Chip 1998 March/Chip_1998-03_cd.bin/zkuste/delphi/komprese/zip/DELZIP12.ZIP/DEMO2.ZIP/TEST.DAT

Text File | 1997-09-28 | 34KB | 698 lines

  Frequently Asked Questions About Fonts
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Compiled by Norman Walsh
  Copyright (C) 1992, 93 by Norman Walsh .

Subject: Table of Contents

  1. General Information
    1.1. Font Houses
    1.2. What's the difference between all these font formats?
    1.3. What about "Multiple Master" fonts?
    1.4. Is there a methodology to describe and classify typefaces?
    1.5. What is the "f" shaped "s" called?
    1.6. What about "Colonial" Typefaces?
    1.7. Where can I get ... fonts.
    1.8. Where can I get fonts for non-Roman alphabets?
    1.10. How can I convert my ... font to ... format?

Subject: 1. General Information

  Many FAQs, including this one, are available by anonymous ftp from
  rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers.  Each posted
  section of the FAQ is archived under the name that appears in the
  "Archive-name" header at the top of the article.

  This FAQ is a work in progress.  If you have any suggestions, I would be
  delighted to hear them.

  This FAQ is maintained in TeXinfo format.  A Perl script constructs the
  postable FAQ from the TeXinfo sources.  TeX DVI, PostScript, and Info
  versions of this FAQ are available from ftp.shsu.edu in
  /tex-archive/help/comp-fonts-FAQ.  A "Gopher" server is also maintained
  at shsu.edu which can provide interactive access to the FAQ.  Finally,
  an online, hypertext version of the FAQ is maintained (experimentally)
  on jasper.ora.com where an HTTP server runs.  For example, point
  XMosaic (or a similar WWW browser) to http://jasper.ora.com/.

  The posted version of the FAQ is organized in a quasi-digest format so
  that it is easy to find the questions you are interested in.  All
  questions that appear in the table of contents can be found by searching
  for the word "Subject:" followed by the question number.

  The "TeXinfo" distribution from the Free Software Foundation contains a
  program called "Info" that can be used to read the Info version of the
  FAQ in a hypertext manner.  The "TeXinfo" distribution can be obtained
  from prep.ai.mit.edu in the /pub/gnu directory.  At the time of this
  writing, texinfo-2.16.tar.gz is the most recent version.  Info files
  can also be read in hypertext form by GNU Emacs.

  Future versions of the FAQ will make more use of the hypertext
  capabilities provided by the Info format.  At present, the FAQ is
  organized as a simple tree.  A plain ASCII, postable version of the FAQ
  will always be maintained.

  All trademarks used in this document are the trademarks of their
  respective owners.

  Standard disclaimers apply.

Subject: 1.1. Font Houses

  This section will be expanded on in the future.  It contains notes about
  various commercial font houses.

  Compugraphic
  ============

  See "Miles, Agfa Division"

  Miles, Agfa Division
  ====================

  Compugraphic which was for a while the Compugraphic division of Agfa,
  is now calling itself "Miles, Agfa Division" (yes, the Miles drug
  company), since CG's off-shore parent Agfa has been absorbed by Miles.
  So typographically speaking, Compugraphic, CG, Agfa, A-G ag, and Miles
  all refer to the same company and font library. Their proprietary fonts
  are still CG Xyz, but the name is Miles Agfa.

Subject: 1.2. What's the difference between all these font formats?

  This question is not trivial to answer.  It's analogous to asking what
  the difference is between various graphics image file formats.  The
  short, somewhat pragmatic answer, is simply that they are different
  ways of representing the same "information" and some of them will work
  with your software/printer and others won't.

  At one level, there are two major sorts of fonts: bitmapped and outline
  (scalable).  Bitmapped fonts are falling out of fashion as various
  outline technologies grow in popularity and support.

