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04 Dec 02 - 06:32 PM (#840831) Subject: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D I guess everything has been turned into a font by now.... here is a link to fonts of guitar chords....one on this page..two on the next)http://www.fontmagic.com/cate/ding16.html lots of other stuff for those who collect strange fonts... |
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04 Dec 02 - 06:34 PM (#840833) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: GUEST everything has been turned into a font by now So what font are you, Bill? I'd love to download it :-) |
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04 Dec 02 - 06:43 PM (#840844) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D *bemused smile*..... I am a composite of a bunch of 'dingbat' fonts, I guess...*grin* (Would I be upper or lower case if you got me?) |
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04 Dec 02 - 09:46 PM (#841016) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: JohnInKansas I didn't look past the FretsA listing, but these appear to be the same Frets font set that came with my Rhapsody program sometime a little over 10 years ago. The "full set" for guitar fret diagrams consists of FretsA, FretsB, and FretsC - and the compatible font for individual notes, bars, flags, etc is called "Anastasia." These are most often found as TrueType fonts, but are available as Adobe Type1 fonts as well. If you have a "commercial" notation program, you may find that you have these - or something very similar - already installed on your machine, for use by the notation program. In windows you can use the "Character Map" to look at what the TrueType fonts on your machine will actually display/print. (Look for an icon that looks like a typewriter/keyboard key - often in Programs\Accessories\System Tools for some strange reason.) Or get the freeware "Character Agent." The difficulty with using these fonts is that you have to figure out for yourself which key to poke to get the glyph you want, and scaling them and placing them where you want them can be a little "strange." John |
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05 Dec 02 - 07:21 PM (#841886) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D hmmm...some of these 'free' sites have simply put up interesting things they have found, with little concern as to whether they are registered to someone else....fonts are notoriously hard to keep 'safe' from pirates, and it is relatively easy to make an almost identical copy and just rename it. I don't knowingly send anyone to a place with illegal fonts or programs. In any case, it could be handy for someone who wants to illustrate some chords ..*shrug*... There are a couple of freeware font managers which WILL show you where on the keyboard glyphs are located, which can make it all a lot easier... "The Font Thing" is one |
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05 Dec 02 - 08:53 PM (#841955) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Genie Are there any of these chords fonts that work on both Mac and Windows? Genie |
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05 Dec 02 - 09:20 PM (#841972) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Stephen L. Rich Bill D -- Mondo Cool!! Thanks for the tip. Stephen Lee |
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05 Dec 02 - 09:47 PM (#841987) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: JohnInKansas Genie - Generally, "a font is a font" and should work just about anywhere - PC or Mac. Each system has their own "preferences," but I am quite sure that Mac can handle Type 1 (Adobe) fonts, and I believe that it can handle TrueTypes. Because of the difference in "byte order" on the two machines, you may have to do an "import," but Macs in my somewhat dated experience have had the ability to do that. Perhaps a Mac user can enlighten us more fully. Bill D - My copies of the TrueType and Type 1 "Frets" and "Anastasia" fonts do not show any copyright info of the sort that would be customary if these were "proprietary." I believe that I got them originally with my "Rhapsody" notation program, ca. 1992 or so. My impression at that time was that they were in pretty general use in a number of notation programs, and may have been "freeware" - or like the "basic fonts" built into a lot of printers, so widely used that noone tries to keep track of them. There is no EULA for the fonts in the operating manual for the program, at least that I found in a quick look. The company that published Rhapsody no longer exists, although the program was sold in their bankruptcy and was marketed briefly after the sale. Barring some unexpected "claim of ownership," I would not expect a problem with using them for personal stuff. A little more thorough check might be in order if you wanted to incorporate them in a program for sale. My main intent in commenting that they're possibly used in quite a few programs was to encourage people to flip through their fonts to see what they already have. John |
