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Manufacturing Services


Fonts


Font issues are notorious for causing production problems and, in turn, schedule delays. If you take the right steps, the problems they create can easily be avoided.

POSTSCRIPT TYPE 1 

Type 1 fonts are considered to be the most compatible for the publishing industry today because they are based on Adobe's postscript language. There is a large selection of Type 1 fonts to choose from.

Type 1 fonts consist of two parts: A SCREEN font and a PRINTER font. The screen font includes the font metrics that communicate important typography data to the interpreter for printing. The printer font contains the information that is actually sent to a laser printer/imagesetter and is used to correctly render each character. Printer fonts are also used to create clear, concise screen renditions of the font at any size. If the printer fonts are missing or are corrupted, your font may look jagged on the screen and either will not print out at all or will print "bitmapped" (jagged).

Type 1 fonts can be distinguished by their icons:


Screen font

Printer font

Font icons courtesy of The Pocket Primer Series Windsor Professional Information

Screen fonts are generally kept in a "suitcase," which can contain a wide range of fonts. A printer font resides outside the "suitcase" but within the same folder as its screen font "suitcase." 


Suitcase
Font icon courtesy of The Pocket Primer Series Windsor Professional Information

It is necessary for us to have both the screen and printer fonts to be able to view and print a font.

So, if you are submitting application files for output, you must supply all fonts used in your documents. If you are sending PostScript/PDF files for output, you have some options as to how the fonts may be supplied:

  1. If you are using PostScript Type 1 fonts only, you may "embed" the fonts in your PDF files. This will create large PDF files but should help eliminate any font-related problems.
  2. Although we do not recommend them, we have received jobs using TrueType fonts as well. If you have no choice and have to supply your files using TrueType fonts, you must embed all fonts in your PDF files.


TrueType font
Font icon courtesy of The Pocket Primer Series Windsor Professional Information

Avoid locally "stylizing" fonts using the style buttons within an application. This can cause substitution at the printer and/or imagesetter. Choose the typestyle from the font list and make certain to include the fonts for each typestyle (bold, italic, etc.) you have used when gathering the files to be sent for printing. This will help avoid delays.

Examples of a variety of typestyles:









 

BookMasters, Inc.