AZERTYis the title of this year’s conference gazette, being the firstfive keys of French keyboard layout. This means there will probably be more mistakes than usual – the editorialteam are typical Brits, which malheureusement means evenour collective French is strictly limited to say the least.Although there will be French articles and translatedcontributions, it will probably be predominantly English.Then again, this is also up to yourselves; we are hoping forattendee participation. Consider this an open invitation tobring articles, adverts, questions, opinions – anything, please – to our second floor bunker in the Salle St-Clair (turn right at the top of the stairs).We have been asked howmany editions we intend to publish during the next threedays. The answer, of course, is as many as our energy,material, and remaining laser printer toner will allow.We are without the next-door printing office that producedlast year’s Reading issue. We’d like also to add an ad for the webtypo site. When and if Clive gets out of bed, this willbring you nearly real-time news from the conference. This is thanks to Imaginet who have struggled with netconnections here for many hours. Now read on.

For techies and font designersPyrus will be demonstrating

the latest developments in theirrange of software for type creationon Mac and Windows PCs in thelabo typo at 13.30 tomorrowSaturday. That’s in Salle St Clair 1,in the attic.

St Bride’s under threat, againSt Bride printing library,

tenaciously defended by the typecommunity from a series of threatsover the past few years, is underthreat again.This time the powersin the City of London plan toeliminate the job of librarian andmove the library resources to anobscure part of London where wecan’t get guided access. Find outmore and how to help by attendinga talk by Mike Parker and JamesMosley in cafetypo (St Clair salle2) in the attic tomorrow Saturdayat 2.30pm.

The Porchez’s Beret EveningThe auction for ATypI will be

in room Salle Rhône 3B at6:30pm, viewing from 4pm. Thecash raised will go to the ATypIjournals and so forth. The theme,as last year, is type memorabiliaand hats.

If you have promised to bringan item for the auction, andhaven’t already checked it in withDave Farey, please get it toreception by 11am on Saturday.That means you Robin Nicolas and James Montalbano, CynthiaHollandsworth and GiambatistaBodoni.

We shall have over 60 items to sell, from wood-type woodbooks and wood posters; JimParkinson's original and unique'Rolling Stone' masthead roughs; a pair of Phil Baines cycling shortsmade from two Type '90 goodybags (don't ask).

Typographer health watch?Not only have we suffered

the loss of Gerard Blanchard andPhilip Grimshaw in the last fewmonths, but other luminaries are in poor health at the moment. Robert Norton, who lobbied foryears to have ATypI held in Lyon,must stay close to home while he’s receiving daily treatment. And this week Ed Benguait isundergoing colon surgery. We hope both recover shortly.Medical specialists have found nosupport for the rumour thattypography is hazardous to yourhealth.

Why that two-letter name?Adobe sources, plied with

liberal doses of orange juice,revealed the origin for the codename K2. It seems that theengineering team in Seattle (homeof Starbuck’s Coffee) had tired ofthe long succession of coffee-related code names they’d beenusing, and turned to the locallandscape for inspiration. Shuksan,a scenic mountain, became thecode name for the major overhaulof the PageMaker codebase. Later,when this project got revived andrefocused, they decided an evenmore ambitious mountain namewas in order, and chose K2 (thesecond-highest mountain in theworld). We’re not sure why theychose they second-highestmountain; perhaps an inferioritycomplex played a role.

Twy not?Michael Twyman, giant of the

typography world, arrived thismorning and was reportedlyharrassed by conferencefunctionaries as he was notregistered for the conference. Theprofessor, accompanied by hisdazzling partner Nin, is also a highmuck-a-muck in ATypI. Theglamorous couple, fresh from theirFrench chateau, are sweeping byand dropping in to see a fewfriends. A conference officialreportedly said: I don’t care whohe is: no pay, no play.

ATypI (Assosiation Typographique Internationale) Conference Gazette / Lyon 1998 / Vendredi 23rd Octobre

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What’s this? - FontLab for Macintosh!Yes, it`s within sight now!

