I could use your help with a work related problem. My company deals with clients that submit artwork for us to produce envelopes. We here are PC-based and most of the artwork we receive is Mac-based. The only problem we've run into is over fonts. It's been a long time since I dealt with a Mac and I'm not quite sure how the fonts are set-up on your end. I am familiar with the differences going from Mac to PC. What I'm trying to do is find a solution to our Mac problem since we cant always go back to the client and request the fonts in question or are we always able to purchase a PC version of the font. I'm looking into buying software that will convert the fonts over to PC. I've found one program called CrossFont, but it requires certain files from the Mac universe in order to work (things such as *.res and bmap.res). I need help in this situation so that I can recommend something to my employer. For more information contact me either by IM or email at dhoward@tflt.com. Thanks, Dave

There are a few possibilities: 1. Macromedia Fontographer: Converts PC fonts to Mac and mac to PC, useful for creating own fonts 2. Adobe Type Manager: Recognizes Mac fonts and makes them useful on PC (not always successfully) 3. If you receive Illustrator or Freehand documents, just ask your customers to convert the fonts into outlines. This should help. Good luck Sascha

I suggest you repost this in the Mac forum, link to the right under topic forums. I work on a Mac but computer fonts are a mystery to me! Baz

Well Fontographer is no longer made so it doesnt help. Plus I cant always go back to whoever created the file to start with. You wont believe how many hands it goes thru before it gets to me and their not all in our company. Usually it works like client>third-party>us. And sometimes their are more people in between us and the client. I know how difficult it is to get it converted to paths/curves cause I've had to ask for it before and got told that we didnt have that kind of time or the originator of the file was unaccessible for whatever reason. I'm not really asking for font experts here. I just need some willing individuals to help me test some possibilities out so that I can come up with a solution before launching it on our poor clientele LOL

Attached Link: http://www.1001freefonts.com/fonttools/ttconverter.hqx

I use this little convert tool.... tt converter

Thanks for the help, but I cant get to the file that you mentioned. I even tried a saved as.. and the file was corrupted. Could you maybe email me the file instead? Thanks, Dave

TT Converter is for Mac - it'll do the conversion from Mac to PC and PC to Mac, but you need a Mac to run it - I don't think you do, right? I ran a quick search for info.. here are a few links I found that might be helful for you. :o) http://www.macdisk.com/fontsen.php3 http://www.fontlab.com/html/transtype.html http://www.asy.com/scrcf.htm Caro

Nope. No Mac here. They've talked about getting one, but that's all it's been so far is talk. Thanks for the info.

I dont know exactly what you are trying to do with the graphics but under os X your customers can save graphics as PDF. If you have the full version of Acrobat you should be able to read and edit just fine. I could be wrong though.

Unless the fonts are embedded into the PDF file I will still have a font substitution problem. I speak from experience on this. If I dont have the font that the customer is using how is having Acrobat going to help me? Thanks, Dave

Dave, The only way you should print in this instance, is to have your clients save their work as PDF AND make sure that thier ACROBAT DISTILLER FONT SETTINGS are set to 100%. That is, if the original software used is Quark with Acrobat Distiller. If they are using Illustator or Freehand, they should convert to Outline - BUT - if the typeface used is really tiny (say, 4pt to 6pt) this may be problem. Have them convert to PDF with 100% font embedding. Also, make sure they are using the same version number as you. Good luck. The one main flaw of PC's is that they are very Press hostile.

Attached Link: http://www.weirdass.net

In Distiller, you can force an embed all fonts command. I work on the agency side, and PDF is the standard solution for this sort of thing. Also, the embedded docs in a publisher (quark etc) should be FLAT, with no dependencies (ie illustrator imports a tiff and you build a logo on it with the tiff still embedded).

Attached Link: http://www.macromedia.com/software/fontographer/

The only way to properly convert a Mac Postscript or TrueType font to PC will be Fontographer, and (to my knowledge) it *is* still available - it just hasn't been updated for a long time. It's a bit expensive, but it works like a charm. The TTConverter is nice, but it fails with an awful lot of fonts, where Fontographer (again) will handle it.

Trust me, been doing this dance for quite awhile. 1. PDF with 100% of the fonts imbedded. Be careful of truetype some image-setters/digital presses hate them. or 2. Do everything in Illustrator and change ALL of the fonts to outline. or 3. Get all your files as .PS files and just drop them into the imagesetter. Again ALL fonts imbedded. Going thru and converting the fonts is a mistake. Time consuming and not 100% reliable. Puts waaaay too much responsibilty on you. Creates files that hafta be reproof read and approved. Might as well just create them directly on the PC. Good luck, this has been an ongoing problem for years. Hate to say it but your best bet would just buy a mac. Hope this helps Jon

Yeah I think that's what I'm going to recommend. Does anyone have any experience dealing with Adobe's Online PDF creation tool? If it's fairly reliable I might suggest that option to our envelope VP.

We use Transtype 2 for all our font conversion. It works extremely well. Their website is www.fontlab.com