benjamin thigpen

Since moving patches from one computer to another very often results 

in badly fromatted text because of font substitutions and other 

impoderables, I am wondering what the collective wisdom is about the 

Which are the most standard, universal fonts, least likely to cause 

problems, most likely to look the same whenever and wherever you open 

Since moving patches from one computer to another very often results  
in badly fromatted text because of font substitutions and other  
impoderables, I am wondering what the collective wisdom is about the  
"safest" fonts to use.

Which are the most standard, universal fonts, least likely to cause  
problems, most likely to look the same whenever and wherever you open  
the patch?

safest-fonts

On 11-Jan-2007, at 5:16, Benjamin Thigpen wrote:

> Thanks to those who have responded to my question. Summing up so far:

> 1. Genva seems to be good for Mac-to-Mac compatibility (over 

> various generations and OSs, as I rcall). But not for Mac-PC 

FTR, Geneva's font metrics changed a little around the time OS X was 

introduced. There are very, very few people using Classic Mac OSs 

nowadays, and even fewer are moving patches from there to here, so 

not a big issue. But if you are concerned about long-range backwards 

Also, I'm not sure if screen anti-aliasing affects Geneva's font 

metrics. I suspected this was part of the problem with screen layout 

> However, the Max help patches are in Geneva, and I presume they 

> look fine on PC. Perhaps the objects have been resized so there are 

Picky picky: The help patches are in generic Sans Serif, which is 

mapped to Geneva on Mac and Ariel on Windows when the patcher file is 

It looks to me like most help patches are built with enough air 

between comment boxes for it not to matter much if a comment box is 

rendered w/one line more or fewer. But there may have been some 

manual resizing of the boxes to keep things looking good on both 

> 2. Verdana may be good for Mac-PC compatibility.

> What does happen in this case? And if you build a patch on Mac 

> using Verdana, does the text appear the same when you open it on 

Verdana isn't touched by max-fontmappings.txt and it should render 

identically on Mac and Windows. Assuming the user hasn't trashed it 

on either platform (another eventuality the patch designer might want 

>> Or maybe, for the sake of compatibility, next mac version could 

>> abandon the historic max font and switch to a common one, like 

> Which means it is likely to appear in various generations and 

> across platforms, I presume. Is it likely to have the same size on 

> various machines, and so not have line-wrap and/or other problems? 

Arial, like Verdana, is a TrueType font and should, hence, render 

identically across platforms. However, part of Max 4.3/4.5's cross- 

platform strategy was defined by these lines from max-fontmappings.txt:

max system windows genericfontmap "Sans Serif" Arial;

max system windows genericsavefontmap Arial "Sans Serif";

max system macintosh genericfontmap "Sans Serif" Geneva;

max system macintosh genericsavefontmap Geneva "Sans Serif";

This mapping back and forth between Arial and Geneva for Windows/Mac 

could perhaps be dropped in the future (although it would annoy 

anyone who relies on it to get decent cross-platform rendering).

> Can anyone confirm if and to what extent these fonts are safe? Are 

> there other common fonts that don't (or are unlikely to) cause 

All I can say is that TrueType is TrueType. Any TrueType font should 

Also, any PostScript font will render identically on all platforms 

that use Screen PostScript or Acrobat as the drawing model. Mac OS 

X's Quartz does that, I don't know about Windows. However, AFAICT, 

Max currently uses QuickDraw for all drawing, and I have no idea if 

> I just want to be able to build my patches from the beginning so 

> that they won't look like dirt when opened on another machine.

Even using a TrueType fonts is no guarantee for success. Users have 

the option of trashing almost any font from their system. If a font 

isn't available, the OS substitutes font and then all bets about 

However, there is a 100.000% guaranteed cross-platform solution.

I feel like Deep Thought now. There is a solution, but you're not 

Get the text the way you want it, select & cut, Paste as Picture...

I've done this for a few limited things that I hope will never change.