FontLab Composer for Macintoshis released this month (as soon asmanufacturing catches up withdevelopment) and the first demoversion of FontLab 3.0 for Mac isbeing shown by Yuri Yarmola inthe LaboTypo (come by any time,but be sure not to miss the officialpresentation on Saturday at 13:30).

So when will the real finalversion of FL3/Mac finally hit thestreets? Your guess is as good asanyone`s. In fact, since we`ve beenso lousy at predicting final releasedates we`re starting a betting pool(an ATypI exclusive!). The winnergets a free copy of FL3/Mac. Hereare the rules:

1. Decide which date you thinkis most likely for the release ofFontLab 3.0 Macintosh version.(Hint: the target release date is 1March 1999, the first day of theSeybold Spring Seminar inBoston.)

2. Write/type/print your choiceof date (only one entry per person,thank you) on a card (post card,meal card, credit card, ... any kindof card) along with your name andaddress.

3. Give the card to Ted Harrison here at the ATypIconference or mail it to:Pyrus FL3/Mac poolBox 465, Millersville, MD 21108 USA

4. When the day of reckoningfinally arrives we`ll check all theentries and see who came closest.That lucky person gets the freecopy of the software.

5. If more than one person isastute enough to guess the correctdate then we`ll put all the correctentries in a hat and draw onewinner.

So put on your thinking cap;come to the FontLab demo to seehow far along we are now; andgive it your best shot.

Going DutchThe bookshop (above) seems

to be a success. If the Dutchbookstore selection seemsparticularly cheap, this is probablybecause they haven’t changed thecurrency. There’s conversion liston the wall.

Delegates dashing down doors forweb access ...

Frustrated ATypI delegates,recalling the astounding webaccess in the Fringe Lab at lastyear’s Reading conference, havebeen confounded in their attemptsto download the lastest beta ofWindows 1900 (oops, you meanit’s not Y2K yet? – we meant2000) in the LaboTypo.Unfortunately, whereas inReading, we had a full multi-gigabyte backbone directlyconnecting to the internet, here inLyon, we have been limited to amere 64K ISDN connection.Please bear with us, and be patient.

Public notice templateAnyone wanting to contribute

to the subsequent issues ofAZERTY can leave or, indeed,type pieces on the G3 Mac sat onthe table-island in the middle ofthe Salle St-Clair. Don’t forget togive it a sensible name.

Le ColofonThis publication was brought

to you by; Jack AndrewEduard ‘arrisonStuart BailéMarc BarriereHenri BlancPierre FréredieuJohn Frank Porchez et les amis on Macs and HP printer.

... and Justin Howes will alsobe talking with Mike Parker andJames Mosley tomorrow. Fin.

1

99% in Adobe DistillerThis is a petition for a change in the default settings of

Adobe Distiller. It’s a small change for Adobe, but a significantone for type designers and font publishers. The default settingof the threshold percentage for font subsetting is currently setto 35%. This setting decides how many characters of a fontneed to be used in order for Distiller to decide to embed theentire font, rather than a subset with only the characters thatare actualy used in the document. A couple of sentenceswritten in one font will already cause the complete font to beembedded in the PDF document with the 35% threshold.

It is possible (and not even difficult) to lift embedded fontsfrom PDF documents. When users of our fonts make PDFdocuments and embed these fonts, receivers of thosedocuments will have access to the fonts as well. This isperhaps not a problem if the documents are used within acompany that has a site license. But it is a serious problemwhen the documents are published online, or on some CD.

Changing the default percentage for font subsetting to 99%will decrease the number of complete fonts embeddded in PDFdocuments, and thus the exposure our typefaces will get toillicit use. Subsetted fonts are a lot less attractive to un-embedand a lot less useful to use.

Making it impossible to get the fonts out in the first placewould of course be preferable, but considering that it is astructural problem, this might need more time to solve.

In the meantime, there is something that can be done. Thedefault value modification will not affect the user’s ability toset the value to other percentages should this be necessary, butit will make a difference as a lot of users never get that far andjust use the application the way it is shipped. Thus fewerdocuments with complete fonts, less exposure of ourtypefaces. It would be a small change for Adobe but a bigchange for the people on this list.

