Blurry fonts on the screen - Windows 8.1- Framemaker 12

Question

I installed a group of adobe fonts bought in 2002 in Windows 8.1 by clicking every .PFM file and clicking on the install button. Everything seems fine. According to the Microsoft support knowledge base, the .PFM file should be in the windows-->fonts directory. And they are at the right place. Each font comes with two files with different file extension : a .PFM and a .PFB file extension but I cannot see the .PFB files. Is it normal ?

The question : why my fonts look so blurry on the screen, I simply cannot work.

Thank you.

Bob_Niland · Answer

Have a look at this discussion regarding how to "install" Type1 fonts on XP and later:

Missing fonts in FrameMaker 9 even after installing Adobe Type Manager

and why you should NOT install ATM if you have it, which you might with fonts of that vintage.

Those are likely legacy codepage fonts, and not Unicode. Any glyphs that are not part of ISO 8559-1 latin, such as Dingbats and Symbol, will have to be implemented in your document as special keyboard sequences or \x codes, with a Character Format (or override) applied. This is not a great idea for new documents.

Now as to why your fonts are "blurry"; that's not obvious. In addition to what Arnis suggested, another couple of possibilites might be:

Check your DisplayUsingPrinterMetrics setting in maker.ini, and make sure a PostScript or Ps-like (e.g.e PDF) printer is the the current printer during edit.
Make sure FM can actually see those old fonts, and isn't performing some sort of degenerate substition, such as to a bitmap font.

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