which program generated the font). This version of Fontographer can generate fonts "for NEXTSTEP". This means that no hacking of the font is needed, but you may need to make some adjustments to make it appear in your font panel.

Suppose you were porting the font family Shalom, which consists of three faces: Old Style, Stick and Script. Here is the procedure to follow:

• In a working folder of yours, create folders called:
  Shalom-OldStyle.font Shalom-Script.font Shalom-Stick.font

  Note that the font family name is to the left of the hyphen ("-"), and the typeface name is to the right and with no spaces in it.

• Copy the outline font file for each typeface from wherever it is into its folder, and give it the name of the folder minus the ".font". For example, if you are doing this in a Terminal window:
  cp /Floppy/ShalomOldStyle.NeXT Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle cp /Floppy/ShalomScript.NeXT Shalom-Script.font/Shalom-Script cp /Floppy/ShalomStick.NeXT Shalom-Stick.font/Shalom-Stick

  If you are working in Workspace Manager's File Viewer, double-click on the big fat F icon to open the font directory as a folder, then you'll be able to rename files in it.

• Do the same thing with the font metric files, but make the suffix ".afm":
  cp /Floppy/ShalomOldStyle.AFM Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle.afm cp /Floppy/ShalomScript.AFM Shalom-Script.font/Shalom-Script.afm cp /Floppy/ShalomStick.AFM Shalom-Stick.font/Shalom-Stick.afm

• If there is a "read me" file with the font, or any other documentation, copy it into the .font folder too. For example, each of the Shalom font folders contains files ReadMe, CheatSheet.wn and Sample.wn specific to the typeface.

• Edit the outline and font metric files to make them fit the NeXT AppKit's Font Panel, which is what most NextStep applications use to let you choose your font.
  • Editing the outline file, e.g., Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle:

    The original used "ShalomOldStyle" as the font's name, full name, and family name. We want the name to be "Shalom-OldStyle", the full name "Shalom Old Style", and family name just "Shalom".

    First, find the lines:

    /FullName (ShalomOldStyle) readonly def /FamilyName (ShalomOldStyle) readonly def and change them to: /FullName (Shalom Old Style) readonly def /FamilyName (Shalom) readonly def

    Then, replace all remaining occurrences of the string "ShalomOldStyle" with "Shalom-OldStyle".

  • Editing the AFM file, e.g., Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle.afm.

    Find the lines:

    FullName ShalomOldStyle FamilyName ShalomOldStyle and change them to: FullName Shalom Old Style FamilyName Shalom Replace all remaining occurrences of the string "ShalomOldStyle" with "Shalom-OldStyle".

    Repeat this procedure for the remaining typefaces.

• You now have a font family ready to be installed. If the font family is to be used by your account only, place it in /Library/Fonts (creating it if necessary):
  mkdirs ~/Library/Fonts mv Shalom-*.font ~/Library/Fonts buildafmdir ~/Library/Fonts

  If everybody on your system should have access to this font family, place it (as superuser) in /LocalLibary/Fonts:

  su mkdirs /LocalLibrary/Fonts mv Shalom-*.font /LocalLibrary/Fonts buildafmdir /LocalLibrary/Fonts exit

That's all you need to do for fonts generated by Fontographer version 3.2 or above. This will work with all applications that use AppKit's FontPanel. FrameMaker does not, so other changes may need to be done to keep FrameMaker happy [does anybody have something to add here?].

Fonts generated by Fontographer version 3.1 or below don't work in Display PostScript as they are, because they use a memory management trick that screws everything up in a multitasking environment like DPS. However, there is a simple, though kludgy, way to make them work.

The problematic trick uses a dictionary with a name like "Fog3.1" ("Casa1" in Casady & Green's fonts) in which most of the font resides. The problem is that Fontographer puts that whole dictionary into dictionary 'userdict' and expects it to stay there. DPS, however, clears out 'userdict' between tasks, including the task that loads the font and the task that uses it. This makes the font useless on the screen, and printable only by prepending the outline font file to the file you want to print and sending the result to print in one task.

The fix is to move the troublesome dictionary from 'userdict' into the font dictionary itself (unlike 'userdict', the font dictionary does stick around between tasks).

Perform the following changes in the outline font file (the font CyrillicGothic is used as the example):

• Find the line "%%EndProlog". It will be followed by the line like this:
  /\$CyrillicGothic 23 dict def \$CyrillicGothic begin

  Write down the number before 'dict' (in this case, 23). You will need it in the following step. Delete the dict definition, making the line look like this:

  \$CyrillicGothic begin

• Go back to the beginning of the file. near the top of the font program, find the following lines:
  userdict/Fog3.1 known\{\{currentfile( )readstring \{(\%\%\%)eq\{exit\}if\}{pop exit\}ifelse\}loop\}if userdict begin/Fog3.1 45 dict def Fog3.1 begin

  and replace them with these:

  /\$CyrillicGothic 24 dict def \$CyrillicGothic begin/Fog3.1 45 dict def Fog3.1 begin

  The number before 'dict' (in this case, 24) is one greater than the number you wrote down in the previous step.

• Find the line that defines procedure BuildChar:
  /BuildChar{Fog3.1/BuildChar get exec}def and change it as follows:
  /BuildChar{1 index begin Fog3.1/BuildChar get exec end}def

• Go to the end of the file. The last line looks like this:
  /CyrillicGothic findfont/EFN get Fog3.1 begin\{RF\}forall end Delete it (or comment it out by placing one or more " beginning of it).

  The AFM file requires one adjustment. Change the line

  EncodingScheme AppleStandard to
  EncodingScheme AdobeStandardEncoding

This concludes conversion of a font generated by Fontographer version 3.1 or lower to work with NEXTSTEP. You may still need to make the changes described for version 3.2 and above, to make the font fit the NEXTSTEP font panel.

Short note: under NEXTSTEP 3.3 there is no need to call buildafmdir by hand. It's triggered automatically by the Font panel.

• (continue with 8.8 What color printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with NEXTSTEP?)