BLD FLASH 9530 SOURCE MATERIAL DATED: 4/96 ¦ CLARIFICATION OF AFP FONT PACKAGING CHANGES (UPDATED 4/15/96) This FLASH is intended to clarify information associated with the November, 1994 and March, 1996 announcements of the IBM AFP Font Collection and associ- ated withdrawal of font features from Print Services Facility (PSF) in S/390 systems, and the font RPQ for AS/400. The referenced announcement letters are 294-691 dated 11/01/94 and 296-060 dated 3/5/96. The information in this FLASH, together with the information in the announcement material, should help you discuss with your customers this very important step forward in the AFP font implementation. It is important that customers understand the stra- tegic importance of using outline fonts, or raster fonts based on outlines, to protect their application investment as new printing and presentation technologies are introduced into their electronic document output and manage- ment systems. BACKGROUND The electronic document systems industry is rapdily changing from the mainframe-oriented and print-centric focus of the 1970's and 1980's to an in- dustry in which customers expect to interchange and use documents seamlessly across multiple systems and printing and viewing technologies. The vendor- proprietary, resolution dependent raster font technology that has been used for electronic printing since the late 1970's is no longer capable of sup- porting the multi-system, multi-vendor printing and viewing needs of modern document management systems. To facilitate the transition of applications from printer resolution dependent output to fully device independent output it is necessary to abandon the older vendor proprietary raster font technolo- gies in favor of an open, industry standard technology that is resolution and device independent. Outline, or scalable fonts are generally accepted as a superior font technol- ogy to support printing and viewing on a wide range of devices from display screens with resolutions as low as 640 x 480 to image setters at 2400 dpi or greater. Outline fonts differ from raster fonts in that the character shapes are defined mathematically as a series of vectors and curves rather than as raster (bitmap) patterns with a fixed number of dots (picture elements). When a character is selected for printing at a specific size, the outline for that character is rasterized (turned into dots, or picture elements) by the printer. These same outlines are stored in the screen font files of most per- sonal computer display stations, so that it is possible to view a document with the exact same appearance as the printed document. In addition, since font outlines are converted into picture elements by the printing or viewing device, they can be rendered at the exact resolution of a specific device. The same outline can be printed with fidelity on a printer at 240, 300 or 600 dpi or viewed on a display screen at various screen resolutions. There are four scalable font technologies commonly in use today for printing and publishing applications: Type 1 and Character Indexed (CID) scalable font formats from Adobe Systems, Inc., TrueType scalable font format from Micro- soft and Apple, Inc., and Intellifont Intellifont scalable font format from Hewlett Packard. IBM has selected Adobe Systems' Type 1 and CID scalable font formats as the basic technologies for implementing outline fonts for AFP printers and applications. Other font formats are supplied with some of IBM's printers for printing in PCL emulation. The AFP Workbench Viewer application supports viewing of documents that use Truetype fonts in addition to docu- ments using Type 1 font format. THE IBM AFP FONT COLLECTION PURPOSE: The purpose of the IBM AFP Font Collection is to offer a single product for all system environments that contains a consistent set of fonts for printing on 240 dpi, 300 dpi raster font printers, printers that use out- line fonts at any printer resolution, and compatible Type 1 outlines for use with the AFP Workbench Viewer. In keeping with IBM CEO Lou Gerstner's focus on supporting global markets, these fonts are provided in language groups for printing or viewing in approximately 44 single byte languages and several of the most common double-byte languages, including Japanese (Kanji), Chinese (Minchu) and Korean (Hangeul). Customers are expected to install only the language groups and formats they need to print, not every language group and format provided with the product. TECHNOLOGY AND FORMAT: The IBM Expanded Core Fonts are all derived from Type 1 or CID scalable font technologies, and are provided in the following for- mats: o 240 dpi raster format o 300 dpi raster format o AFP outline format o Type 1 outline format o CID outline format The AFP outline fonts are created with the Type Transformer program by adding the AFP Font Object Content Architecture (FOCA) structured fields to the Type 1 or CID outlines. The Type 1 and CID outlines are the scalable font formats commonly used for screen formatting with the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) PC software product, and for printing on PostScript printers. The IBM-supplied Compatibility fonts are not available in outline format, as they pre-dated scalable font technology. They are provided only as raster fonts in 240 and 300 dpi. ALPHABETIC FONT FAMILIES: The AFP Font Collection includes two groups of al- phabetic fonts. Alphabetic fonts support languages that are based on alpha- betic scripts, as distinguised from languages based on custom ideographs. The IBM Expanded Core Fonts include the original Times New Roman, Helvetica, and Courier fonts that were formerly available with the PSF's in S/390 as a fea- ture, and also a set of fixed-space fonts based on Type 1 outlines. These fonts support most of the alphabetic languages used by