  Bitmapped fonts represent each character as a rectangular grid of
  pixels.  The bitmap for each character indicates precisely what pixels
  should be on and off.  Printing a bitmapped character is simply a
  matter of blasting the right bits out to the printer.  There are a
  number of disadvantages to this approach.  The bitmap represents a
  particular instance of the character at a particular size and
  resolution.  It is very difficult to change the size, shape, or
  resolution of a bitmapped character without significant loss of quality
  in the image.  On the other hand, it's easy to do things like shading
  and filling with bitmapped characters.

  Outline fonts represent each character mathematically as a series of
  lines, curves, and 'hints'.  When a character from an outline font is
  to be printed, it must be 'rasterized' into a bitmap "on the fly".
  PostScript printers, for example, do this in the print engine.  If the
  "engine" in the output device cannot do the rasterizing, some front end
  has to do it first.  Many of the disadvantages that are inherent in the
  bitmapped format are not present in outline fonts at all.  Because an
  outline font is represented mathematically, it can be drawn at any
  reasonable size.  At small sizes, the font renderer is guided by the
  'hints' in the font; at very small sizes, particularly on
  low-resolution output devices such as screens, automatically scaled
  fonts become unreadable, and hand-tuned bitmaps are a better choice (if
  they are available).  Additionally, because it is rasterized "on
  demand," the font can be adjusted for different resolutions and 'aspect
  ratios'.

  Werenfried Spit adds the following remark:

  Well designed fonts are not scalable. I.e. a well designed 5pt font is
  not simply its 10pt counterpart 50% scaled down. (One can verify this
  by blowing up some small print in a copier and compare it with large
  print; or see the example for computer modern in D.E. Knuth's TeXbook.)
  Although this fact has no direct implications for any of the two
  methods of font representation it has an indirect one: users and word
  processor designers tend to blow up their 10pt fonts to 20pt or scale
  them down to 5pt given this possibility.  Subtle details, but well...

  LaserJet .SFP and .SFL files, TeX PK, PXL, and GF files, Macintosh
  Screen Fonts, and GEM .GFX files are all examples of bitmapped font
  formats.

  PostScript Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 fonts, Nimbus Q fonts, TrueType
  fonts, Sun F3, MetaFont .mf files, and LaserJet .SFS files are all
  examples of outline font formats.

  Neither of these lists is even close to being exhaustive.

  To complicate the issue further, identical formats on different
  platforms are not necessarily the same.  For example Type 1 fonts on
  the Macintosh are not directly usable under MS-DOS or Unix, and
  vice-versa.

  It has been pointed out that the following description shows signs of
  its age (for example, the eexec encryption has been thoroughly hacked).
  I don't dispute the observation and I encourage anyone with the
  knowledge and time to submit a more up to date description.

  It has further been suggested that this commentary is biased toward
  Kingsley/ATF.  The omission of details about Bitstream (and possibly
  Bauer) may be considered serious since their software lies inside many
  3rd-party PostScript interpreters.

  The moderators of this FAQ would gladly accept other descriptions/
  explanations/viewpoints on the issues discussed in this (and every
  other) section.

  [Ed Note: Liam R. E. Quin supplied many changes to the following
  section in an attempt to bring it up to date.  Hopefully it is a better
  reflection of the state of the world today (12/07/92) than it was in
  earlier FAQs]

  Henry Schneiker  wrote the following
  description of the differences between several scalable font
  technologies:

  ((( semi-quote )))

  There has been a lot of confusion about font technologies in recent
  times, especially when it comes to Type 1 versus Type 3 fonts, "hints,"
  PostScript compatibility, encryption, character regularizing, kerning,
  and the like.

     * Encryption (eexec)

       All fonts produced with Adobe's font technology are protected
       through data encryption. The decryption is provided by the `eexec'
       (encrypted execute) PostScript operator and, until recently, was
       only present in Adobe's licensed PostScript.

       Adobe has published the details of the Type 1 font format in the
       `Black Book', Adobe Type 1 Font Format (version 1.1), Adobe
       Systems Inc., 1990.  The encryption was mainly used because of
       font copyright problems; unencrypted fonts can also be used, but
       these tend to use an efficient binary encoding, also in documented
       the Type 1 book, and so are still not readable PostScript.

     * Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 font formats

       There are generally three font formats used in Adobe PostScript
       printers: Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5. Type 1 fonts are Adobe's
       downloadable format. Type 3 fonts are third-party downloadable
       format. Type 5 fonts are the ROM-based fonts that are part of your
       printer.

       There is no functional difference between a Type 1, Type 3, or
       Type 5 font. A Type 3 font can do anything a Type 1 or Type 5 font
       can do.  The only real difference between them is where the
       `BuildChar' routine comes from. For Type 1 and Type 5 fonts it's
       built into the printer. For Type 3 fonts it's built into the font.
       In other words, anything a Type 1 font can do a Type 3 font can
       also do.

       [Ed note: the reverse is not true.  Type3 fonts can do things that
       Type1 fonts cannot.  But they aren't hinted...]

       When PostScript is asked to generate a character, PostScript looks
       in the font's dictionary for FontType. If FontType is 1 or 5
       PostScript executes an internal routine that knows how to
       interpret the font data stored in CharStrings. If FontType is 3
       PostScript executes the routine BuildChar from the font's
       dictionary to interpret the font data (often stored in
       CharStrings).

       However, each BuildChar routine is written to read data formatted
       in a method convenient to the vendor. Adobe, Altsys, Bitstream, and
       Kingsley/ATF all format their font data differently and, hence,
       have different BuildChar routines.

       [Ed note: relative hard disk efficiency of Kingsley vs. Adobe fonts
       deleted on 12/07/92]

       Type 5 fonts are special in that they often include hand-tuned
       bitmaps for the commonly used sizes, such as 10- and 12-point.
       Other sizes are generated from the outlines in normal fashion.

       Don't confuse Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 fonts with Bitstream's
       Type A, Type B, Type C, and Type F. They are not the same and
       serve only to confuse the issue.

     * Resolution `hints'

       When a character is described in outline format the outline has
       unlimited resolution. If you make it ten times as big, it is just
       as accurate as if it were ten times as small.

       However, to be of use, we must transfer the character outline to a
       sheet of paper through a device called a raster image processor
       (RIP). The RIP builds the image of the character out of lots of
       little squares called picture elements (pixels).

       The problem is, a pixel has physical size and can be printed only
       as either black or white. Look at a sheet of graph paper. Rows and
       columns of little squares (think: pixels). Draw a large `O' in the
       middle of the graph paper. Darken in all the squares touched by the
       O. Do the darkened squares form a letter that looks like the O you
       drew? This is the problem with low resolution (300 dpi). Which
       pixels do you turn on and which do you leave off to most accurately
       reproduce the character?

       All methods of hinting strive to fit (map) the outline of a
       character onto the pixel grid and produce the most
       pleasing/recognizable character no matter how coarse the grid is.

       [Ed note: deleted some paragraphs that are no longer true.  Times
       change...]

     * Optical Scaling

       Optical Scaling modifies the relative shape of a character to
       compensate for the visual effects of changing a character's size.
       As a character gets smaller, the relative thickness of strokes,
       the size of serifs, the width of the character, the
       inter-character spacing, and inter-line spacing should increase.
       Conversely, as a character gets larger, the relative thickness,
       widths, and spacing should decrease.

       Contrast this with linear scaling, in which all parts of a
       character get larger or smaller at the same rate, making large
       characters look wide and heavy (strokes are too thick, serifs are
       too big) while small characters look thin and weak.

     * Kerning

       As applied to PostScript fonts, kerning refers to kern pairs. A
       kern pair specifies two characters (e.g., A and V) and the
       distance to move the second character relative to the first. The
       typical use of a kern pair is to remove excessive space between a
       pair of characters.  However, it may also be used to add space.

     * PostScript clones

       There are currently several printer manufacturers on the market
       with PostScript clones. To be viable, a PostScript clone must
       comply with the `red book' (PS Language Reference Manual).

       In order to avoid paying royalties to Adobe, and because Adobe's
       Type 1 font format was originally proprietary, many PostScript
       interpreters use some other font format.  Sun uses F3, and some
       other vendors use Bitstream's Speedo format, for example.  The
       only real problem this causes is that the widths of characters
       (the `font metrics') may vary from Adobe's, so that programs that
       assume the Adobe character widths will produce poor quality
       output.  Bitstream fonts used to be particularly bad in the early
       days, but they and most or all of the other vendors have solved
       those problems.

