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Adobe Type Library Reference Book

a Book review by George M Engel

type reference spread I've been fascinated with type faces for as long as I can remember. Arlene says I was probably there when the Romans inscribed Trajan's column in early Rome around 114 AD (I do like the Trajan font, by the way.) While I may not be that old, I sometimes feel older than dirt, in that I remember Apple's original bitmap fonts and the Font/DA Mover. (enlarge)

For most application programs today, when you click on the Font Menu and select a font, you have a preview of what the font looks like. That wasn't always the case.

The 'Adobe Type Library Reference Book' is not for the casual user! The casual user is normally comfortable with the fonts that come with their computer and their associated programs.

scripts reference Then you have the program junkies who like to do things like menus, calendars, and the occasional little newsletter-like things, that require the addition of some good inexpensive fonts.

When you graduate to the serious and semi-serious side of fonts, you start to get familiar with fonts from Adobe, ITC, Agfa and Linotype. These are serious companies with expensive fonts for production work.

Most professional people today use the OpenType font format which was developed by Microsoft and Adobe. OpenType is a cross-platform file format designed to look good, no matter which computer platform you use. It's an extension of the TrueType format that supports Postscript data and all kinds of new features, like expanded character sets with things like glyphs, oldstyle characters and numbers, fractions, swashes, small caps and many other items for superior printing capabilities. (enlarge)

spread But how would you know what those capabilities are without a layout of some kind? That's what this reference book provides.

This book is a 346 page book. The first 10 pages are in English. Pages 11 thru 55 are in other languages. Pages 57 thru 332 are the Font Face Reference pages, from Aachen to Adobe Thai Std. After that, there are Additional reference pages, followed by a font index listing by page number, and character set pages. Definitely for Advanced and Professional users.

When you click here, you can save up to 30% on all Adobe books, and help support the Design & Publishing Center at the same time!

... and that too I highly recommend!

George Engel
George Engel, Naked Serviceman, Mac Guru, author, reviewer, and editor at large

coverAdobe Type Library Reference Book
by Adobe Systems Inc.
List Price: $44.99; our price: $29.69, you Save: $15.30 (34%)
Paperback, 346 pages
Published by the Adobe Press; 3 edition; English
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches

George Engel

George Engel has been a computer guru probably longer than he will admit -- as a computer expert, he authored The Naked Serviceman book, about his journey through the history of Apple's Macintosh as owner/founder of an authorized Apple Service Center. He owned one of the first Apple II computers as well as one of the first Macintosh 128s. He hangs out with the Lakeland User Group in sunny Florida

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