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From: John Chambers on 17 Sep 2005 11:24
Someone just sent me a zip file full of a font that I'd like to install. I've
checked with Help, and tried to follow the instructions in the "Installing
fonts" page. But it doesn't seem to do anything.

When I unpack the zip file, I get the following (ls -l) files:

-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 11124 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.AFM
-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 470 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.CFG
-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 167506 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.FOG
-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 487 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.INF
-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 55938 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFB
-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 673 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFM

Now, I have no idea what these files are, just that they do contain the
name (CTimes) of the font. I don't know what sort of system they
came from. I've run Font Book, tried the "Add Fonts ...", taken it to
the CTimes directory with the above files - and they're all greyed out.
The directory itself isn't greyed out, so I selected the directory, hit
the "Open" button - and nothing at all happened.

So does anyone understand what I've got here, and whether it's
possible to install the font? Could I just link one or two of these
files into some directory? Is this stuff documented somewhere?

(Alternatively, how might I look for an OSX version of this font?
I googled for "CTimes font", got 476 matches, but examining some
of them didn't give me any understanding of the issues here. The
whole subject of fonts seems to be secretive black magic. ;-)
From: sbt on 17 Sep 2005 11:54
In article <lZqdnRJM0ObIqLHeRVn-1Q(a)speakeasy.net>, John Chambers
<jcsd(a)speakeasy.net> wrote:

> Someone just sent me a zip file full of a font that I'd like to install. I've
> checked with Help, and tried to follow the instructions in the "Installing
> fonts" page. But it doesn't seem to do anything.
>
> When I unpack the zip file, I get the following (ls -l) files:
>
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 11124 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.AFM
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 470 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.CFG
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 167506 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.FOG
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 487 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.INF
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 55938 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFB
> -r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 673 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFM
>
> Now, I have no idea what these files are, just that they do contain the
> name (CTimes) of the font. I don't know what sort of system they
> came from. I've run Font Book, tried the "Add Fonts ...", taken it to
> the CTimes directory with the above files - and they're all greyed out.
> The directory itself isn't greyed out, so I selected the directory, hit
> the "Open" button - and nothing at all happened.
>
> So does anyone understand what I've got here, and whether it's
> possible to install the font? Could I just link one or two of these
> files into some directory? Is this stuff documented somewhere?
>
> (Alternatively, how might I look for an OSX version of this font?
> I googled for "CTimes font", got 476 matches, but examining some
> of them didn't give me any understanding of the issues here. The
> whole subject of fonts seems to be secretive black magic. ;-)

What you have there is a Windows format PostScript font. You'll need to
convert it to a Mac format font, an OpenType font, or a Mac or Windows
TrueType font to install it for use on a Mac OS X system.

--
Spenser
From: John Chambers on 18 Sep 2005 21:32
lp wrote:
> in article lZqdnRJM0ObIqLHeRVn-1Q(a)speakeasy.net, John Chambers wrote on
> 9/17/2005 11:24 AM:
>
>>(Alternatively, how might I look for an OSX version of this font?
>>I googled for "CTimes font", got 476 matches, but examining some
>>of them didn't give me any understanding of the issues here. The
>>whole subject of fonts seems to be secretive black magic. ;-)
>
>
> Was curious about this the other day too. Found out that the obvious works.
> Double click a font and if it's valid it asks you if you wish to install it.

That doesn't work, because all six of the "font" files (or whatever they are)
are greyed out in the Font Book listing. I did try clicking (once, twice) on
the directory name, but that had no visible effect at all. It didn't ask me
anything, and give any indication that I'd clicked on anything. I can
see the files in Finder, but clicking on them just gets a message that Finder
doesn't know what app to use to open them. Since I don't know, either,
this does little good.



From: John Chambers on 18 Sep 2005 21:41
sbt wrote:
> In article <lZqdnRJM0ObIqLHeRVn-1Q(a)speakeasy.net>, John Chambers
> <jcsd(a)speakeasy.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Someone just sent me a zip file full of a font that I'd like to install. I've
>>checked with Help, and tried to follow the instructions in the "Installing
>>fonts" page. But it doesn't seem to do anything.
>>
>>When I unpack the zip file, I get the following (ls -l) files:
>>
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 11124 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.AFM
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 470 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.CFG
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 167506 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.FOG
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 487 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.INF
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 55938 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFB
>>-r-xr-xr-x 1 jc staff 673 30 Aug 1994 CTIMES.PFM
....
>
> What you have there is a Windows format PostScript font. You'll need to
> convert it to a Mac format font, an OpenType font, or a Mac or Windows
> TrueType font to install it for use on a Mac OS X system.

I've done a bit of googling to try to find out how to do such a conversion,
to no avail. I also tried Apple's support pages, also with no results. If
there's a way to do the conversion, it's obviously intented for someone
who's a better guesser than I am.

But I did find several Mac (TrueType actually) versions of the CTimes font,
and after a bit of clicking (which left 3 versions of the .zip files on my
disk ;-), I stumbled onto something that installed one of them. Now Font
Book says I have CTimes installed, and it displays the characters that
I'd expect to see. Now to find out what happens when I try to use it.

There's sure a lot here that's not intuitively obvious, at least to my
intuition as someone who's (half-)learned several languages with
non-Latin alphabets. Getting text in those languages to appear on
my screen in a sensible form isn't exactly user-friendly ...

(But my wife has a worse case - she's trying to improve her Arabic,
partly because she wants to do more calligraphy.. Talk about demented,
never-get-it-quite-right software! And it's so easy with a pen or brush ... ;-)

Anyway, thanks for the Open/TrueType clue.
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