Palatino and Pathforall Workarounds
for Acrobat Distiller
By Don Lancaster                                                                    
Version 1.1 May 15, 1997
Copyright c. 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics, Box 809, Thatcher AZ, 85552
(520) 428-4073. synergetics@tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media
rights are *fully* reserved. Linking welcome. Reposting is expressly forbidden.

Further support on https://www.tinaja.com
Consulting services available via don@tinaja.com


The Adobe Acrobat Distiller 3.0 only has built-in support for the basic 11 fonts in the
Courier, Times, Helvetica, and Zapf families. Many Acrobat users "expect" full support
for the extended 35 fonts found on many PostScript printers. Such fonts as Palatino,
Bookman, Schoolbook, Avant Garde, or Helvetica Narrow.

Such support simply does not exist until you properly install the font yourself.

Distiller treats a font one of four ways, depending upon its name and source...


One of the consequences of all this is that the the PostScript -pathforall- operator does
not behave as expected UNLESS the font is already properly installed in ATM!

Pathforall will operate normally for basic 11 or properly installed fonts. For uninstalled Adobe
fonts, a bounding box will get substituted (!) for the actual font path. For any other font or a
mis-spelling, the path for the equivalent Courier character will get used.

The bottom line: If you want Palatino, you have to install it yourself. Especially if you need
the actual character paths or are making other use of pathforall.


Faking Palatino

The obvious way to install Palatino is to buy it off the Adobe Type-on-Call disk.
But that's no fun.

One alternate choice is to substitute GhostScript's version of Palatino. But there are several
subtle gotchas here. ATM does not recognize a font unless both the .PFB and .PFM files are present. And the stock win95 GhostScript font package does not include .PFM files.

Instead, go to a GhostScript UNIX font repository such as http://www.dlr.de/fresh/pc/src/misc/ghost/gnu/.warix/ghostscript-fonts-std-3.33.tar.gz.html

Then download the needed font file .PFB and .PFM pairs as standard textfiles with proper
.PFB and .PFM trailers.
Do this into a special folder. ATM should then be able to recognize
and install these fonts.

For instance,

It is best to use the actual URW font names instead of Palatino. Or to auto substitute these
fonts. Besides font id problems, there might be subtle shape and width differences.

Note that a .PFM or a .PFB file is character count critical. You cannot simply change
the names internally. Note also that, while font paths cannot be copyrighted or otherwise
protected, font names most definitely are fully and agressively protected.


Selected major PostScript books by mainstream authors are stocked in depth by Synergetics

Two "must have" books are the PostScript Reference Manual "red" book and the PostScript
Tutorial & Cookbook
"blue" book. A special Whole Works package is also offered at a
significant cost savings way to get yourself PostScript literate in a big hurry.


Copyright c. 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics, Box 809, Thatcher AZ, 85552
(520) 428-4073. synergetics@tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media
rights are *fully* reserved. Linking welcome. Reposting is expressly forbidden.

Further support on https://www.tinaja.com
Consulting services available via don@tinaja.com