TrueType Helvetica

From: Robert Norton (robno@microsoft.com)
Date: Wed Apr 26 1995 - 11:26:42 EDT


Dear Ed Hart:

I have now received a call from Jerry Glen at Linotype.

They do not have Helvetica in TrueType.
"It is pretty much a PostScript face" he says.
He suggests you use Arial.
He didn't say it carries the same widths, but it does.
He didn't say that most people can't tell the difference between
Helvetica, Arial and Univers. But they can't.
He didn't say they are all fairly boring and much over-used. But they are.

We have made a resource that converts PostScript to TrueType and vice
versa, but I don't know if it is released yet. As PostScript (and ATM)
is capable of only limited hinting compared to TrueType this offers
only limited advantage. Just as you can't convert Monochrome TV to
Colour (PostScript to TrueType) neither can you gain much by the
reverse (TrueType to PostScript) because you have discard much of the
information that resides in the TrueType description.

I am not enough of an engineer to suggest the best solution. But I am
enough of a typographer to suggest that I would as soon watch grass
grow as struggle to get any of these faces on my machine to replace
whichever one is there by default.



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