     * Apple TrueType [Ed note: formerly "Royal (`sfnt')"] format and
       System 7

       Apple's new System 7.0 supports a new format of outline font that
       will allow high-quality characters of any size to be displayed on
       the screen.  TrueType stores font outlines as B-spline curves
       along with programmed resolution hints. B-spline curves are faster
       to compute and easier to manipulate than the Bezier curves used in
       PostScript.

       Adobe is not going to support Apple's new format by converting the
       Adobe/Linotype library to B-spline format. There are two reasons
       for this: First, there is no support for font encryption (yes, the
       hooks are there, but nothing is implemented). Second, Adobe does
       not want to dilute PostScript and its font library. However, the
       Macintosh is too big a market to simply turn away from. Therefore,
       Adobe will provide its Font Manager to display its own fonts on
       the Mac screen.  Apple ships Adobe's ATM for this purpose.

  ((( unquote )))

Subject: 1.3. What about "Multiple Master" fonts?

  Multiple Master Fonts are an extension to the Adobe font format.
  providing the ability to interpolate smoothly between several "design
  axes" from a single font. Design axes can include weight, size, and
  even some whacko notions like serif to sans serif.  Adobes' first
  Multiple Master Font was Myriad - a two-axis font with WEIGHT (light to
  black) on one axis, and WIDTH (condensed to expanded) along the other
  axis. In the case of Myriad, there are four "polar" designs at the
  "corners" of the design space. The four designs are light condensed,
  black condensed, light expanded, and black expanded.

  Given polar designs, you can set up a "weight vector" which
  interpolates to any point within the design space to produce a unique
  font for a specific purpose. So you can get a "more or less condensed,
  somewhat black face".

  Multiple Master Fonts can be used on any PostScript printer.  Multiple
  Master Fonts need a new PostScript operator known as makeblendedfont.
  The current crop of Multiple Master Fonts supply an emulation of this
  operator so the printer doesn't need this operator.

  A short tutorial on Multiple Master Fonts and makeblendedfont appears
  in PostScript by Example, by Henry McGilton and Mary Campione,
  published by Addison-Wesley.

  Danny Thomas contributes that there are a few PostScript interpreter
  (version)s which have bugs that appear with the emulation of the
  makeblendedfont operator used to support Multiple Master fonts. There
  weren't many exhibiting this problem, though it may have happened even
  with one Adobe interpreter.

Subject: 1.4. Is there a methodology to describe and classify typefaces?

  There is a standard, Panose, but it is mostly ignored by typographers
  (not because it's bad, just because they don't need it).  The Panose
  system is documented, among other places, in the Microsoft Windows 3.1
  Programmer's Reference from Microsoft Press.

  The ISO also has a scheme, but it is not Panose.

  At least one book by a respected authority, Alexander Lawson, Printing
  Types: An Introduction, describes another, less rigorous system [ed: of
  his own], which is exposited in "An Introduction" and used without
  exposition in his later "Anatomy of a Typeface".

  There is another book, Rookledges International Typefinder, which has a
  very complete system that uses tell-tales of individual glyphs as well
  as overall style to index most known faces right in the book.

  J. Ben Leiberman has another book on type face description.

  Terry O'Donnell adds the following comments:

  The current ISO system was initiated (I believe) by Archie Provan of
  RIT--a successor to Mr. Lawson. Whereas in typographic practice or
  teaching--only a high level classification is necessary - times have
  changed and the current ISO system aims to accomplish something beyond
  the high level. A major goal is to aid software to help users make
  selections. For example, a naive user might ask for all fonts on a font
  server which have a Roman old style appearance. Another goal would be
  to help users with multi-lingual text: a user creating a document in
  English using e.g. Baskerville wants to know what Arabic or Japanese
  language font on his system/file server would harmonize well with the
  Baskerville. It is not all in place yet--but the more detailed ISO
  classes--and the current addition of non-latin typefaces--are an
  attempt to address this issue.