Send your support to erik@letterror.com, or tell Erik vanBlokland in person. (tall dutch dude)

Supper at Hotel de Congrés For any of you staying at Hotel de Congrés, here is a brief

resume of our experience of supper last night. We chose the setmenu which allowed for an adequate choice of either lespoissons or deliciously cooked duckling for the entrée, but leftlittle for the veggies among us. The starters also offered ahappy selection of either pan fried cakes (we think fish!) or adeliciously textured mushroom crème soup, which visuallyappealed with an island de champignons in the middle of ayellow crème sea; the trés jolie atol topped with a corrianderpalm tree.

As the house white flowed, good pre-conference chat wasallowed to traverse courses unnoticed, partly due to thewaitress clearing the plates a tad too hastily. Typically englais,we let it pass without comment, but we were slightly miffedallbeit only for a few moments until the cheeses turned up on atrolly. A beautiful selection including Roquefort, and a near-flowing creamy brie, served with crispy bread rolls.

Naturally we cleaned the pallette with a perfectlyproportioned espresso both in strength and cup-size. All in all,an excellent dejeuner, despite the fact noone could explain theproduct placement of the bond movie ‘Domain ne mourtjamais’ on the beer glasses – look out for them!

Photos from the Musée de l’Imprimerie, (captions in Franglais)

1. Michael Harvey: he is photographer or stone cutter?We see him always with a camera…

2. We do the next edition of AZERTY with Linotype asLinotype is the main sponsor of our conference and give tous its lastest product.

3. Sumner come alone this year. No wife on thehorizon?

4. Mike Parker have an exclusive news on Times NewRoman? John Hudson he listen intently ...

Octavo’s latest EditionGeoffrey Chaucer. The Works

Now Newly Imprinted. Kelmscott Press,London, 1896. 2 CDs, US$50

‘The Kelmscott Chaucer is the greatestand most influential book never to havebeen read. This apparent paradox is due totwo factors. First, its appearance, thedensity of type and illustration, theinterwoven magnificence of the page, are sooverwhelming that the would-be reader issimply defeated by its wealth. The eye,invited to admire so much visualmagnificence, is absorbed by it and straysaway from the actual text. Secondly, thebook was originally expensive and is noweven more so; those who turn its pages doso with care lest they mar its clean whitepages or strain its elegant binding. Itscreator, William Morris, would have beenmystified and annoyed by these reactions.To him, the creation of a book in whichtext, decoration, and illustration were asingle whole, none of whose parts could beseparated from each other, was a tribute tothe text, the greatest tribute that could bepaid to it.

No greater tribute to the greatest Englishpoet of the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer,could be paid than to give his works thefinest possible form. The KelmscottChaucer was widely hailed as themasterpiece when it appeared on June 26,1896, and rapidly sold out. It is not the leastof the abiding results of Morris’s life andwork to set the standard by which thequality of book production is measured.Still more important is the respect due to agreat book, and if all the KelmscottChaucers, scattered about the world, have apurpose today it is to encourage suchrespect. Worldly wisdom may require mostof them to be preserved from the hands thatMorris would have wished to turn theirpages; that they can now do so in electronicform is surely a fate that he would haveapplauded.’– Nicolas Barker on the CD

Octavo Corporation is a publisher ofrare books and manuscripts with digitaltools and formats through partnerships withlibraries, museums, and individuals. Usinghigh-resolution digital imaging technology,Octavo releases digital rare books on CD-ROM as Adobe PDF files which can beviewed on and printed from manycomputing platforms. You can view eachpage and the binding on your computerscreen, zoom in to magnify up to 600% insome cases, and search, copy and paste the“live text” placed invisibly behind the pageimages which is available for selectedEditions. Also included in each edition iscollation and provenance, as well ascommentary about the book by a notedexpert in its field. More info athttp://www.octavo.com/bookbag/index.html

Apple shows offApple’s new advanced typography

systems will be on view in LaboTypotomorrow (Saturday) afternoon. PeterLofting and John Jenkins from Apple willbe demonstrqting ATSUI (we have no ideawhat this stands for but some of the lettersmay meqn Apple, Unicode, Typography,System).

If you want to know what all this means,come to LaboTypo at 3.45pm tomorrowSaturday. LaboTypo is at Salle St Clair 1,up in the attic.

Oh, hang on. ATSUI stands for ‘AppleType Services for Unicode Imaging’, and isalso Japanese for ‘hot’!. Underlying Technology

ATSUI is an extension of QuickDrawand uses the same core text-drawingtechology as traditional QuickDraw text.This includes the graphics environment,coordinate space, graph port, clippingregion, fonts and glyph caches. QuickDrawowns the text and attributes.

Like QuickDraw GX (and unlikeQuickDraw), ATSUI is based on an object-based layout model, has advancedtypography features like bidirectional text,ligatures, and combing characters, iscompatible with existing printer drivers andfonts, and uses Apple AdvancedTypography (AAT) layout tables for fonts.

Unlike QuickDraw GX, ATSUIsupports full Unicode (and no othercharacter encoding), provides anti-aliastext, uses opaque style and text layoutobjects, and is based on style-basedattributes.Overview of ATSUI Implementation

The overarching goal of ATSUI’s designis to enable you to draw Unicode textcorrectly without requiring sophisticatedunderstanding of text encoding or drawingissues. Some of the complications involvedin drawing Unicode text includebidirectional text (Arabic and Hebrew),letters joining, ligating, and rearrangingthemselves within words (Indic), andcombining characters that require ligation,morphing, and other advanced effects(Latin-based languages).

The traditional text-drawing model usedin QuickDraw is based on drawing singleruns of text at a time with style information(font, point-size, color) stored in thegrafport. When the user drew text with

more than one font, size, or style, they hadto call the QuickDraw function DrawTextmore than once.

Every call to DrawText required the pento be explicitly or implicitly moved. Thisdidn’t work well for non-English languagesand scripts. As a result, most Macintoshdevelopers did not implement full textinternationalization.

ATSUI is based on an attributed textmodel. With ATSUI, all you have to keeptrack of is the text and its style run and linelayout attributes. Style run attributesinclude font, point size, color, width,justification, kerning, and ligature splitting.If you do not set an attribute, its defaultvalue will be used. ATSUI draws ormeasures the text as a unit as appropriate.Each attribute has a tag, value, and sizeassociated with it. Collections of attributesare stored in style objects. The text layoutobject maintains the relationship betweenthe text and its associated styles. The textlayout is a typographic shape used to drawand measure the styled text.

This implementation design allowsdevelopers to use ATSUI at different levelsof sophistication:

Simple Typography: ATSUI provides aneasy-to-use mechanism for creating single-style run text layout objects. These areuseful for dialog boxes or other situationswhere relatively unsophisticated stringpresentation is required.

Sophisticated Typography: ATSUI alsoprovides for more sophisticated typography,supporting multi-line text layout objects.You can also specify justification,alignment, and individual positions androtations for each character.

Line Layout: The most sophisticatedtype of typography, line layout allows youto perform kerning, tracking, shifting andjustification, alignment, ligature formation,contextual glyph substitution, textrearrangement, text highlighting (includingdiscontiguous hightlighting for text withmultiple directions), hit-testing, multiple-language text handling, and line-breaking.

Frances Wakeman BooksFrances Wakeman Books is pleased to

announce the release of Mini List No.2devoted exclusively to Typography andType Specimens. It contains over 250 itemsincluding copies of Hermann Zapf’s FederUnd Stichel and TypographischeVariationen, and the first English edition of Jan Tschichold’s Asymmetric Typography

Catalogues are available from: Frances Wakeman Books, 2 Manor Way,Kidlington, Oxford OX5 2 BD, UK. Email: fwbooks@globalnet.co.uk Tel:+44 (0)1865 378316 / Fax:+44 (0)1865 378934 and –http://www.bibliocity.com/home/wakemanhttp://www.abebooks.com/home/fwbooks