Postscript fonts not needed for Laser output?

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

I'm familiar with the need to use Postscript fonts for any output going to a Postscript printer, and that non-postscript fonts (i.e. most fonts that come pre-installed in most programs) will "view" fine but are unusable if going to a postscript printing device. But I'm wondering why a desktop laser printer can read (and output) non-postscript fonts. How does their technology differ in making non-postscipt fonts printable? Thanks.

Gordon

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Gordon,

That may have been true once upon a time, but good quality TT or OpenType
fonts will output just fine to a PostScript device these days.

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Len, but I was actually foggy about the other way around. If fonts are "not" Postscript fonts but the fonts that come pre-loaded in Illustrator or page layout programs, why would desktop laser printers be able to print them but Postscript printing devices not be able to print them? Thanks.

Gordon

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Gordon,

In line with Len, the postscript printers I know can make normal laser prints. Which printing devices are you referring to?

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

I apologize, I'm not making this real clear. When you design a job in Illustrator, Indesign or Quark and are printing to a postscript printer, you generally load postscript (Type 1?) fonts so it will correctly output your job with the fonts you intended. If you do not load postscript fonts, although the font may look ok on screen it will usually default on output (to a postscript printer again) to the default type (Helvetica on Quark, Myriad on Illustrator, etc.).

I'm thinking though that if a job is designed using the programs pre-installed fonts, which to my understanding are not Type 1 (or postscript fonts), and you print to a desktop Laser jet printer the fonts still print ok. If this is indeed correct, my question was asking why a desktop laser printer would not need to have postscript fonts used in order to print properly? Sorry if this is still confusing. Thanks again.

Gordon

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Gordon,

1) Fonts that ship with Adobe applications are either PostScript Type 1
fonts or OpenType fonts.

2) Fonts or any flavour will output fine to PostScript or Non-PostScript
printers PROVIDED THE FONT IS RESIDENT ON THE SYSTEM.

3) When you send a file out of house for printing, you cannot guarantee that
the font WILL be present on their system (regardless of which font or which
flavour of font). When it isn't resident, THEN you get problems, and there
is more chance that a PostScript font WILL be resident than a TTFont,
particularly when also going cross-platform.

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Gordon,

Have you considered the PDF option? With embedded fonts, of course.

[Poul_Solbjerg_Holst@adobeforums.com]

When saving as Illustrator eps, cheching include fonts, the fonts will
be embedded in the eps for output on any rip, but not for editing the
eps on another system where the fonts used in the document are not
resident. This works just fine, for output the fonts does not need to
be installed on a printers system if they are included in the eps...

Poul Solbjerg

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Poul, Jacob and Len.

Poul and Jacob: I do understand your points to embed the fonts or make a PDF which allows for fonts to print even if they are not resident in the system. Thanks for confirming this information but what I was most interested in was not the practical ways to make it work, but the educational/technical concept that makes it happen.

What's puzzling to me... and I'll make up a scenario...

I open up Indesign. I chose a font that is "pre-loaded" into Indesign but that I do not have resident on my system. (I may be wrong about this but I was under the impression that fonts that came with my system are not the same as fonts that I have through ATM. Proper use would require me to load the selected ATM font into my system to make it resident).

But assuming I do not have any ATM loaded, and I just use the pre-loaded Indesign program fonts to do the job.

I'm assuming that my document will not print to a postscript printer because the resident fonts are not loaded. But...it seems if I try to print this same job on a desktop laser printer it "does" print out correctly. My question was how does the desktop printer reads the fonts correctly but with a postscript printer you would have to go through the additional step of loading the postscript font into your system to make it a resident?

Thanks for allowing a further explanation.

Gordon

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Gordon,

If the fonts are available to the application on the computer that is doing the printing, it will print fine.

It doesn't matter whether those fonts are available by virtue of being being installed under Windows and in the \Fonts folder, are available to Adobe applications by virtue of being located in \Program Files\Comman Files\Adobe\Fonts activated via ATM or embedded within the file - They will still print to either a PostScript or non-PostScript printer.

[Gordon_Anderson@adobeforums.com]

OK. thanks everyone for the information.

[Karen_C@adobeforums.com]

If you are not using a postscript printer the fonts are normally "rasterized" and print like mini bitmaps as in a PCL driver instead of a Postscript driver. Some printers come with both drivers and you can test this out that way.
When I send a job to print I select all and convert all text to outlines before making PDF. That way you get exactly what you want and cross platforms from PC to Mac easily for final output.