  A second goal is to help with the font substitution problem. Neither
  ISO or Panose address the metrics issues in font substitution--but both
  might aid software in picking the nearest style of available available
  fonts.

Subject: 1.5. What is the "f" shaped "s" called?

  Both the "f" with half a crosbar (roman) and the integral sign (italic)
  are called long-S.

Subject: 1.6. What about "Colonial" Typefaces?

  Why does colonial printing have that "Colonial" feel?
  =====================================================

  Colonial type was either very roughly treated by moist salt air on the
  crossing and in colonial port cities, or was copied locally by tacky
  techniques (such as driving used foundry type into soft lead to make
  very soft deformable matrices), and the paper was very rough, which
  abrades both the serifs and the hairlines.  So except for the best work
  done with new, european types, the serifs were much smaller, even
  broken off, than the original founder/punchcutter intended.  Thins
  could be abraded by rough paper to nothingness, esp after humid salt
  air had leached the hardener out of the alloy.

  What fonts are good for mock-colonial uses?
  ===========================================

  For example, what fonts have the following features: old-style figures
  (non-lining numbers), the long s character, slightly irregular shapes
  (a la type produced by colonial printers), and a decent complement of
  ligatures.  And what about free or cheap faces like this?

  I don't know if any exist with all of 1-5. As I believe you get what
  you pay for, especially in fonts, I haven't looked at free and
  cheap-copy fonts.

  Microsoft's expansion set for their Win3.1 optional fonts has Garamond
  Expert
  and I think I remember it having the long ess too.  I forget about
  OSFigs; it should tho'.  Monotype's metal faces "16th Century Roman"
  and "Poliphilus" may be available in digital; if so, they imitate early
  presswork with early and are very close to what one wants.

  "A commercial supplier [not yet sampled] is Image Club Graphics in
  Calgary (1-800-661-9410).  It is called Caslon Antique.  It is supplied
  as both roman and italic, together, for $25. They advertise in
  MacWorld/MacUser/MacBlah.   I am unable to tell from abcDEF123 if the
  numerals are old-style, but I think not.  Ligatures?  long-S?  Not yet
  known.  Guillemots, though, are there. ... Letraset, circa 1977,
  showing a Caslon Antique with modern numerals, no ligatures, and only
  UKPounds and German ss extensions." [Ike Stoddard]

  NB: Caslon Antique is not a Caslon per se: "The last Caslon to mention
  is that ubiquitous but unrelated Caslon Antique, which possesses no
  similarity whatsoever to the original. This old reprobate was
  introduced by Barnhart Brothers of Chicago under the name Fifteenth
  Century. Its negative reception lasted until about 1918, when, with a
  simple name change to Caslon Antique, it became the most commonly
  selected type for reproductions of colonial American printing. It is
  now seen in everything from liquor advertisments to furniture
  commercials" [Lawson, 1990,Anatomy]

  Miles Agfa (Compugraphic) has always had a Caslon Antique; I don't know
  if it is available for TrueType or Type 1, but Agfa has been doing
  TrueType bundles at reasonable prices. [wdr]

  What fonts could a colonial printer have had?
  =============================================

  According to D.B.Updike in the classic reference "Printing Types: Their
  History, Forms
  types of the Caslon Old Style fonts and cheap copies of same in the
  18th C.  Before that, it would have been the older Dutch
  faces, almost always lagging English tastes.  If you can find the
  Oxford Fell types, they are classic Dutch-as-used-by-englishmen.
  Anything with a Dutch moniker and the Oldstyle adjective is probably
  ok; Van Dijck if you find it, say (died 1673).

  Ben Franklin recommended Caslon faces.  But these were not available in
  England before 1720, first full broadside in 1734. Lawson declares that
  the first printing of the Declaration of Independance was in Caslon.

  Wilson's Scotch Modern was the "modern" font that surfaced in quantity
  in america.  If the Scotch Roman your vendor has is sort-of  like-Bodoni
  but nicer than his Bodoni, that's it.  It wasn't available until late
  1700s, though.

