OS X and Condensed Text... Help!

[scott_manelis]

Hi there,

I have a layout which prints great using OS 9, but under OS X there are problems.

I'm using a PostScript font, with the style of condensed.

On screen it looks fine. When printed the text seems to have normal spacing, but the characters are scaled thinner, with much more space between them.

There is no problem with OS 9. I've tried two different printers and two different Macs, each time with the same result.

BTW, this can be seen in Preview, or if you print out to paper.

Are there problems printing postscript from within OS X? Is there a workaround?

Thanks much

[scott_manelis]

Just a follow up:

I contacted FileMaker tech support, and they made it sound as though this was a known problem due to "printing problems with OS X".

Looks like an eventual bug fix is the only solution.

[mborgens]

I just wanted to follow-up on this topic. I have my first major move to OS 10 and it isn't going well. The font problem isn't just limited to condensed text! Helvetica 8, 9 and 10 pt plain text print badly, but bold seems fine. I'm going to play around with this later today. Has anyone checked most of the fonts out yet? It this issue fixed with FM6?

mb

[kenneth2k1]

I do beleive it is a known issue with OS10 as far as how it prints certain fonts. I think it has something to do with post script or .pdf engine, or something like that.

I dont know about OSX Jaguar.

Ken

[mborgens]

I just have to say, this is a little beyond frustrating. I'm meeting on Thursday with a client and am now going to have to tell her that dual platform program I'm just about ready to deliver isn't quite dual platform. Shame on me for not checking on OS10. I guess I have come to expect something out of Apple and FM they can no longer deliver, font management! From the makers of Desktop publishing and WYSIWYG.

mb

[kenneth2k1]

Dont give up hope yet!

My OSX knowledge is limited, but i'll try to help. I know that FMI suggests only using three basic fonts for cross-platforms: Arial, Times, and another one I can't think of right now. You said that the problem was with Helvetica and other condensed text. Unless I missed it, you didn't say what fonts you are using. You may want to try Arial plain. When running a solution cross-platform, my experience has been that FM will try its best to replace the font if it's not one of the above three, but may come up unknown.

I wonder if anyone else has info on this, but can you install PCL drivers on Mac OSX? If it is a PS problem, why not try PCL to print?

Ken

[Paul Derby]

I am trying to print Monaco plain 8 pt text condensed and OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) drops out quite a bit of the output. If I deactivate condensed printing seems to be normal. Right now I'm on FileMaker Developer 5.5. I have 6.0 on order but suspect this is an OS problem. Not good..... this wrecks quite a few of my reports that need a condensed monospaced font. I had no problems under OS 9, but we don't run OS 9 anymore.