Types of Fonts

In general, you should use Type 1 Adobe Postscript fonts. These are the most widely used and most practical fonts for use in any publication. These can be readily identified by the letter "A" on the suitcase. Other types of fonts, such as TrueType (.tt), are occasionally prone to missprint. Avoid these if possible, but at least keep them to a minimum. Remember also, that TSM is an Apple Macintosh environment and can only accept Macintosh Fonts in Macintosh Documents*

Collecting Fonts for Printing

When submitting an ad or publication to TSM, always remember that every font that is used in your newspaper, flyer, ad, etc. must be included with the document. although we have many fonts in our library, you should never assume that we have the one that you need to print your document.

When collecting fonts to submit to a service provider such as TSM, remember that some fonts may have additional components besides the familiar "suitcase." There are sometimes also "screen fonts" and "printer fonts" that must accompany the suitcase.

These icons will bear the same font names as the suitcase, making identification easy.

If you are using PageMaker 6.5 or higher, collecting these fonts can be done automatically when saving the document to a folder or disk for your service provider. With your document open, go to the "Utilities" menu at the top, open the "Plug-Ins" menu and select "Save for Service Provider." A dialog box will ask you where you want the document saved, and will then collect all of your pages, images and fonts into that folder or disk.

While QuarkXpress has a similar feature, called "Collect For Output" under the "File" menu, it does not collect fonts. Hopefully, the next version will do so.

In the event that we are up against a deadline, or fonts are not provided even after notification , TSM reserves the right to substitute a similar font.

Do's & Don'ts

A font problem that we frequently encounter is "menu styling." As a rule, only those fonts that come with your computer, i.e. Helvetica, Geneva, Courier, New York, etc. can be changed to bold, italic, shadowed, and so forth by choosing those styles from the font menu. All other fonts must be chosen for those particular styles. For example, if you want a Garamond font to be italic when printed, you must use the font "Garamond Italic." Changing regular Garamond to italic via the menu will look fine on the screen, but will not print. This is especially dangreous when using a menu-styled font in an EPS. The font in the EPS will default to courier and we will not be able to fix it, even through substitution. The easiest way to avoid this is to always use the correct font from the beginning.

* In some cases, such as with the Windows versions of PageMaker or QuarkXpress, we may be able to convert the document to Macintosh format, however the Windows fonts will not convert, and Macintosh fonts will be substituted. Please call or email us before sending such a file.