Do we need ATM Deluxe under WinXP?

[Mike Prager]

I'd like to add to Christina's remarks.

At 02:49 PM 10/16/2003, Christina Thiele wrote:

>I know what you mean about the confusion! But it _seems_ to me that
>the comments [on ATM Deluxe under XP] have settled down to separating out
>the two activities of
>installation and usage.

I don't entirely agree, as should be clear from my further comments.

>   a. NO ATM for installation -- or rather, make sure that ATM has been
>      turned off. The XP installation instructions for fonts are what
>      you use -- Win2000 and XP have a built-in rasteriser (I just
>      repeat the stuff I read! I don't actually know/understand that
>      the heck this `rasteriser' is doing ;-)). But it's involved in
>      sending the font files to the right places, and making sure that
>      everything is properly `registered'.

At our laboratory, the two Y&Y users have found that ATM Deluxe can be used
successfully to install fonts under Windows XP, as Adobe says. That is true
whether the fonts are used by Y&Y or not. Indeed, we've had better results
with ATM installed than with it not installed. THERE IS A PATCH ON THE
ADOBE WEB SITE THAT SHOULD BE INSTALLED, ALSO.

Whether ATM Deluxe is used or not, the rasterization (conversion of a
vector font into a displayable image) is done by Windows XP itself, NOT by
ATM. The opposite was the case under, e.g., Windows NT4 or Windows 95.

>   b. ATM Deluxe allows you to active/deactivate fonts for specific
>      applications (e.g., Y&YTeX), and thus sidesteps the memory
>      issues. Or so it seems from posts to techsupport

Yes, it can allow fonts (or groups of fonts) to be activated and
deactivated.  That can be very useful if you own many fonts but don't use
most of them frequently.  I leave the Lucida, CM, and MathTime sets
activated all the time, along with about 200 other TrueType and Type 1
fonts, without noticeable memory issues. This is on a machine with 512Mb of
RAM. Windows XP has pretty good memory management.

What Christina did not mention is that there is a THIRD aspect of font
usage in Y&Y TeX:  the ability of all components of Y&Y TeX (including
DVIWindo and DVIPSONE) to find (and thus use) the installed fonts.  Our two
users of Y&Y TeX (I am one of them) have NOT been successful at getting
that to happen under Windows XP unless ATM Deluxe was used to install (and
thus manage) the fonts.  Am I saying it can't be done?  No!  But I am
saying that despite a lot of fiddling, uninstalling, reinstalling, etc., we
were unable to get it to work without ATM.  After we installed ATM Deluxe
and then Y&Y, everything worked perfectly.  So I would consider purchase of
ATM Deluxe a worthwhile investment for someone installing Y&Y on Windows XP.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has got it to work without
using ATM.  Did you do anything special?

...Mike



--
Michael Prager, Ph.D.
NOAA Beaufort Laboratory
Beaufort, North Carolina  28516
http://shrimp.ccfhrb.noaa.gov/~mprager/

NOTE: Opinions expressed are personal, not official.  No government
endorsement of
any product is expressed or implied.