our IBM customers. The fixed-space fonts include: Gothic Text Letter Gothic Prestige Boldface OCR-A and OCR-B Gothic Katakana (single-byte Japanese) Courier APL2 The Gothic Text, Letter Gothic, Prestige and Boldface fonts support the Latin1 language complement. The Bookmaster fonts are also included in the Expanded Core Fonts. These fonts can be used by customers to print the IBM softcopy publications that are usually formatted with Bookmaster using these fonts. The second group of fonts are those that have been known since availability of the 3800-3 and PSF (1984) as IBM-Supplied Compatibility fonts. These are a set of fixed-space and mixed-space fonts that were used with early electronic page printers like the 3800-3. In general, they replicate typefaces commonly used on typewriters, like Prestige Elite, Gothic Text 10, 12 and 15 pitch, Serif, OCR, etc. These fonts were developed by IBM specifically for use with the 3800-3 and follow-on printers, and are not available in any of the stand- ard scalable font formats described above. These fonts are not, therefore, available in AFP outline format or Type 1 outline format for use with print- ers that use outline fonts, or with the AFP Workbench Viewer for printing and viewing with fidelity. Nor will they be available for future printers at higher resolutions such as 600 dpi. Raster fonts are extremely impractical for high-resolution devices because of the large amount of storage they re- quire. Applications that use the "compatibility" fonts will be limited to printing on relatively low-resolution devices (240 or 300 dpi), and will not be viewable with full fidelity using the AFP Workbench Viewer. The following chart summarizes the alphabetic fonts available in each format for each operating system. 240 300 Out- PSF PSF PSF PSF PSF PSF Bounded-box fonts: dpi dpi line MVS VM VSE 400 /2 6000 1) Exp'd Core x x x x x x x x x 2) Compatibility * x x x x x x x x Unbounded-box fonts 240 300 Out- PSF PSF PSF PSF PSF PSF (3800 printers)** dpi dpi line MVS VM VSE 400 /2 6000 1) Exp'd Core x x x 2) Compatibility x x x * These fonts are also shipped with PSF/MVS, PSF/VM, PSF/VSE in 240 and 300 dpi, and with AS/400 in 240 dpi only. ** These fonts can be ordered as a separate feature of the AFP Font Collection. IDEOGRAPHIC FONT FAMILIES: The March 1996 announcement of enhancements to the IBM AFP Font Collection adds font families for Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) writing systems. These languages use thousands of ideographic charac- ters in combination with user-defined characters (UDC) to express words and phrases. Because of the large number of characters in the fonts for these languages, two bytes of information, rather than one, are required to uniquely specify a character in the font. These are sometimes called double- byte fonts. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts are supplied with the IBM AFP Font Collection as outline fonts in the Adobe Character Indexed (CID) format. The Type Transformer program and associated utilities have been en- hanced to transform and edit CID fonts. WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED: The IBM Program Product fonts are not included with the IBM AFP Font Collection. This includes the popular Sonoran Serif, Sonoran Sans Serif and Pi and Specials font families, as well as program product fonts such as Century Schoolbook, Garamond, Souvenir and others. The reason these fonts are not included is that they were hand-tuned for optimal quality on 240 dpi printers, and they are not available in any standard scalable font technology. These fonts will experience the same limitations as the "compat- ibility" fonts for printing on devices with resolutions greater than 240 or 300 dpi, and for viewing with the AFP Workbench Viewer. Customers can migrate their applications that use these fonts to outline font technology by acquiring an equivalent font typeface in Type 1 scalable font format from a font vendor, and converting it using the Type Transformer pro- gram provided with the AFP Font Collection into AFP outline or raster fonts, or by using a comparable AFP Expanded Core Font. For raster fonts, the appli- cation could be migrated without change to the program by simply replacing the old program product font with the new standard font by the same member or file names. However, line and page endings might change due to subtle differ- ences in the font metrics between the standard and old formats. Times New Roman is a functional equivalent of Sonoran Serif. Helvetica is a functional equivalent of Sonoran Sans Serif, as is Arial. AFP FONT COLLECTION PACKAGING: There are four components of the AFP Font Col- lection program product that can be selected individually or together: the fonts for IPDS printers, the Type 1 and CID fonts for Postscript, the fonts for 3800-3/6/8 printers (unbounded box), and the executable programs, includ- ing Type Transformer and FontLab outline font editor. The programs run under OS/2 on a personal computer, and are available only on CD-ROM for OS/2 with the AFP Font Collection fonts on the same CD-ROM. The programs and fonts are ordered with OTC feature 4639 and media feature 6208. Some customers may not have a need to acquire and prepare new fonts using the Type Transformer, or to customize code pages, character sets or coded fonts supplied in the Font Collection. These customers can order only the fonts on a media that is convenient for them to use. Prices of the various product features reflect the varying costs of delivering the product on those media. For example, delivering software on CD-ROM is very inexpensive, so this is the least expensive media feature. The fonts for MVS, VM and VSE require three or four reels or cassettes of tape, so these features are more expen- sive. However, customers may