Otherwise, stick to the standard system fonts, leave lots of space 

between comment boxes, if you want specific line breaks use "2 byte 

compatibility". And check formatting on both platforms.

Peter Castine +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter

Interface Building for |home | chez nous|

Max/MSP Extremely cool |bei uns | i nostri|

On 11-Jan-2007, at 5:16, Benjamin Thigpen wrote:
> Thanks to those who have responded to my question. Summing up so far:
[schnipp]
> 1. Genva seems to be good for Mac-to-Mac compatibility (over  
> various generations and OSs, as I rcall). But not for Mac-PC  
> compatibility.

FTR, Geneva's font metrics changed a little around the time OS X was  
introduced. There are very, very few people using Classic Mac OSs  
nowadays, and even fewer are moving patches from there to here, so  
not a big issue. But if you are concerned about long-range backwards  
compatibility, even Geneva isn't safe:-(

Also, I'm not sure if screen anti-aliasing affects Geneva's font  
metrics. I suspected this was part of the problem with screen layout  
when Max 4.2 (Carbon) was introduced.

> However, the Max help patches are in Geneva, and I presume they  
> look fine on PC. Perhaps the objects have been resized so there are  
> no wrapping problems?

Picky picky: The help patches are in generic Sans Serif, which is  
mapped to Geneva on Mac and Ariel on Windows when the patcher file is  
read into memory.

It looks to me like most help patches are built with enough air  
between comment boxes for it not to matter much if a comment box is  
rendered w/one line more or fewer. But there may have been some  
manual resizing of the boxes to keep things looking good on both  
platforms.

> 2. Verdana may be good for Mac-PC compatibility.
>
> What does happen in this case? And if you build a patch on Mac  
> using Verdana, does the text appear the same when you open it on  
> PC? (I don't have a PC to test on.)

Verdana isn't touched by max-fontmappings.txt and it should render  
identically on Mac and Windows. Assuming the user hasn't trashed it  
on either platform (another eventuality the patch designer might want  
to take into account!-}

>> Or maybe, for the sake of compatibility, next mac version could  
>> abandon the historic max font and switch to a common one, like  
>> Arial, for example...
>
> 3. Arial is a common font.
>
> Which means it is likely to appear in various generations and  
> across platforms, I presume. Is it likely to have the same size on  
> various machines, and so not have line-wrap and/or other problems?  
> And so is it perhaps a "safe" font?

Arial, like Verdana, is a TrueType font and should, hence, render  
identically across platforms. However, part of Max 4.3/4.5's cross- 
platform strategy was defined by these lines from max-fontmappings.txt:

   max system windows genericfontmap "Sans Serif" Arial;
   max system windows genericsavefontmap Arial "Sans Serif";
   max system macintosh genericfontmap "Sans Serif" Geneva;
   max system macintosh genericsavefontmap Geneva "Sans Serif";

This mapping back and forth between Arial and Geneva for Windows/Mac  
could perhaps be dropped in the future (although it would annoy  
anyone who relies on it to get decent cross-platform rendering).

> Can anyone confirm if and to what extent these fonts are safe? Are  
> there other common fonts that don't (or are unlikely to) cause  
> problems?

All I can say is that TrueType is TrueType. Any TrueType font should  
render identically on any platform.

Also, any PostScript font will render identically on all platforms  
that use Screen PostScript or Acrobat as the drawing model. Mac OS  
X's Quartz does that, I don't know about Windows. However, AFAICT,  
Max currently uses QuickDraw for all drawing, and I have no idea if  
this is likely to change as soon as 5.0.

> I just want to be able to build my patches from the beginning so  
> that they won't look like dirt when opened on another machine.

Even using a TrueType fonts is no guarantee for success. Users have  
the option of trashing almost any font from their system. If a font  
isn't available, the OS substitutes font and then all bets about  
layout are off.

I feel like Deep Thought now. There is a solution, but you're not  
going to like it.

Otherwise, stick to the standard system fonts, leave lots of space  
between comment boxes, if you want specific line breaks use "2 byte  
compatibility". And check formatting on both platforms.

