[Scribus] Truetype and opentype fonts

[wtb41]

After receiving J. Miner's comments on this issue, I investigated the matter
further. Here are
my results. The Book Manufacturers Institute has a web site
(www.bmibook.org) listing its
members. The members' web sites are accessible thru BMI's web site. I
recently visited all of 
those sites. Many--not all--of the members' sites have online guidance re
prepress preparation.
The following comments about the use of TrueType fonts come from those sites
or from 
personal e-mails to me from representatives of those companies: 

1. From R. R. Donnelley (www.rrdonnelley.com):  "Consult with your RR
Donnelley representative
before using True Type fonts or system fonts in a document."
2. From Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group (in a personal e-mail to me):
"We prefer for our 
fonts to be Postscript, but... we can handle TrueType but only if they are
embedded; TT font used
to drop out of the files when we ripped the files.  It's just safer with
Postscript fonts."
3. From Lake Book (in a personal e-mail to me): "True Type fonts can be used
but may not 
give you the best reproduction."
4. From Versa Press (http://www.versapress.com/Pages/FilePrep.asp): "Of the
two common 
font types used for page layout, Type 1 fonts should always be used because
TrueType may
not render correctly at high resolution output. "
5. From Walsworth Publishing Co.
(http://www.walsworthprinting.com/walswrth.nsf/AppGuide?OpenForm): "We
recommend
using Postscript fonts for your applications. TrueType fonts can be used,
but may result 
in unexpected or poor imaging. " 
6. From Courier (in a personal e-mail to me): "There is no STANDARD for a
true type library,
 per say. [...] Because True Type fonts are as wide as the ocean, we
recommend people go 
to a standard i.e....Postscript TYPE1 fonts like the Adobe libraries."

These comments agree with Thomson-Shore's (another book manufacturer)
statement to
avoid the use of TrueType fonts. Book manufacturers clearly prefer
PostScript fonts. They
work with fonts/commercial printing far more than I. If they tell me to
avoid the use of
TrueType fonts, then I am going to listen to them. They want a successful
end product just
as I do. I do not want to begin my relationship with them by ignoring their
advice re fonts, 
which as one site says, cause more problems than any other issue they face. 


jwminer wrote:
> 
> wtb41 wrote:
>> Some (most?) commercial printers (book manufacturers) will NOT
>> accept
>> TrueType fonts. For example:
>>
>> 1. Chapter 9 of Robin Williams' book "How to Boss Your Fonts Around"
>> says,
>> "Service bureaus use high-end PostScript imagesetters to 'image'
>> (print,
>> output) the pages. The TrueType tecnology disagrees with these
>> imagesetters,
>> and service bureaus generally prefer (many adamantly insist) that
>> you not
>> bring TrueType into their shops in your documents." She has more to
>> say
>> about the topic, but that quote should give you the gist of the
>> topic.
>> 2. Thomson-Shore's web site
>> <http://www.tshore.com/Portals/57ad7180-c5e7-49f5-b282-c6475cdb7ee7/Guideline
>> OutputReadyFilesv10_6-06.pdf> on Prepublication Guidelines says,
>> among other
>> things, "Avoid using TrueType fonts."
> 
> According to Amazon.com, the publication date of Robin Williams's
> book is *1998*. That's back in the Dark Ages as far as publishing
> and service bureaus are concerned. PostScript imagesetters today are
> fully capable of handling TrueType fonts. Not all service bureaus
> have modern equipment, though, so this is certainly something you
> should check out with the output service you plan to use.
> 
> As for Thomson-Shore, the document covers a wide range of
> prospective users. The entire paragraph from which you quoted reads:
> "Avoid using TrueType fonts. Although most output devices can now
> work with TrueType fonts as long as they are embedded in the output
> file, there are still some drawbacks of using TrueType fonts.
> Acrobat 4.x and above will honor licensing restrictions built into
> some TrueType fonts and may not allow them to be embedded in the
> file."
> 
> People familiar with TrueType fonts know this; others may not.
> Hence, the blanket recommendation to avoid TrueType fonts. This is
> obviously not a hard-and-fast rule because on page 4, the document
> states under PostScript Conversion:
> "Include all downloadable fonts within the PostScript file whenever
> possible. (This creates a much larger PostScript file but having the
> font information built-in helps to ensure that the file will run
> trouble free.) TrueType fonts may only be used if they are included
> in the PostScript files, ensure that your driver setup is configured
> to include TrueType fonts."
> 
> The Client Guidelines also state:
> "The industry as well as Thomson-Shore recommends that Acrobat
> Distiller creates the PDF file." Yet we want to submit a file
> created in Scribus, and we can't create it with Distiller if we're
> using Linux. It's the quality of the PDF file that matters and
> service bureaus and printers specify Distiller because it's a known
> quantity.
> --Judy Miner
> 
> Registered Linux User #397786
> 
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> 

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