prefer the convenience of host-based tape de- vices to CD-ROM, and may choose tape media in spite of the higher cost. The Font Collection is not available on PC diskettes due to the very large number of diskettes that would be required. If a customer wants the Type Transfor- mer, available only on CD-ROM with the fonts, and wants the Font Collection on tape media, they must order two separate features. The price of the tape media feature reflects only the cost of packaging. They are not paying twice for the fonts. The fonts on CD-ROM for MVS, VM and VSE (media features 5809, 5819 and 5829) are intended for installation using the IBM S/370 and S/390 Optical Media Attach/2 enabling kit and software, program product 5621-264. This kit allows attachment of a PS/2 with CD-ROM player to a mainframe channel, emulating a S/370 or S/390 tape drive. This enables transfer of the AFP fonts to the host at channel speed. This attachment offers an inexpensive alternative to tape media. FONTS SUPPLIED WITH PSF: The IBM AFP Font Collection replaces availability of the Core fonts with PSF in S/390. PSF/MVS, PSF/VM, and PSF/VSE will con- tinue to include "compatibility" fonts in 240 and 300 dpi raster format. The IBM AFP Font Collection replaces the Font RPQ for the Core Fonts and all 300 dpi fonts in AS/400. OS/400 will continue to include the "compatibility" fonts in 240 dpi raster format. Customers must use printer resident fonts only, or order the IBM AFP Font Collection to print on 300 dpi printers, such as the 3x12/3x16 printers, and the 3935 and the 3130 (configured for 300 dpi). All of the fonts for IPDS printers provided with the IBM AFP Font Collection for AIX or OS/2 are also included with the PSF products for AIX and OS/2, PSF/2 and PSF/6000. FONT PUBLICATIONS: New font publications are available to document the AFP Font Collection product, 5648-113. Many of the older publications have been updated or, in some cases, merged into new publications. A summary of key changes follows: o All font quick refs have been combined into a single font summary book, "AFP Fonts: Font Summary", G544-3810. o All Core Interchange, Coordinated, and BookMaster fonts are documented in a single tech ref, "AFP Fonts: Tech Ref for IBM Expanded Core Fonts", S544-5228. o All 240-pel licensed products and the 4028 Font Metrics continue to be documented as they were in the past. o There is now a single "samples" book for alphabetic fonts, and a Techni- cal Reference, including samples, the CJK fonts. Following is a detailed list of new font publications and the previous publi- cation they replace, where relevant: *New* -> AFP Fonts: Introduction to Typography G544-3122 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Guide for Type Users G544-3122 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Font Summary G544-3810 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Quick Ref for IBM Compat Fonts G544-3803 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Quick Ref for Core Int. Fonts G544-3804 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Quick Ref for Coded Fonts G544-3810 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Quick Ref for IBM Coord. Fonts G544-3947 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Tech Ref for IBM Expanded Core Fonts S544-5228 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Tech Ref for Core Interchange S544-3708 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Technical Reference for Code Pages S544-3802 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Code Pages for Digitized Type S544-3802 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Font Samples G544-3792 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Samples of Digitized Type G544-3792 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Samples of 240-pel Digitized Type G544-3644 Replaces -> About Type: IBM's Samples of Core Interchange Fonts G544-3210 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Technical Reference for CJK Fonts G544-5330 *New* -> AFP Fonts: Type Transformer User's Guide G544-3796 Replaces -> About Type: Type Transformer User's Guide G544-3796 *New* -> AFP Font: Japanese Heisei Outline Font Catalog S544-5263 Continuing -> About Type: IBM's T.R. for 240-pel Digitized Type S544-3516 Continuing -> About Type: IBM's T.R. for 4028 Font Metrics S544-3709 The new font publications are all available on the PENPUBS disk. The only publication that ships with the fonts only features of the IBM AFP Font Col- lection product is the Font Summary, G544-3810. The Type Transformer User's Guide and the FontLab User's Guide ship with the programs feature. FONT VENDORS: Following is a list of font manufacturers and distributors who provide fonts in Type 1 scalable format and their direct contact phone num- bers. Adobe Systems telemarketing: 1-800-445-8787. Customers can ask for the type catalog "Font and Function", and order specific font packages by number, or request a specific font by name. Linotype: 1-800-799-4922. Major font manufacturer for over 100 years. UK phone: 44 1242 222333. Europe: 49 6196 982731. Monotype: 1-800-666-6897. Major font manufacturer for about 100 years. UK phone: 44 0737 765959. Agfa: 1-800-424-TYPE. Major manufacturer. Call this number for international office contact phone numbers. Bitstream: 1-800-522-FONT. Font "clones" at low prices. Call this number for international office contact numbers. Precision Type: 1-800-248-3668, Commack, NY. Third party font distributor. FontShop: 1-800-463-6687, Chicago/Toronto, plus international offices. Germany: 030 69 58 95. France: 1 45 89 09 03. Third party font distributor. FontHaus: 1-800-942-9110, Connecticut. UK: 44 01276 38888 plus other offices in Europe. Third party font distributor. Phil's Fonts: 1-800-424-2977, Washington, DC. Third party font distributor. $EOM