Fonts

[community_help]

This question was posted in response to the following article: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/WS3311ECE5-10BA-4125-87B4-4C8508D817AA.html

[feline_1973]

It says in this section: "Do not use the Courier® font when Adobe Type Manager® is turned off or not installed. If you do use Courier without ATM, FrameMaker products do not accurately display the Courier font."

Is this really still relevant to FrameMaker 11? Adobe Type Manager was a utility for working with PostScript Type 1 fonts back in the days when they weren't supported by operating systems - but Type1 fonts have been natively supported since Windows 2000. Surely this caveat doesn't apply anymore?

[Bob_Niland]

> It says in this section:

What section of what?

> ... Adobe Type Manager® ...

Theoretically irrelevant since Win2K and XP. See the wiki page for the history.

[feline_1973]

Page 56 of the FrameMaker 11 PDF Help 
Confusingly, if you browse the live online version of the help (which doesn't have page numbers), it lets you "start a discussion" under it, which is visible in that online help view ... but also appears here in this forum...!
Hence the rather curious lack of context in what I typed.

[Bob_Niland]

> Hence the rather curious lack of context in what I typed.

Yeah, this all is what passes for "documentation" in the billowing Adobe Cloud. They used to use Framemaker, and provide an actual manual (which was an impressive piece of work up to FM7, I haven't seen FM8's, ruined at FM9, and MIA altogether since then as far as I can tell).

You might think that what is billed as the leading tech pub tool would have, as it's own documentation, a single-source, mutli-format, multi-lingual example of what the tools could do, but, alas, you'd be mistaken.

To get back on the thread topic, apart from legacy Type 1 concerns, we also have the matter of Multiple Master fonts, which still lurk in some of my older FM docs. These are apparently a lost cause on Windows since Vista. Do not install ATM Deluxe or ATM Light on Win 7 or 8, and that would probably include XP Mode in Win7 as well.

[Mike Wickham]

Wow. That sounds like leftover documentation from the pre-Windows XP

days. Adobe Type Manager's original purpose was to let Windows use

PostScript fonts. XP added the ability to use PostScript fonts in

Windows without ATM. In fact, there was an ATM bug that, if ATM was

uninstalled, broke Windows' ability to handle PS fonts natively. There

was a patch somewhere that could be run to fix it. Anyway, ATM was

discontinued by Adobe a long time ago.

[feline_1973]

Yeah I used Frame between 5.5 and 7, and used to like having the printed paper manual on my desk to read through.
The FM11 Help/PDF/Cloud stuff is basically the same book but with some updates, and fossils like this Adobe Type Manager thing left in.
The rest of the "cloud-based" stuff seems to be mainly 2 or 3 minute videos which frankly come across more like adverts and sales fluff than actual real help or tutorials.

[FieryPantone]

Still have my FM 7.0 guide right here next to me … in the intervening years, I've even started remembering some of the quirker bits of indexing ;-}  I agree with Error7103 that you'd expect a tool to advertise its own capabilities; remember the frequent assertion that M$ Word manuals used to be written in FM? but I suspect current trends do not consider mere users an important part of the audience for product presentation.

[feline_1973]

The last Word "inside out" book I read in anger was certainly written in Frame (it said so in the PDF version's metadata).
To be fair, I expect the FM11 help was also done in FrameMaker - that's how they exported it to various formats (PDF, online help, etc)

[Mike Wickham]

"To be fair, I expect the FM11 help was also done in FrameMaker - that's

how they exported it to various formats (PDF, online help, etc)"

The copy I have says it was created in FrameMaker 8. How ironic that

Adobe doesn't keep it's in-house users on the latest version, when they

are forcing so many into the Creative Cloud.

[Bob_Niland]

> How ironic ...

You're considering what brand and model will be the next company car for your business:

Fleet sales reps come calling.

One shows up on a bicycle ...