CPMH Tips: March 17, 2001

One common issue causes problems for many cross-platform applications: fonts. A font is a set of text characters in a particular style and size. The cross-platform problem is that no two machines are guaranteed to have the same set of fonts. In fact, it’s difficult to guarantee that any two Macintoshes will have the same set of fonts.

Font substitution. As a result, files created with text in a particular font on one machine may look very strange on a machine with a different font set. That’s because if an application opens a file that uses an unknown font, the application will substitute another font. Font substitution prevents you from being presented with a blank page; however, the substitute font may be completely different, or it may be only slightly different. Both situations present problems.

If the substitute font is way off base, the document may be unreadable. This could happen if, for example, you’re using a decorative font with mini images instead of letters. Suddenly your arrows and shapes become letters scattered throughout the file. And if the document depends on precise positioning for its layout, the substitute font almost certainly will ruin the look you had worked so hard to achieve.

If the substitute font is similar to but not exactly the same as the original, you might be faced with more insidious problems. At a quick glance, the docu-ment will look virtually identical to the original. However, if you examine it more closely, you might notice that page breaks happen in the wrong places, columns of text might wind up a line shorter or longer, producing orphans and widows, or special characters are replaced by unexpected substitutes. Carefully positioned text may also move slightly out of place.

TrueType vs. Type 1. Another variation on the font problem is the ongoing battle between Apple’s TrueType and Adobe Type 1 fonts (also called PostScript fonts). Macintosh and Windows computers these days use TrueType fonts as the primary fonts for screen display and printing. However, graphic designers and other printing professionals often use Adobe Type 1 fonts for high-end printing tasks. (UNIX systems, in general, use Type 1 fonts only.) Substituting a Type 1 font for a TrueType font or vice versa, even if they share the same name and style, can lead to the second type of font problem—small changes that are diffi-cult to spot at first glance.

Special Characters. Refer to the "Plain" Text part of the File Formats section later in this chapter for a discussion of why special characters—em dashes, curly quotes, and accented letters—turn into gibberish when files move between Mac and Windows machines.

A Font Solution?

I wish I could provide a universal fix for the font issue. There isn’t one as far as I know. The best solution is to limit your choice of fonts in documents that must be shared. This suggestion applies even if you are sharing documents with other Macintosh users. Even though you are infatuated with, for example, the TrueType font Latin725 BT (one of my personal favorites), you can’t expect all users to have it on their systems.

On the Macintosh, the basic set of fonts installed by Mac OS 8.1 includes Charcoal, Chicago, Courier, Geneva, Helvetica, Monaco, New York, Palatino, Symbol, and Times. Mac OS 8.5 adds a few more fonts to the mix: Capitals, Gadget, Techno, Textile, and Sand.

By comparison, a basic Windows installation includes the fonts—at least for Windows NT Server—Arial, Courier, Courier New, Lucida, Modem, MS Sans Serif, MS Serif, Roman, Script, Small Fonts, Symbol, Times New Roman, and Wingdings.

Clearly, there’s not a lot of guaranteed font overlap between a Mac OS and a Windows machine. On the other hand, if you work with a limited set of col-leagues, you may be able to work out a larger set of fonts that everyone has. With the advent of the Web, and in particular the wide distribution of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Internet Explorer, there is another possibility in the Microsoft Web Font Pack.

Sometimes it seems as if it’s almost impossible to prevent Internet Explorer from being installed on your Macintosh. Whether you’re installing the Mac OS system, installing Microsoft Office, or visiting the Microsoft Web site, there are plenty of opportunities to download and install Internet Explorer. If you do so, Microsoft kindly installs the 11 fonts in the Microsoft Web Font Pack. And since virtually every Windows machine also has Internet Explorer installed, you can almost guarantee these fonts are on most Macintosh and Windows machines. The Web font pack includes eleven TrueType fonts: Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebu-chet MS, Verdana, and WebDings.

Even though the Web fonts are designed for optimal viewing on the screen, they are TrueType fonts and can be used in any word processor, spreadsheet, or non-Web application. While you may have to forego the personalization and panache that comes from typing a marketing report in Baker Signet MT, you will make life easier on yourself and your co-authors on the report.