Re: Assuring Helvetica font present
Re: Assuring Helvetica font present
- Subject: Re: Assuring Helvetica font present
- From: Ricky Sharp <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:11:04 -0600
On Jan 24, 2007, at 11:45 AM, Matt R wrote:
This is a two-part question. I have an app which displays NSStrings
in a
custom view, and for graphical reasons it's important that they are
consistent in terms of appearance and size. Right now I have it set to
always print out as Helvetica-Bold, however I'm aware that although
helvetica is included on mac systems it can be turned off or
removed. I'd
use a non-removable font such as the system's Geneva but I need the
specific
look that Helvetica provides. Does anyone know the best way to ensure
Helvetica is installed properly, and what options I have available
if I find
out it is not available on a given system? Can I somehow package
the font
file as a resource in my bundle and then install it automatically,
or is
that a 'no-no'? And if my app is running on another language system
such as
japanese, will printing with a roman font still display properly?
(despite
being in the wrong language)
First, it's not really clear why you absolutely need Helvetica. Why
exactly can't you just use the 'system' or 'application' font?
Having said that, if you absolutely need a certain typeface, there
are three options:
(a) easiest - just put the burden on users to ensure they install
Helvetica so your app works.
(b) license it so you can redistribute if its missing
(c) create a bitmapped representation of the gylphs and embed that in
your app (kinda a workaround to the licensing issue; for details on
this, contact me off-list).
I've done (c) before, but the glyphs I bitmapped represented ASCII-7
only. I would not recommend this approach since you really should
choose a solution to give you Unicode support.
It's also not clear when you say 'despite being in the wrong
language'. Does your app need to display Japanese (and other
languages) text? If so, when rendering such NSStrings, the
frameworks will ultimately pick the right font for the job. Thus,
multiple fonts can be used to display certain strings.
___________________________________________________________
Ricky A. Sharp mailto:email@hidden
Instant Interactive(tm) http://www.instantinteractive.com
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