font_embedding

font embedding Hudson Ashley wrote on font embedding Hi Bruce, I think I have some insights into these issues: >I am helping a client with some font issues and the following questions >arose. To my knowledge, this stuff isn't documented well if at all. Please >correct me if I am wrong: > >A client is using the font "Times" and has the shocked font "Times *" in a >shared cast. > >1. If Times isn't present on a system, will the text automatically be >mapped to "Times *"? No >If not, will Director obey the font mapping set up via >the fontmap.txt file? (That is, do I need to set up the font mapping from >"Times" to "Times *" and will Director obey it? I believe the fontmap.txt file is only for field members being a throwback to D4 days. > >Or is the best strategy to reformat all my text from "Times" to "Times *"? >I tried doing this by hand and the text appears different! The "Times *" >text is considerable smaller than the same text in "Times" font. It is >because the correct point size is not available? > In my experience it is different, even if you have included the exact same point sizes and styles >What if I rename my shocked font to "Times" instead of "Times *"? Will that >allow me to avoid hand-updating all the fonts for all my text in 100 >movies? Will Director use the system font or the Shocked font if they have >the same name? > I don't think so, but you can write lingo to go through your text members and set member(x).font = "times *". This is fairly trivial if you have text members that are all one font, but can be tricky if they are composed of multiple sizes and styles. You might try using the member(x).html and change all the font settings, then reconstitute the text members from the resulting HTML. You'll still have to deal with the text flow problems that arise, however. >Regarding Fontmap.txt, it seems like I need to update the fontmap for each >individual DIR file by hand. This is really time-consuming for 100 movies. >Is there an easier way? Not necessary for Text members. > >I'm tempted to put all my fonts in a shared cast so that they are always >all available. Am I risking a big memory and performance hit if I have 3 or >4 fonts, such as Times, Future Bold, Optima Bold, and Garamond installed? >(no large Asian fonts that is). I've heard that there are problems with shocked fonts in external casts, but have not confirmed. > >Inquiring minds want to know. > >Is the font rendering in D8 any better than D7.0.2? I'm still having fits >with every D7.0.2 project that uses #text members. The promise of >consistent cross-platform font rendering seems yet to be realized. I can't >even get it to appear the same on a Mac without the original font installed >as it does on a Mac with the original font installed. If it is better, it is not better enough to actually give you the same look for a shocked font as the original (perhaps this is what allows them to avoid font licensing issues?<g>). You have to really play with the font settings when creating. Note particularly that you have to create separate fonts for type styles. Setting the styles (bold and italic) on the font appear to only process that font information rather than using the bold or italic version of the font that you may have also created. This is not surprising, but you can get much better looking fonts if you create all the styles you need and leave them all "plain" in the font dialog. And then Terry Schussler remarked: Bruce: Having some fairly extensive experience in this area, I have interjected answers below: At 3:21 PM -0500 6/5/00, Bruce Epstein - Zeus Productions wrote: >I am helping a client with some font issues and the following questions >arose. To my knowledge, this stuff isn't documented well if at all. Please >correct me if I am wrong: > >A client is using the font "Times" and has the shocked font "Times *" in a >shared cast. > >1. If Times isn't present on a system, will the text automatically be >mapped to "Times *"? Yes, but this is not a preferable solution. You're better off manually mapping your #text members to "Times *" to avoid seeing differences between systems with both fonts and systems with only the "shocked" font. BTW - If neither "Times" or your shocked equivalent is installed, Director will default to the system font for your current OS installation. If not, will Director obey the font mapping set up via >the fontmap.txt file? (That is, do I need to set up the font mapping from >"Times" to "Times *" and will Director obey it? Irrelevent for #text members. > >Or is the best strategy to reformat all my text from "Times" to "Times *"? Yes. >I tried doing this by hand and the text appears different! The "Times *" >text is considerable smaller than the same text in "Times" font. It is >because the correct point size is not available? This is because the "shocked" version of the font does not include hinting data for rendering the fonts at smaller point sizes. Also, this can be due to the fact that the font created by Director is based on an auto-tracing algorithm so it will always look a little different. > >What if I rename my shocked font to "Times" instead of "Times *"? Will that >allow me to avoid hand-updating all the fonts for all my text in 100 >movies? Bad idea. This will lead to system font conflicts. Definitely not recommended - there's a reason that you're prompted to assign a new "install" name for the shocked version of a font. >Will Director use the system font or the Shocked font if they have >the same name? This is going to be dependent on the OS, not Director. Director installs "shocked" fonts into the system temporarily and then asks the OS to render text with them. > >Regarding Fontmap.txt, it seems like I need to update the fontmap for each >individual DIR file by hand. This is really time-consuming for 100 movies. >Is there an easier way? Select all of your #text members, then open the Property Inspector (Command-Option-S or Control-Alt-S). Next, click on the Text tab and activate List View mode. Finally, scroll down to the Chunk Properties section and enter a new font name in the font properties input area. You'll have to type the name completely as there is no popup menu option available here. > >I'm tempted to put all my fonts in a shared cast so that they are always >all available. Am I risking a big memory and performance hit if I have 3 or >4 fonts, such as Times, Future Bold, Optima Bold, and Garamond installed? >(no large Asian fonts that is). Your memory hit will be nominal. About 10-20K for a san serif font and about 30-50K for a serif (on average.) It is usually a good idea to use a shared externally linked cast library for your fonts to prevent multiple dynamic install/uninstall occurrences during playback. > >Inquiring minds want to know. > >Is the font rendering in D8 any better than D7.0.2? I'm still having fits >with every D7.0.2 project that uses #text members. The promise of >consistent cross-platform font rendering seems yet to be realized. I can't >even get it to appear the same on a Mac without the original font installed >as it does on a Mac with the original font installed. The D8 Font Asset does a much better job of creating a font outline based on the original font than the D7 version. Regards, Terry