Cheaper Adobe Fonts?

[jens g.r. benthien]

ok guys, since no one can name the applications that make use of the advantages of OpenType, it seems I am correct with my assumptions: it's a great hype. Let me guess: the only way to use the benefits of OpenType from Adobe is to purchase and learn and use a brand new Adobe software.

So all you are doing here is discussing a phantom, and it is pretty much useless for the world if it'll run only on Adobe products.

I will continue to submit my files to a professional printing company and let them do the professional typesetting on Linotype Hell Stations, because they KNOW what they do.

No hype anymore, ok?

jens

[Sean Sedwards]

If you use Win 2K you've already got at least 15 OpenType font families that come with it. They have an 'O' icon in explorer and are described as OpenType when you double-click them. Other than InDesign and other Adobe products, I imagine that Word and Draw will be the first to use OT-specific features, if they don't already.

The importance of OpenType is that it solves a number of problems relating to non-Latin scripts and unifies Type 1 and TrueType technologies. It's more a compatibility upgrade than for quality - that's just a bonus. Also, for people that buy several versions of professional fonts for use at specific point size, OT may be an efficient and cost-effective solution. For most others there's no need to make a special effort to upgrade because it will be automatically included with the next computer they buy.

Regards - Sean

[Klaus Nordby]

Jens, my friend, you are an ignorant fool in this respect. (It's probably your silly anti-Adobe prejudice whith gets the worsts of you.) InDesign supports OpenType, other apps will do so soon. OpenType provides for superior type - in the hands of designers. Like me.


K

[jens g.r. benthien]

Klaus,

-------------------------
InDesign supports OpenType, other apps will do so soon.
------------------------

Hm, pretty long list of apps you posted here. Let's talk about it when ALL apps will support OpenType and Adobe lowered the price, ok?

I have more than 300 Adobe Type 1 fonts here, and the least I can expect is an upgrade, but no, Adobe wants to cash in. I can wait until the prices will drop considerably.

And I want to issue a bad tasting lemon for this software list: it's the shortest list I've ever seen.

Congrats for the 'Klaus Lemmon' :-), the nobel prize for hype thingies.

ciao,
jens

[will]

what you have to say is a thousand times more important than the font you say it with.

Will

[Klaus Nordby]

Jens: "And I want to issue a bad tasting lemon for this software list: it's the shortest list I've ever seen."

Out of logical necessity, there will always be ONE person or program or product which takes the FIRST step on a new road with new technologies. And since when did being first become a Bad Thing?

This is my last word on this topic. Jens, you persist in being a fool regarding this issue.


K

K

[pduggan]

Things seem to have been getting a bit heated here, so I hope my little addition will pour oil on troubled waters rather than fan the flames...

Most folk I know still treat a computer like a typewriter. They use hyphens for dashes and feet or inches marks for quotes. Many of them think I'm splitting hairs when I point this out but, once you learn that there's a better way, substitutes start to look wrong! (Although it's pragmatic to accept some compromises for web use, which is effectively limited by a smaller safe character set.)

As with simple things like quote marks and dashes, so it is with the progressively finer and finer points of typography. Choice and quality of fonts, line spacing, kerning and so on... The more you learn, the more it matters, because it does make a difference! Otherwise everything might as well be typed in Courier with nothing but characters straight from the Qwerty keyboard...

Exactly the same thing holds true for my own area of music. Until I started typesetting music with Sibelius (incomparably the best program for the job), most printed music looked like, well, music... Now much of it looks, well, bloody awful! So I've learnt something, but I'll probably still be horrified when someone who's been at it longer than I have takes a good look at what I'm doing now.

What satisfies some folk clearly wouldn't satisfy me, and what currently satisfies me might not satisfy Klaus, but implying that the best typography is somehow less important than the best graphics seems illogical. Learning is a lifelong process, and I'm sure we've all been horrified to think back on work that we've so proudly presented to the world even in the recent past! Let's all be friends here and accept that, although everyone has to be pragmatic about what he/she can do or is prepared to accept, none of us can know or do everything better than everyone else!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, Opera renders correctly coded n and m dashes as hyphens, but that's just BTW!



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>