Design philosophy: all information in this web site should be accessible to the intended audience regardless of platform, browser, or size of screen. Graphics are kept to a minimum to reduce download times. If you see a frame or an animated GIF, feel free to flame me mercilessly.

This site uses fully compliant cascading style sheets (CSS). Older browsers should display text in their default fonts, while more recent browsers will all display fully formatted text. (However, the styles sheets will look best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 or above.) The site also complies with major accessibility standards.

Colophon

The base font for this page is Trebuchet MS, a free font from Microsoft designed for on-screen readability at small point sizes. The headlines are 32 pt Times bold italic, combining elegance, classical proportions, and compactness.

The logo is variation on the original logo from Aldus PageMaker and depicts Aldus Manutius, a student of Johannes Gutenberg and inventor of italics. This is to echo the roots of desktop publishing, both in the 1450s and the 1980s. The logo uses Courier from ITC to evoke the feel of metal type and Poetica from Adobe Systems to evoke the era of hand lettering.

Made on a Macintosh using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Colophon Three Alphabet

When Adobe Systems, Inc. released PostScript, it revolutionized computing and printing. As part of their efforts to popularize it and teach people to program in PostScript, Adobe released a disk full of example programs written in PostScript. Among them was an alphabet of artistic letters generated by the laser printer. As a public service, I have converted these .ps files to PDF format and made them available on the world-wide web. Click on the letter below to see the corresponding piece of art. Note: You will need the free Acrobat Reader (or the PDF plug-in) from Adobe to view these files.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Following is the original ReadMe file that was distributed with the Colophon 3 Alphabet disk. Please note that the file is dated 1987. The phone numbers and addresses are probably outdated.

Before starting:

Our intent in distributing this diskette is to inspire and inform. By examining the code for the alphabet you will see how these special effects were produced. You are encouraged to use this code directly, change it, incorporate it into your own work and go beyond what you see here, to produce something new and exciting. Use this code as a starting point from which you can build logotypes, headlines and special graphics.

To print the files which produce the alphabet from the Colophon 3 Showpage section you will need access to a POSTSCRIPT® printer.

About the Alphabet:

This diskette contains 26 POSTSCRIPT files taken from the Colophon 3 Showpage section. Each file is a short POSTSCRIPT program. These programs demonstrate different techniques and ideas for manipulating POSTSCRIPT fonts. In producing Colophon 3 we tried to show the variety of fonts available on POSTSCRIPT printers. Some of these fonts are not built into every POSTSCRIPT printer, but they are available as downloadable fonts. If you do not have these fonts, you should change the font to one which you can access, otherwise the printer will substitue Courier for the missing font. All POSTSCRIPT fonts except for the built-in Courier are described by their outline. Not being an outline font, Courier may cause some programs which manipulate the character path to fail.

The POSTSCRIPT programs which produce the alphabet are plain text files. To edit them use a text editor such as "Edit" or "QUED". Alternatively a word processor may be used if the files are then saved with the "text only" option. Neither a text editor nor a word processor have been included on this Colophon 3 diskette.

To change the font, look for the "findfont" operator, it is this POSTSCRIPT command which selects a font. Preceding the "findfont" operator is the font name, change this name to your selected font. For many of the programs if the font is changed the effect will not look the same and other parts of code will need to be adjusted. At a minimum you will always find these outline fonts in a POSTSCRIPT printer.

Times-Roman Helvetica Courier

Times-Italic Helvetica-Oblique

Times-Bold Helvetica-Bold

Times-BoldItalic Helvetica-BoldOblique

Example

find:

/Galliard-BoldItalic findfont 200 scalefont setfont

change to:

/Times-BoldItalic findfont 200 scalefont setfont % was Galliard-BoldItalic

Adobe POSTSCRIPT fonts are available from Adobe Systems Inc. or an authorized Adobe Type Library dealer. For the name of the Adobe Systems' typeface dealer nearest you, or for more information on the type library call us at 1-800-29-ADOBE(outside California) or 1-800-85-ADOBE(inside California).

About SendPS:

This is an application program written at Adobe Systems Inc. SendPS is used to send POSTSCRIPT code directly to a POSTSCRIPT printer over AppleTalk®. To use SendPS, launch the program and then select "Download POSTSCRIPT File" from the "File" menu. From the dialog box pick the POSTSCRIPT program you wish to send. If there is an error in the POSTSCRIPT code, an error message from the printer will be shown on screen. Messages sent from the printer will be stored in a printer log file. This log file can be found in the volume from which SendPS was launched.

Programming in POSTSCRIPT

If you would like to learn more about PostScript programming we have produced two books published by Addison-Wesley, the PostScript Language Reference Manual (ISBN 0-201-10174-2, $22.95, 336 pages, illustrated) and the PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook (ISBN 0-201-10179-3, $16.95, 256 pages, illustrated).

These books should be available in you local bookstore. Most bookstores will

accept orders using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) codes given above. If you are unable to locate the books in your area, Adobe will sell them for list price plus shipping and handling.

The prices are:

PostScript Language Reference Manual (@$28.00 in the 48 states, $33.00 elsewhere) PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook (@$22.00 in the 48 states, $27.00 elsewhere) Both books (@$45.00 in the 48 states, $50.00 elsewhere)

To purchase the books from Adobe Systems, send your check and order to:

POSTSCRIPT Language Books
Adobe Systems Incorporated
1870 Embarcadero Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303

POSTSCRIPT is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. AppleTalk is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Incorporated.

STEPPS -- Stop Tax Exempt Private Property Sprawl -- Framingham