Avoiding Jaggy Fonts

Designers who rely on QuarkXPress 4 and 5 always come up against the same problem: They install the Classic environment and QuarkXPress, and then find that none of their documents look rightthe fonts are all jaggy. What's a jaggy font? You'll know one when you see it: The type looks like a series of little blocks stacked together to make letters instead of the nice smooth strokes you expect.

Tip

Multifinder is a term that dates back to the early days of the Macintosh operating system. It lived at the right end of the menu bar, and gave you a list of every running application. Before the Mac was efficient at managing multiple applications simultaneously, you used the Multifinder to select which application you wanted as the frontmost, or active, program.

The Multifinder continued to be a part of the OS all the way through Mac OS 9, and is still there in the Classic environment. You can use it to select the application you want to work in, but Tiger's Command-Tab keyboard shortcut is far more efficient.

Here's the problem: Mac OS X uses PostScript to display what you see onscreen, but Mac OS 9 does not. Since Mac OS 9 doesn't, that means the Classic environment doesn't, either. Most of the fonts that designers use in Mac OS 9 and the Classic environment are PostScript, which Mac OS 9 doesn't know how to properly interpret so that they look nice and smooth onscreen.

Adobe stepped up to the plate and produced a fix for jaggy fonts that came in the form of a little gem called ATM Lite. ATM Lite interprets the PostScript information for Mac OS 9 and the Classic environment so that fonts look like they should instead of like those in a 1970s sci-fi computer terminal.

Installing and Configuring ATM Lite

ATM Lite is free and available on Adobe's Web site at www.adobe.com. The last time I checked, you could find it in the downloads section in the support section. Look at the bottom of the list for Adobe Type Manager Lite 4.6.2 Multiple Languages Version. The installer downloads a file called atm462.sit.hqx in HQX format, so be sure you have StuffIt Expander (Allume Systems;www.stuffit.com); otherwise, you won't be able to open it.

1.	Expand the installer with Stuffit Expander.
2.	Double-click the installer to add ATM Lite to the Classic environment, but be sure your open files are saved first. Installers from the days of Mac OS 9 and earlier like to quit all open applications before they run.
3.	After the installation finishes, the Classic environment restarts so that you can configure ATM Lite.

Getting at the ATM Lite settings is easier if you have the Classic status menu item active.

1.	Click the Classic status menu, and navigate to Apple Menu Items > Control Panels > ~ATM.
2.	Check the On box for Smooth Font Edges on Screen (Figure 7.16). Figure 7.16. Installing the free Adobe ATM Lite control panel will fix most jaggy PostScript fonts in the Classic environment. Don't forget to make sure that font smoothing is turned on.
3.	Click the close box in the upper left corner of the ATM window, and you're done. Now your PostScript fonts will look right in Classic applications.