Re: FOP Helvetica - is it really Arial?

[Peter B. West]

DuCharme, Bob (LNG) wrote:
Here's some interesting historical background from a typographer type (no
pun intended) who clearly gets all worked up over the issue:
http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html
Bob DuCharmewww.snee.com/bob bob@
snee.com  see http://www.snee.com/bob/xsltquickly for
info on book XSLT Quickly from Manning Publications.
I think that the sheer beauty of this site is intimately related to the 
fact that Mark Simonson does get worked up about the details.  I hear 
that's where the devil resides.  The angels must be there as well.

Peter

RE: FOP Helvetica - is it really Arial?

[DuCharme, Bob (LNG)]

Here's some interesting historical background from a typographer type (no
pun intended) who clearly gets all worked up over the issue:

http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html

Bob DuCharmewww.snee.com/bob bob@
snee.com  see http://www.snee.com/bob/xsltquickly for
info on book XSLT Quickly from Manning Publications.

RE: FOP Helvetica - is it really Arial?

[Scott Moore]

Thanks for all the responses.  I'm gonna go with the assumption that
Helvetica = Arial and not embed the Arial.TTF file, which bloats the PDF.

Thanks,
Scott


 -Original Message-
 From: Jeremias Maerki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 1:56 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: FOP Helvetica - is it really Arial?
 
 
 AFAIK the standard fonts specified in the PDF spec match the base 14
 fontset of PostScript which includes Helvetica, Times, Courier, Symbol
 and ZapfDingbats. Acrobat 3.x, I think, used Helvetica and Times.
 Current versions include Arial. Helvetica is then replaced by ArialMT.
 Furthermore, I've read (and experienced myself) that Arial 
 (by Microsoft)
 is not the same as Helvetica. Don't know about ArialMT (by Adobe).
  

Re: FOP Helvetica - is it really Arial?

[Jeremias Maerki]

AFAIK the standard fonts specified in the PDF spec match the base 14
fontset of PostScript which includes Helvetica, Times, Courier, Symbol
and ZapfDingbats. Acrobat 3.x, I think, used Helvetica and Times.
Current versions include Arial. Helvetica is then replaced by ArialMT.
Furthermore, I've read (and experienced myself) that Arial (by Microsoft)
is not the same as Helvetica. Don't know about ArialMT (by Adobe).

 Scott Moore wrote:
  There's a debate raging in our company right now about the use of Arial and
  Helvetica in FOP produced PDF.  After careful examination of both fonts, I
  can see absolutely no difference, even though Helvetica has minor but
  distinguishable differences from Arial.
  
  I'm using the information on this website to distinguish between the two
  fonts: http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html
  
  It appears to me that Helvetica is actually Arial in the PDF.  Even when I
  have Acrobat Reader 5.0 list the fonts, it says Helvetica maps to ArialMT.
  
  So, my question is: is this a problem with FOP or Acrobat Reader?  Is
  Helvetica something that Acrobat Reader renders or did FOP use Arial for the
  Helvetica font?  I'm not exactly sure how fonts work in PDF, but I've read
  Helvetica comes standard with PDF.  I find it strange that Helvetica is
  mapping to Arial though.
 
 AFAIK the standard fonts supported by the Adobe tools (and the
 PDF format) include Arial, but not Helvetica. The glyphs rendered
 for FOP Helvetica are certainly taken from Arial. I'm not sure
 whether the font metrics used by FOP is indeed generated from an
 Helvetica font, or whether it is actually an Arial font, with the
 name being some historic relict (AFAIK early PDF specs had
 Helvetica instead of arial in them).

Cheers,
Jeremias Märki

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