[Mac OS X TeX] OpenType

[William Adams]

The problem here is that Apple punted on the matter of the User
Interface for accessing rich font features, even on a font especially
licensed for OS X (Zapfino) for which Apple had explicitly gone to the
effort to support all of its features (the Zapf layout tables which're
documented at fonts.apple.com) they've only made a small fraction of the
characters accessible.

Even the QuickDraw/GX fonts suffer this emasculation (sorry, this
failing infuriates me)---to see what they were (and are in Mac OS
7.5--8.6 with QuickDraw/GX savvy apps) install the Developer Tools (free
with on-line membership to the Apple Developer Connection), open up
WorldText.app, nee GXWrite (it's in the Extras folder in Apps) and play
around with Apple Chancery, Skia and Hoefler Text).

One exception on the above OS version compatibility range is sadly
TeX/GX which only works with 7.x 'cause of changes to the printing
architecture.

Although with a little effort one can decompose the fonts one is then in
violation of the license from Apple which prohibits reverse-engineering
&c. (you can't even put your Mac motherboard in a case without an Apple
logo if one simultaneously obliterates the Apple moniker on the
motherboard---read the license).

I made an extensive set of suggestions on the font panel for Mac OS X
(one of them was even implemented---collapsing to a thin window of
pop-up menus) once upon a time, but other failings in Mac OS X have left
me unwilling to devote any further effort to it (see my editorial on
this at www.osopinion.com from a couple of months ago).

Sadly these features have gotten behind the power curve at Apple in
terms of development effort (the state of the fonts.apple.com web pages
does _not_ speak highly of Apple's regard for this). I'm sure it'll
improve when more resources become available, but in the meanwhile, it's
just easier to get a Type 1 expert set and use that.

William

--
William Adams, publishing specialist
ATLIS Graphics & Design / 717-731-6707 voice / 717-731-6708 fax
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
http://www.atlis.com



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