Font Converters Details

Battle of the Font Converters
Article by Ken Hancock, (c) 1991 Ken Hancock
Tests by Ken Hancock and Dave Platt

Metamorphosis Professional 2.0
Altsys Corporation
269 W. Renner Road
Richardson, TX 75080
214/680-2060
List Price: $149
MacConnection Price: $87

FontMonger 1.0.3
Ares Software Corporation
P.O. Box 4667
Foster City, CA 94404-4667
List Price: $99
MacConnection Price: $62

With the recent release of System 7 and TrueType, people have started going type-crazy. What Adobe started by opening the Type 1 font format and releasing Adobe Type Manager, TrueType will increase ten-fold. When Apple first introduced the Macintosh, people oohed-and-ahhed at actually seeing different fonts and styles on their screens. Apple introduced the "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" (WYSIWYG) concept to the mass market and heralded it as a major achievement. Now, with Apple’s TrueType, the what-you-see and what-you-get actually looks darn good.

Currently there are well over 100 public domain and shareware typefaces available in Type 1 format for ATM (I have a directory of 144 and climbing). With System 7, though, the demand for TrueType fonts will skyrocket. Currently, only FontStudio 2.0 will allow type designers to create TrueType fonts. (Altsys’s Fontographer will surely follow in its footsteps shortly.) For those of you who can’t wait and want hundreds of fonts NOW, Metamorphosis Professional or FontMonger may be just what you’re looking for.