Subject: 1.7. Where can I get ... fonts.

  Before I go any farther, let me extol the virtues of the Archie servers.
  If you need to find something on the net, and you have any idea what it
  might be called, Archie is the place to go.  In North America, telnet to
  "archie.rutgers.edu" and login as "archie".  There are many other
  servers around the world, any Archie server can give you a list of other
  servers.  There are better documents than this to describe Archie and
  you should be able to find them from the above starting point.  If you
  have trouble, feel free to ask norm (via Email please, no need to
  clutter comp.fonts with a query about Archie ;-).

  In addition to the telnet option, several archie clients exist including
  a very nice X11 implementation (Xarchie).

     * Adobe Type 1 Fonts in MS-DOS/Unix Format:

       ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts

       ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts/atm

       archive.umich.edu:/msdos/mswindows/fonts

     * Adobe Type 1 Fonts in Mac Format:

       mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/type1

       sumex-aim.stanford.edu:/info-mac/font

     * Adobe Type 3 Fonts in Mac Format:

       mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/type3

     * TrueType fonts in MS-DOS Format:

       ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts/truetype

     * TrueType fonts in Mac Format:

       mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/truetype

     * TeX PK/PXL/GF fonts:

       The TeX community has its own support groups that can provide
       better answers to this question.  The canonical list of MetaFont
       fonts is posted occasionally to comp.text.tex.  The comp.text.tex
       newsgroup (or the Info-TeX mailing list, if you do not have access
       to news) are good places to start.  Email norm if you need more
       specific information.

     * LaserJet bitmap fonts:

       wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/msdos/laser

       Also on other simtel20 mirrors...

  If you know of other archive sites (the above list is no where near
  complete) or other formats that are available on the net, please let us
  know.

  The sites above represent places where shareware and public domain fonts
  are available.  Many, many typefaces are not available in shareware
  form.  And many shareware faces are less than adequate for a variety of
  reasons, particularly at small sizes.  It seems to be the consensus of
  the comp.fonts community that "you get what you pay for."  If you need a
  professional quality font, you should probably buy it from a
  professional.

  The list of font vendors in Appendix A (annotated with information about
  non-Roman alphabets) was contributed by Masumi Abe.  Masumi was Adobe's
  Manager of Typographic Marketing for Asia.  He has since left Adobe.

  Many font CDs are now available which offer many fonts for a low
  cost/font.

Subject: 1.8. Where can I get fonts for non-Roman alphabets?

  As mentioned above, the list of font vendors is annotated with
  information about non-Roman alphabets.  Commercially, Masumi suggests
  that Linguists' Software is the current [ed: as of 7/92] leading
  supplier of non-Roman fonts.

Subject: 1.10. How can I convert my ... font to ... format?

  Conversion from one bitmapped format to another is not generally too
  difficult.  Conversion from one scalable format to another is very
  difficult.  Several commercial software packages claim to perform these
  tasks, but none has been favorably reviewed by the comp.fonts
  community.  ATech's AllType program, in particular, has had poor
  reviews [ed: as of 7/92].

  In an effort to settle a long-running and oft-asked question, I'll be
  blunt: as of today [6/93], THERE ARE NO NON-COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS WHICH
  WILL CONVERT FROM ONE SCALABLE FORMAT TO ANOTHER.  Not from TrueType to
  PostScript Type 1, Type 3, Type 5, or any other scalable PostScript
  format.  Not from PostScript Type 1 to TrueType.  Not to or from
  Intellifont.  Not to or from Sun F3 format.

  There are some commercial programs: AllType, Metamorphosis, Font
  Monger, and even MoreFonts (to/from some proprietary format, I
  believe).  And there are probably other commercial programs as well.
  However, as several people have noted, conversion from one scalable
  format to another is a bad idea.  If the original font was well hinted,
  the converted font will not be.  Of course, if the original was poorly
  hinted, maybe it won't matter much.

  For specific conversions, check the platform specific parts of the FAQ.
  Most of the conversions discussed require platform specific tools.

