glyph scaling

As far as I know, the response is no.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 25 août 2008 16:56:33)

Can anyone tell me whether pages has glyph scaling, (this is available in Adobe InDesign). If the name is not very clear on it functionality, it allows you to adjust the horizontal and vertical dimensions of each glyph separately, instead of simply changing font size.

The answer is no.

Why? Well, glyph scaling has been a feature of Adobe PostScript since version 23 in the Apple LaserWriter in January 1985. This is how e.g. QuarkXPress since 1987 and InDesign since 2000 makes fake small capitals, fake superscripts, fake subscripts and so on and so forth. It's a mess in the pro applications, because you have to find out when you are getting the glyph scalings as designed and when you are getting the fake glyph scalings. InDesign can give you the fake glyph scalings from the default glyphs output by the simple CMAP shaping even if there are properly designed shapings available through the Microsoft GSUB layout.

The idea in TrueType 2 is to try to get away from all of this. In the fully implemented intelligent font model, there are smart glyph scalings (with TrueType Variations with interpolation extremes defined by the type designer and not by QuarkXPress engineers, Word engineers or InDesign engineers) and there are smart glyph shapings (with small capitals, superscript letters and numbers, subscript letters and numbers, and more) as well as intelligent tracking, intelligent optical alignment on the sides of the column, intelligent kerning and more.

For some strange reason, this powerful typesetting machine is sitting unused somewhere in the basement storage at Cupertino. They seem to have lost the key to the storage, or perhaps the plan of the machine, or perhaps they simply lost the plot, as some say.

hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:
For some strange reason, this powerful typesetting machine is sitting unused somewhere in the basement storage at Cupertino. They seem to have lost the key to the storage, or perhaps the plan of the machine, or perhaps they simply lost the plot, as some say.

Why searching strange reasons ?
Isn't it simply that the Pages Engineers assumes that these features are dedicated to professional users, not for the customers for which they designed the program ?

The fact that they are available in Adobe's inDesign which is dedicated to professional users seems to state that we aren't facing a system's problem.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 25 août 2008 17:35:57)

Isn't it simply that the engineers assumes that these features are dedicated to professional users,

The note paraphrased the positioning of the intelligent font model by the developer, David Opstad, in 1992 and the positioning of the intelligent font model by John Jenkins in his white paper on what the point of Apple Advanced Typography is versus what the point of Adobe/Microsoft OpenType is.

The point of Apple Advanced Typography is to automate professional typography transparently in applications that do not themselves make available machinery for professional typography. The International Color Consortium was formed on these same ideas - of determinate, invertible, and non-destructive imaging.

A professional publisher looks for optimised separation that is fast and failsafe in production - the largest gamut, the most open shadows, the least loss of highlights, the best colour stability through finetuned black replacement of CMY for K, and the fastest drying. All with one and only one separation for the printing process to secure consistent colour appearance.

A professional publisher looks for optimised composition that is fast and failsafe in production - the slender and narrow glyphs in titles, the broad and open glyphs in small sizes, the distortion-free change of width for copyfitting that does not catch the eye, the automatic composition and decomposition of ligatures, and more.

Then one can ask, following Peter Breis, what Apple Pages is supposed to be for? There is Apple Final Cut Studio for people in professional motion imaging and there is Apple Aperture for people in professional still imaging. There is Apple Logic Pro for people in professional sound, too. But I'm not sure Apple is sure who and what Apple Pages is actually for?

People are trying to use the software for professional separation, but they can't make the connection to the Apple ColorSync Utility (which is buried in the bottom level of the Utilities folder). People are trying to use the softare for professional composition, but they can't make the connection the Apple Typography Palette for font-specific smart glyph shapings.

I tried to talk to development about the floating Typography Palette. In my opinion, WorldText on the OS 9 CD has a better user interface. When you select a font, the font-specific features appear in a sliding panel on the left of the window. The Typography Palette is flapping up and flapping down as the cursor cleaves through the composition - the faster the cursor the more frantic the flapping.

I don't know ...

hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:
Then one can ask, following Peter Breis, what Apple Pages is supposed to be for? There is Apple Final Cut Studio for people in professional motion imaging and there is Apple Aperture for people in professional still imaging. There is Apple Logic Pro for people in professional sound, too. But I'm not sure Apple is sure who and what Apple Pages is actually for?

The features available for notes or TOC put the program in the non-professional market which doesn't mean than professional users may not work with it.

It is(was) the same with AppleWorks which doesn't offer professional features but is(was) used worldwide by professional users.

May I add that Pages is not a product of its own. It's a component of a package.
One of these components is Numbers which offers 156 functions().
Compare it to Excel, widely described as a professional spreadsheet, which offers more than 500 functions() (I'm writing about functions used to build formulas). Once again, it's clear that it's not designed for professional numbers crunchers.

I never thought that iWork is designed as an Office competitor.
It's a tool for the rest of the world. And this means a huge potential market.

We will always meet customers claiming that they paid for a tool which doesn't give this or that feature _which is absolutely indispensable_ . But from my point of view this kind of comment are meaningless.
Even if, what I don't wish, iWork evolve such a way that it offer the same features than µSoft's Office, we will read the same comments.

In fact, my impression is that this kind of comments is just a curtain trying to hide the fact that a lot of users are dreaming of a computer world resembling to Mr. FORD's one in which you may choose between the black Ford T and the black Ford T 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE vendredi 29 août 2008 16:01:27)

We will always meet customers claiming that they paid for a tool which doesn't give this or that feature which is absolutely indispensable. But from my point of view this kind of comment are meaningless.

Well, yes. But, you see, the difficulty arises that you actually have functionality for advanced typography and functions for advanced photography/lithography.

If you say, Well, and so? then you have the problem that people obviously do want to work with functions for advanced typography and functions for advanced photography/lithography.

Let me tell you a developer story, then. Apple had several teams working on ColorSync and the leader of the main team was convinced that Apple would not sell a single operating system on the argument that the product was CIE colour managed. This person is acknowledged in the manual for LOGO ProfileMaker 3.0, one of the two or three most important packages for ICC colour management in the market today. At the time Apple produced a book, Masters of Media, edited by Phillip Schiller. I still have the book. It has one (1) line on ColorSync. If you asked Phillip Schiller today, he would spend half an hour telling you that ColorSync is the jewel of the crown - even if he could not profile a printing condition or explain PDF/X-3 settings if his life was at stake.

What is the moral of this tale? The moral of this tale is that told by Paul Brainerd when he realised that Aldus was in trouble. Paul Brainerd said that hiring into Aldus should start with a stint in a prepress shop. What's the point? The point is that you have to know how to put a pagination together with your product in such a way that you could sell it successfully, and if you don't you should probably be doing something else than selling your product. You could be taking tourists out on the water to see humpback whales or take them hiking in the hills or something.

Best,

Henrik

(PS before Peter Breis gets off to a second start on spot colours - no, I do not think spot colours should be supported -:))