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06 Dec 02 - 12:14 AM (#842034) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D Genie...I tried something. go to this link and save the file in your fonts folder. It is FretsC, the last of the glyphs..(only one or two in it, I think) I 'think' I converted it from Windows TTF to Mac MTT using a program called "CrossFont"....but. of course, I won't know until someone using a Mac tells me.....if it works, I will upload the other two files (about 120,000 bytes each) (If need be, I will zip the file, but it is not large and 'should' save directly to your folder...) |
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06 Dec 02 - 03:31 AM (#842091) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Genie Bill, that link produced unintelligible 'text?' on my Mac. I was able to download a number of fonts from the site you first linked to, but when I tried to put one in my system folder, the system didn't recognize it as a font. Genie |
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06 Dec 02 - 04:44 AM (#842130) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: JohnInKansas Genie - Have you tried downloading and installing one or more of the Frets fonts direct from the site linked in Bill D's first post? At that site, on the page True Type Fonts they state: "True Type Fonts - Typography "TTF or True Type Fonts are more close to their printed counter parts. TTF technology was developed by Microsoft and Apple Corporation because they decided that the monopoly on PostScript enjoyed by Adobe was not good for their business. Hence, True Type Fonts work equally well under both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. "TTF can be used for publishing needs wven though the work may finally go thru a PostScript device like as imagesetter. However, problems will crop up when the True Type Font and the PostScript font have the same names." It took some searching, but on the site home page, it states that the fonts there are all ttf format. If you download them direct from the site to your Mac, they should install and run(?). (The html header for the web download page should state whether the site is in lsb first or msb first - little-endian or big-endian, and your Mac should use that information to "flop" the bit order if necessary, when it writes the file to your disk.) Or am I assuming too much about the Mac's capabilities? The publishing industry relies on the ability to swap documents with fonts embedded (i.e. the only source for the font on the "receiving" machine is the document itself) and Macs and PCs exchange documents of this type routinely, with machines of either kind able (mostly) to use the fonts "as received" in the documents. Since Apple co-developed the TrueType font format, one would expect an Apple (Mac) computer to be able to use them.(?) John |
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08 Dec 02 - 10:48 PM (#843639) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D well, I have been at a craft show for two days and am just reading this--it seemed from reading that the Mac required some different formatting, hence the MTT extension for Mac fonts....but I sure will be interested to see if they run for Genie..(and anyone else using a Mac)....I have only corresponded with one other person using a Mac and that was 2 years ago, and I haven't used that CrossFont program since. |
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08 Dec 02 - 10:58 PM (#843643) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D *grin*...I guess I shoulda open the 'help' file in the program....here is copy and paste from CrossFont-(it seems that IF one copies fonts to a Mac, a 2nd step is necessary...but if they really work directly, as John suggests, why this program? "Copying from PC to Mac: All Mac files CrossFont creates are in MacBinary format. They can be copied to a Mac disk using TransMac (with "MacBinary" translation) or some other method. If you do not use TransMac to copy the files, you need to decode the MacBinary file after they are copied to the Mac. A good program for this is Aladdins Stuffit Expander (see the WWW Links page). This is an easy to use drag and drop utility for decoding different archive formats including MacBinary. There are Mac and PC versions." "CrossFont creates Mac files in MacBinary format. This is necessary since fonts exist in the resource fork of a Mac file. After copying the files to a Mac, a MacBinary decoder must be used to reconstitute a valid Mac file. To install Mac fonts, drag them to the system folder so the system can place them properly." Copyright (c) 2000 Acute Systems ------------------------------------------------------------- "Both PostScript Type1 and TrueType fonts are vector outline fonts. This means that they contain instructions for building outlines from lines and curves which are filled to create the solid shapes of letters and other glyphs. The benefit of representing shapes this way is that they can be scaled to virtually any size and still retain smooth edges (unlike bitmap fonts which exhibit jagged edges when enlarged). TrueType Fonts The TrueType font format is supported, at the operating system level, on later versions of both Mac and Windows operating systems. No external software is