[Scribus] Truetype and opentype fonts

[Craig Bradney]

On Thursday 14 December 2006 22:13, wtb41 wrote:
> After receiving J. Miner's comments on this issue, I investigated the
> matter further. Here are
> my results. The Book Manufacturers Institute has a web site
> (www.bmibook.org) listing its
> members. The members' web sites are accessible thru BMI's web site. I
> recently visited all of
> those sites. Many--not all--of the members' sites have online guidance re
> prepress preparation.
> The following comments about the use of TrueType fonts come from those
> sites or from
> personal e-mails to me from representatives of those companies:
>
> 1. From R. R. Donnelley (www.rrdonnelley.com):  "Consult with your RR
> Donnelley representative
> before using True Type fonts or system fonts in a document."
> 2. From Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group (in a personal e-mail to me):
> "We prefer for our
> fonts to be Postscript, but... we can handle TrueType but only if they are
> embedded; TT font used
> to drop out of the files when we ripped the files.  It's just safer with
> Postscript fonts."
> 3. From Lake Book (in a personal e-mail to me): "True Type fonts can be
> used but may not
> give you the best reproduction."
> 4. From Versa Press (http://www.versapress.com/Pages/FilePrep.asp): "Of the
> two common
> font types used for page layout, Type 1 fonts should always be used because
> TrueType may
> not render correctly at high resolution output. "
> 5. From Walsworth Publishing Co.
> (http://www.walsworthprinting.com/walswrth.nsf/AppGuide?OpenForm): "We
> recommend
> using Postscript fonts for your applications. TrueType fonts can be used,
> but may result
> in unexpected or poor imaging. "
> 6. From Courier (in a personal e-mail to me): "There is no STANDARD for a
> true type library,
>  per say. [...] Because True Type fonts are as wide as the ocean, we
> recommend people go
> to a standard i.e....Postscript TYPE1 fonts like the Adobe libraries."
>
> These comments agree with Thomson-Shore's (another book manufacturer)
> statement to
> avoid the use of TrueType fonts. Book manufacturers clearly prefer
> PostScript fonts. They
> work with fonts/commercial printing far more than I. If they tell me to
> avoid the use of
> TrueType fonts, then I am going to listen to them. They want a successful
> end product just
> as I do. I do not want to begin my relationship with them by ignoring their
> advice re fonts,
> which as one site says, cause more problems than any other issue they face.

It depends completely on the process used and, very importantly, the source of 
the fonts. In over 2 years of publishing a magazine with Scribus I have never 
ever had a problem when using TTFs when they have been tested or finally 
ripped for production.

Craig