From: soft-logik@cup.portal.com (Kevin W Davidson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Pagestream/ImageClubFonts
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 20:04:35 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

>For those of you who are doing page layout on the Amiga and are tempted to
>use the Image Club Fonts offered by PageStream because of their low price, thi
s
>is a warning.
>
>These fonts are very low quality products (even by Amiga standards ;^) ). When
>I
>puchased a family of typefaces from Soft-Logik I found the postscript output t
o
>be poor on a laser printer, despite the fact that they are supposed to be Type
>1
>hinted typefaces. Even this was no so bad since I intended to use them with
>Linotronic output (1200-2500 dpi) and I could use the laser output for proofin
g
>.
>
>Unfortunately, the fonts don't letterspace properly either.  Aside from poor
>kerning, the numerals don't align properly so columns of figures are impossibl
e
>from a practicle standpoint.
>
>The tech support person tried to claim that proportional spaced fonts don't
>align but she was wrong in this. Virtually all typefaces use consistent
>letter spacing for numbers precisely so you can create columns of readable
>numbers. The Image Club font I purchased doesn't do this and the tech person
>didn't express any surprise (or understanding) about this. I can only assume
>that this is not an oversight by the manufacturer (Font Club) but a wrong
>implementation that is probably common to all of their postscript typefaces
>(excluding of course any typewritter face they may offer).
>
>I requested either a refund or a credit for the typefaces I couldn't use,
>along with the return of the offending fonts. I figured I might be able to
>exchange the unusable "body" fonts for a few "display" faces that would never
>be used with columns of figures. "No" was the answer. So, I'm out $50.00 for
>the useless fonts and am posting a warning to fellow netters that you should
>think several times about purchasing these cheap typefaces.
>
>The position of Soft-Logik, stated by the tech-support person, was that there
>was no "but" in the fonts and that they were not the responsibility of Soft-
>Logik, but of Image Club even though Soft-Logik sold me the fonts.
>
>I got the impression that Soft-Logik is well aware of the inferior quality of
>these products. If so, they should not be offering a product of such dubious
>quality; a product that they are unwilling to support.
>
>I do understand that fonts are software and as such are at least difficult to
>return. Soft-Logik should be aware of this too when they allow such product to
>be distributed under their name.
>
>A long post. I'm attempting not to "flame" in this message and I understand
>that I bought a cheap product and got burned by it. I just want others to
>know that if they want decent, usable Postscript Type 1 typefaces that
>Soft-Logik doesn't have such a product and you should be prepared to pay more
>to get decent product.
>

I'm in a difficult position in responding to the preceding complaint. While
Soft-Logik sponsors and supports PageStream technical support on PORTAL and
the Internet, I'm not a Soft-Logik employee and can't speak for the company
in the area of business policy.

I dug out one of the Image Club fonts I have, Berleley Old Style from the
Classic collection. This font has different letter spacing for different
numerals as described by the above. I'm not sure I'm competent to judge
the quality of letterspacing for a font. I did note, however, that the 
font I looked at had over 200 kerning pairs defined.

It well may be that there was some conversion problem with this particular
font family (there are over 600 fonts in the entire collection). That is
why I would like the opportunity to check out the particular font under
discussion. I personally have 48 of these fonts and have been pleased 
with the results. However, I'm not a professional publisher and I may be
easy to please ;-).

I will offer (via e-mail) to alter the character widths of the numerals
in the fonts the writer purchased to a fixed width so that the numbers
will line up.

A copy of the message will also be passed on to Soft-Logik.

Kevin Davidson, Asst. Moderator AmigaZone Vendor Support - PORTAL
               <soft-logik@cup.portal.com>
        SOFT-LOGIK BBS (PCP MOSLO) (314) 894-0057
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications