A Multi-part Font Disquisition
Page 3

Font families

In preferences > font families packaging, you will define the preferred settings for creating font groupings. There are four check boxes here, as shown in figure 10.

These few preference settings are enough to get the vast majority of projects started successfully. If converting fonts is something you face often — as is generally the case for output providers — then you should turn to the user's guide for a complete explanation of all preference settings. Additionally, the appendix and bibliography of the user's guide are great resources that go far beyond that of a typical user's guide. Click here to download the user's guide.

Figure 10 Choose groupings for your converted fonts in the preferences dialogue box.

An oft-overlooked benefit

One of my favorite features of TransType is the ability to create — dare I say it — the missing plain, bold, italic, or other styles of a font. These are called font class changes and are simulations performed by altering the glyph.

In the case of bold, it might be simulated by increasing the font size or smearing the glyphs. Other font styles can be simulated as well, such as outline. Each font family is different and not all options are available to all fonts. The good news is that you won’t have to guess. TransType Pro will dim any disallowed options.

Figure 11 Use TransType to generate bold versions of your fonts. Generating a bold version of italic will, of course, result in bold italic.

In figure 11 above, I’ve again selected my Caslon font, but this time, in the destination fonts pane, I have chosen to convert the font to Mac Type 1 — the same as the source file. In this instance, I have also chosen to make a bold versios of the Roman faces.

One of my favored features of QuarkXPress 7 is the glyphs palette. As a diehard typographer, a beginner, or anyone in between, it is extremely useful for viewing the character representation (glyph) of every character in a selected font. For more information on the glyphs palette, click here for the PDF of X-Ray Magazine v4n2: Looking at Ligatures.

You can choose the options from the drop-down menu accessed through the disclose button following the font name, or double click the suitcase icon to access the full properties dialogue box. In figure 12, you can see the multitude of font weight options available for my selected font. Once you have chosen a weight, click the icon to the right of the name fields and TransType Pro will appropriately name the font.

More solutions

TransType has dozens of features and while you could make a case for most of those features in some way addressing the issue of missing fonts, I hope this introduction leads you toward thinking about new font possibilities. In subsequent parts to this disquisition, we'll examine more of FontLab's suite of font tools and give you a real foundation for dialogue.

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