--------------    http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/    -------------
Peter Castine             +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
                                Universal Binaries on the way
iCE:  Sequencing,  Recording &
       Interface  Building  for                   |home    | chez nous|
       Max/MSP   Extremely cool                   |bei uns |  i nostri|
       http://www.dspaudio.com/                   http://www.castine.de

common only on Windows, a similar but a bit different font, common to 

the Mac, is Helvetica. And both are one of the most ugly ones too.

A standard max font has to be a good screen font. Most fonts are made 

for printing which is a completely different issue, they are mostly 

unreadable in 9pt on the screen. Another Issue would be the way they are 

spaced on the screen. I would prefer a font which would make it easy to 

calculate the space on the screen in pixels a written messsage would need.

Benjamin Thigpen wrote:
> 3. Arial is a common font.

common only on Windows, a similar but a bit different font, common to 
the Mac, is Helvetica. And both are one of the most ugly ones too.

A standard max font has to be a good screen font. Most fonts are made 
for printing which is a completely different issue, they are mostly 
unreadable in 9pt on the screen. Another Issue would be the way they are 
spaced on the screen. I would prefer a font which would make it easy to 
calculate the space on the screen in pixels a written messsage would need.

-- 
Stefan Tiedje------------x-------
--_____-----------|--------------
--(_|_ ----|-----|-----()-------
-- _|_)----|-----()--------------
----------()--------www.ccmix.com


> Have you tried any pixel fonts, like silkscreen and whatnot? I 

> really like those for display/programming

Silkscreen is (a) uppercase only, and (b) proportional, which would 

make programming with it something akin to an original sin, but it 

looks reasonable as a display font. It might work well for ubumenu 

and friends, so long as the UC/LC thing doesn't cause problems.

I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 - it 

> Have you tried any pixel fonts, like silkscreen and whatnot? I  
> really like those for display/programming

Silkscreen is (a) uppercase only, and (b) proportional, which would  
make programming with it something akin to an original sin, but it  
looks reasonable as a display font. It might work well for ubumenu  
and friends, so long as the UC/LC thing doesn't cause problems.

I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 - it  
it all still done with suitcases?

On 21-Jan-2007, at 18:46, Nick Rothwell wrote:

> I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 - 

Sort of, but they're pretty user transparent nowadays. If you have 

60s, launch FontBook, or look inside [~/]Library/Fonts.

> I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 -  
> it it all still done with suitcases?

Sort of, but they're pretty user transparent nowadays. If you have  
60s, launch FontBook, or look inside [~/]Library/Fonts.

May I suggest the free Linotype Font Explorer X, if you really need 

to get into managing fonts. "sins" - hah!

On Jan 21, 2007, at 6:22 PM, Peter Castine wrote:

> On 21-Jan-2007, at 18:46, Nick Rothwell wrote:

>> I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 - 

> Sort of, but they're pretty user transparent nowadays. If you have 

> 60s, launch FontBook, or look inside [~/]Library/Fonts.

> Peter Castine +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter

> Interface Building for |home | chez nous|

> Max/MSP Extremely cool |bei uns | i nostri|

May I suggest the free Linotype Font Explorer X, if you really need  
to get into managing fonts. "sins" - hah!

> On 21-Jan-2007, at 18:46, Nick Rothwell wrote:
>
>> I've actually not explored font maintenance since Apple System 7 -  
>> it it all still done with suitcases?
>
> Sort of, but they're pretty user transparent nowadays. If you have  
> 60s, launch FontBook, or look inside [~/]Library/Fonts.
>
> --------------    http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/    -------------
> Peter Castine             +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
>                                Universal Binaries on the way
> iCE:  Sequencing,  Recording &
>       Interface  Building  for                   |home    | chez nous|
>       Max/MSP   Extremely cool                   |bei uns |  i nostri|
>       http://www.dspaudio.com/                   http://www.castine.de
>
>

safest fonts