required. TrueType fonts are made up of separate blocks of information called tables. Every different type of data has its own table. Each TrueType file contains all metric information for the font - kerning, widths, etc. It also can contain information specific to each platform it supports - encoding tables, names (in different languages), etc. TrueType Under Windows: Windows requires only one file for each TrueType font. The file has a TTF extension. TrueType on the Mac: The Mac also requires only one file for each TrueType font, but it is a resource file. Each resource file can contain many resources. A Mac TrueType font file must have a FOND resource along with the TrueType data resource. The FOND is used by the Mac font rendering mechanism. Type1 Fonts: Currently, Type1 fonts are not natively supported on the Mac or PC. Adobe makes software to support this format on both machines. It is called Adobe Type Manager ( ATM). Type1 fonts don't contain as much information as TrueType fonts do. Kerning is not stored in the font. More than one file is required to use them on either machine. Type1 Under Windows: ATM requires two files to use a Type1 font under Windows. The PFB file contains the actual font outline data. The PFM file contains metric data including kerning. Type1 on the Mac: ATM requires two files to use a Type1 font on the Mac. Both are resource files. The font outline data is stored in a file with type LWFN and is analogous to the PFB file on a PC. A separate file with both a FOND resource and bitmap font is also required. Copyright (c) 2000 Acute Systems" |
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08 Dec 02 - 11:00 PM (#843645) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: Bill D anyway....here is the page for the program, in case anyone wants more info... |
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09 Dec 02 - 03:10 AM (#843712) Subject: RE: Tech: chords-fonts to type them From: JohnInKansas Bill D - and anyone else interested: INFO: Technical Details of TrueType Fonts (KB Q85202) includes a link to the Microsoft Typography site where you can obtain the "True Type Font Specification (400 pp.). On the Typography Site, select "Specifications" under the Developer Tools heading. The "TrueType" and "TrueType Open" specifications are listed as "for historical interest only," as TrueType has been superceded by the "Open Type Specification. I would recommend downloading the OpenType Specification .zip file (1.5 MB) as otherwise you have to download individual chapters one at a time. The TrueType specification has apparently been "absorbed into" OpenType, and there are a couple of chapters specific to TrueType, and a couple of Appendices that contain Adobe "compact fontfile" info. My primary reference on Type 1 Fonts is the Adobe Type 1 Font Format, Version 1.1, Adobe Systems Inc., Addison Wesley Publishing Co, Inc., ISBN 0-201-57044-0. My copy shows $14.95 US. A few Specs are available at the Adobe site, and I believe this is one you can download, but I haven't looked recently - 'cause I already bought the book. I haven't had much of a look at the OpenType thing, but the old TrueType Spec, and the Adobe Type 1 Spec make it fairly clear that a fully defined "Font" is a "single entity" that should be usable on any kind of machine. The Adobe spec, in particular, makes it clear that Macs impose "additional" requirements, but a "complete" font should include everything required by either PCs or Macs. The obsolete TrueType Spec showed a similar "Mac extensions requirements" section. There is the problem of the reversed byte order between PC and Mac, so it might be presumed that the Mac would need to "read in" the font as a PC-byte-order file(?) if it's a download. A Font is a program, and as such, must be "installed" to be functional. In Windows (98 & later), copying a TrueType font into the Windows\Font directory is all that's required for installation. Type 1 fonts (and Type 3 - another useful one) generally require a font manage of some sort in Windows, and it would be safe to assume that something similar is required for a Mac. The Adobe ATM is excellent, but is not the only thing around. You can probably find a freeware utility - I haven't checked on the ATM price recently, but my last upgrade was about $80 US (well worth it in my case), so I would guess a new buyer would be looking at $150 or so. I plead total ignorance with regard to font installation on the Mac. It seems that if we really want to know anything about that, we need an expert Mac driver to comment. The Advance Systems description of the fonts is fairly accurate, but leaves out some of the details. An example: Type1 fonts don't contain as much information as TrueType fonts do. Kerning is not stored in the font. The Type 1 font probably contains more information than the TrueType (one of the reasons for the "new" OpenType spec is to put more in) but when installed (e.g. in Windows) the font is "split" to make it easier to manage kerning and leading under the control of the page layout operator to an extent not readily achievable with TrueType. But the main concern here seems to be only with the TrueType, so w.t.h... John |