I saw this today on the Austechwriters newsgroup and I think its a valid question. But is it really a matter of font management? Can somebody nutshell the TECHNICAL reason for the MAC superiority? I know why I use one, but sometimes find it hard to explain when the computese gets spoken. Eyes glaze over, information finds a pathway from one ear to the other....
here's the quote: "I was having a discussion the other day with a colleague who mentioned that his magazine's art department just went completely Windows - taking Macintosh out of the equation. He said that there was now nothing Mac could do that Windows couldn't do as well (I expected as much from someone who works for a PC magazine, after all...). A brief debate followed, and I found myself unable to explain why most graphic designers still prefer Macs for high end work. Without getting into the whole Mac vs Windoze (vs Linux etc.) debate, I was wondering whether there still is a good reason why most graphic designers and print houses still prefer Macs? Michael's email touches on the whole print/postscript issue, but are there any other reasons? SNIP Measure the output from something like Word to a printer (the physical device - not the software driver or the person) sometime from the ascender (top of a "d") to the descender (bottom of a "p") and you will notice that the Microsloth WinDoze "TrueType" simply isn't! It almost always gets it wrong, except for the 72 point size that any fool can (and does) measure against an inch. That's 0.35277 mm (25.4mm divided by 72) to the point, so a 12 point fount SHOULD measure 4.23 mm but, depending upon the print driver, Word gets it wrong (usually significantly smaller) except to an even resolution Oki 24 pin dot matrix. Weird! THAT is why you cannot desktop publish properly with WinDoze. The TrueType fonts only give an approximation that is designed to look nice and bold at 72dpi on screen but comes out bearing no resemblance to the advertised type weights and sizes on paper. Print and measure. Print and measure. Trial and error is the only way to get it right from WinDoze. The Apple Mac, however, with its PostScript display AND output is a completely different story. So under WinDoze, it doesn't matter if you are using Quark (Gates help you) or FrameMaker or Word. It all comes out as crap unless you go through Adobe Acrobat first, which somehow gets the fonts closer to what they should have been in the first place. Yes, it is all completely academic if you are using TrueType fonts, trying to output from a 72dpi bitmapped world to a 1200dpi PostScript output device. It all just becomes a bad joke unless you are using a Mac or something like a HPView UNIX box that (I believe) has PostScript display and output." Bill And I'd add as a P.S That I have to deal with numerous embedded Microsloth files and very frequently, things go pear shaped at final stages of printing. So these days I ask for TEXT ONLY files (cries of what's that?) and separate JPEGs etc. Dr Bill Parker RENEW Technical writing and editing in energy and resources. Box 322 Mt Lawley WA 6929 08 9371 6373 0403 583 676 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