  Here is a summary of the conversions discussed (and the section in
  which they appear):

  Mac Type 1 PostScript
       To PC Type 1 PostScript (MS-DOS).  To TrueType (commercial).

  PC Type 1 PostScript
       To Mac Type 1 PostScript (Mac, commercial).  To TrueType
       (commercial).  To TeX PK (MS-DOS).

  TrueType
       To Type 1 PostScript (Mac and MS-DOS, commercial).  To HP LaserJet
          bitmaps (MS-DOS, hack!).

  TeX PK
       To HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts (MS-DOS).

  HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts
       To TeX PK (MS-DOS).

  In addition, Adobe ships a copy of Adobe Font Foundry with all of its
  fonts which can convert Type 1 fonts into HP LaserJet softfonts.

Subject: 1.11. Are fonts copyrightable?

  This topic is hotly debated at regular intervals on comp.fonts.  Terry
  Carroll.  provides the following analysis of current [ed: as of 6/92]
  legislation and regulation regarding fonts and copyrights in the United
  States.  Terry is "Editor in Chief" of Volume 10 of the Santa Clara
  Computer and High Technology Law Journal.  Members of the comp.fonts
  community are encouraged to submit other materials that add clarity to
  the issue.

  It has been pointed out that this section deals primarily font copyright
  issues relevant to the United States and that this situation is not
  universal.  For example, in many parts of Europe typeface designs are
  protectable.

  "First, the short answer in the USA: Typefaces are not copyrightable;
  bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, but scalable fonts are
  copyrightable.  Authorities for these conclusions follow.

  Before we get started, let's get some terminology down:

  A typeface is a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters,
  whose forms are related by repeating design elements consistently
  applied in a notational system and are intended to be embodied in
  articles whose intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing
  text or other cognizable combinations of characters.

  A font is the computer file or program that is used to represent or
  create the typeface.

  Now, on to the legal authorities:

  Volume 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations specifies this about the
  copyrightability of typefaces:

  "The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and
  applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained: . . .
  typeface as typeface" 37 CFR 202.1(e).

  The regulation is in accordance with the House of Representatives report
  that accompanied the new copyright law, when it was passed in 1976:

  "The Committee has considered, but chosen to defer, the possibility of
  protecting the design of typefaces.  A 'typeface' can be defined as a
  set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are
  related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a
  notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose
  intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other
  cognizable combinations of characters.  The Committee does not regard
  the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable
  'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this bill
  and the application of the dividing line in section 101."  H. R. Rep.
  No.  94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted in 1978
  U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668.

  It's also in accordance with the one court case I know of that has
  considered the matter: Eltra Corp. V. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294, 208 USPQ 1
  (1978, C.A. 4, Va.).

  The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more
  than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not
  copyrightable:

  "The [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision [published at 53 FR 38110]
  based on the [October 10,] 1986 Notice of Inquiry [published at 51 FR
  36410] reiterated a number of previous registration decisions made by
  the [Copyright] Office.  First, under existing law, typeface as such is
  not registerable.  The Policy Decision then went on to state the
  Office's position that 'data that merely represents an electronic
  depiction of a particular typeface or individual letterform' [that is, a
  bitmapped font] is also not registerable."  57 FR 6201.

  However, scalable fonts are, in the opinion of the Copyright Office,
  computer programs, and as such are copyrightable:

  "... the Copyright Office is persuaded that creating scalable typefonts
  using already-digitized typeface represents a significant change in the
  industry since our previous [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision.  We
  are also persuaded that computer programs designed for generating
  typeface in conjunction with low resolution and other printing devices
  may involve original computer instructions entitled protection under the
  Copyright Act.  For example, the creation of scalable font output
  programs to produce harmonious fonts consisting of hundreds of
  characters typically involves many decisions in drafting the
  instructions that drive the printer.  The expression of these decisions
  is neither limited by the unprotectable shape of the letters nor
  functionally mandated.  This expression, assuming it meets the usual
  standard of authorship, is thus registerable as a computer program."  57
  FR 6202."