Author: Suki Lee & Jim Luther
Year: 1989
... discusses the methods used by the Apple IIGS Print Manager to map IIGS fonts to the PostScript® fonts available with an Apple LaserWriter printer.
Apple II
Technical Notes
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Developer Technical Support
Apple IIGS
#67: LaserWriter Font Mapping
Revised by: Jim Luther November 1989
Written by: Suki Lee & Jim Luther September 1989
This Technical Note discusses the methods used by the Apple IIGS Print Manager
to map IIGS fonts to the PostScript(R) fonts available with an Apple LaserWriter
printer.
Changes since September 1989: Moved the registered trademark symbols
from Table 2 to the list of trademarks at the end of this Note to avoid
confusion about font name spelling.
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Version 2.2 and earlier of the Apple IIGS LaserWriter driver depend solely
upon font family numbers as unique font identifiers. There is a table built
into the driver which maps the known font family numbers to the built-in
LaserWriter family fonts. Any fonts which are not built-in are created in the
printer from its bitmap font strike. Under this implementation, all font
family numbers not known at the time the driver was written print using bitmap
fonts. This driver knows nothing of any other fonts which may reside in the
printer.
There have been many requests for the driver to take advantage of other
available PostScript fonts to get high quality output from the LaserWriter.
PostScript fonts from Adobe's font library, or from other PostScript font
manufacturers, can be downloaded to the printer from a Macintosh and remain in
the printer for use until power off. Currently there is no means to download
a PostScript font with an Apple IIGS.
The Apple IIGS LaserWriter driver version 3.0 makes use of most resident
PostScript fonts in the LaserWriter when requested. If the font is not
available, then the bitmap font is used. The driver queries the printer at
the start of a job for the font directory listing. The listing consists of
names of all the fonts in the printer, built-in or downloaded. This
information is kept locally for look up using the name of the requested font.
Issues
All Apple IIGS fonts contain a family name and a family number. The Apple
IIGS currently identifies fonts using the family number; however, this
identification method may change in the future, due to the complexity of
tracking unique matches between font family names and font family numbers.
PostScript identifies its fonts by name (case sensitive) and knows nothing of
any font family numbering system, Macintosh or Apple IIGS, which might be
attached to a particular font. Most PostScript font families include plain,
bold, italic and bold italic fonts. Some fonts families may also have serif
and sans serif fonts or fonts of different weights (line thickness). These
fonts are generally named by adding a style suffix to the base family name.
Unfortunately, there is no uniform method for naming fonts, since most fonts
were named by their designers and many of the names have historical
significance.
The three examples shown in Table 1 show three variations of the plain font,
two variations of the bold style, three variations of the italic style, and
three variations of the bold italic style. There are others such as
ZapfChancery-MediumItalic, Korinna-KursivRegular, and LetterGothic-Slanted
which all denote the italic style of the respective font family.
Style Font names
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plain Helvetica Times-Roman AvantGarde-Book
bold Helvetica-Bold Times-Bold AvantGarde-Demi
italic Helvetica-Oblique Times-Italic AvantGarde-BookOblique
bold italic Helvetica-BoldOblique Times-BoldItalic AvantGarde-DemiOblique
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Table 1-Example Font Names
The Macintosh LaserWriter driver uses a mapping scheme to compose a full
PostScript font name. It relies on the Font Family Definition Record 'FOND'
resource to provide a style mapping table containing the appropriate suffixes.
Since there are no similar resource on the Apple IIGS, the Apple IIGS
LaserWriter driver adopts the following approach. The driver has full
knowledge of all LaserWriter family built-in fonts (see Table 2 for a list of
these built-in fonts) and uses the correct name for all style variations of
the fonts. For all other fonts, the driver uses a standard set of suffixes
for the style modifications. These suffixes are -Bold, -Italics, and -
BoldItalics. The appropriate suffix is appended to the family name of the
font, and this name is used to search the font directory table obtained from
querying the printer. If a match is found, the document is printed using the
corresponding PostScript font. If no match is found, then the driver tries to
find the plain form of the font and creates the style modification in
PostScript. A bitmap of the font is downloaded to the printer if these two
searches fail.
If you are shipping your application with the intention of taking advantage of
PostScript fonts when printing to a LaserWriter, please be sure to provide an
Apple IIGS font whose family name is identical to the PostScript font family
name.
LaserWriter LaserWriter Plus and
LaserWriter II
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Courier AvantGarde
Helvetica Bookman
Symbol Courier
Times Helvetica
Helvetica-Narrow
NewCenturySchlbk
Palatino
Symbol
Times
ZapfChancery
ZapfDingbats
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Table 2-Built-in LaserWriter Fonts
Further Reference
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o Apple IIGS Toolbox Reference, Volumes 1 & 2
o Apple LaserWriter Reference
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Helvetica(R), Palatino(R), and Times(R) are registered trademarks of
Linotype Co.
ITC Avant Garde(R), ITC Bookman(R), ITC Zapf Chancery(R), and
ITC Zapf Dingbats(R) are registered trademarks of
International Typeface Corporation.