Subject: REVIEW: Fresh Fonts CD-ROM, Volume 1
From: [email-masked] (Iljitsch van Beijnum)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 16:11:24 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Danny Amor's Fresh Fonts Volume 1

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	Fresh Fonts is a CD containing some 200 different freely
distributable fonts.  They come in different formats:  DMF, Intellifont,
Truetype, Adobe and Amiga bitmap (some are colorfonts).

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Amiga Library Services
	Address:	610 N. Alma School Road, Suite 18
			Chandler, AZ 85224-3687
			USA

	Telephone:	(800) 804-0833
	FAX:		(602) 491-0048 (also telephone)

	E-mail:		[email-masked], [email-masked]

LIST PRICE

	Originally, the CD was distributed as shareware. I received a copy
along with an order for one of the Fresh Fish CD's. The shareware fee was $10
(US).

	The idea of a shareware CD has since been abandoned, the list price
is $19.95 (US) now.  The price is for the compilation only; it does not
include registration of the shareware fonts on the CD.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		A CD-ROM drive.

		Some Fast RAM, a faster processor, and an FPU greatly reduce
		the time needed to create bitmaps from the Intellifont files
		on the fly.

	SOFTWARE

		A CD-ROM filesystem.
	
		AmigaOS 2.0 or higher recommended, since from that version
		on, the Agfa Intellifont technology has been incorporated
		into the Amiga Operating System. With older versions, you are
		stuck with the bitmap versions of the fonts or to
		applications with their own scalable font logic.

		The Fresh Fonts CD is not limited to Amiga use only.
		However, I've only tested a number of Intellifont and bitmap
		fonts on my Amiga. Because the CD uses ISO 9660 level 2, it
		will most likely be unreadable by MSDOS systems.

COPY PROTECTION

	None. Any font on the CD may be copied.  Many are freeware, some are
	shareware, a few are "demos" (crippled).

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 1200, OS 3.0, 4 MB fast memory and a 14 MHz 68881 FPU.
	80 MB Maxtor IDE drive.
	Nec 210 CD-ROM with AmiCDROM 1.14.
	Dataflyer SCSI+ host adapter.
	HP Deskjet 510 printer.

INSTALLATION

	The fonts can be used straight off of the CD. There are two scripts
that make the necessary assigns. One only makes an extended FONTS:
assignment; the other also does some magic for PasTeX, Rashumon3 and a few
other programs. These scripts need AmigaDOS 2.0+.

	Alternatively, you can copy the fonts you like to a hard disk. The
documentation instructs you to consult your software's manual for this.

	I installed several Intellifont fonts in Wordworth 2 by copying the
appropriate #?.type files to Wordworth's Intellifont directory and then
running AgfaInstall.

	I also installed a number of fonts (Intellifont format) in my FONTS:
directory with the Intellifont program in my SYS:System directory. This can
be somewhat confusing since Intellifont wants you to select a directory
using a requester, but it doesn't show the files in that directory until you
have finished selecting directories. Apart from that, the installation is
extremely simple:  you are presented with a list of fonts in the directory
of your choice. You can click on those fonts the select them and then add
them to the system. After that they are available to every program that
knows how to use Amiga fonts. Bitmaps of the right size are computed when
that particular size is requested by an application.  I have no idea why
this procedure isn't mentioned in the CD's documentation.

REVIEW

	I have never encountered the concept "shareware CD" before, so I
guess an explanation is in order. The idea is that you get the CD for free.
If you like it, you pay the shareware fee, and if you don't, you give the
disc to someone else.  This concept did not work as well as expected:  the
shareware fees received cover just a fraction of the production costs.
Because there were still inquiries about the Fresh Fonts CD, it was decided
to sell the CD in a way similar to the Fresh Fish CD's.

	At first, I was a little annoyed by receiving a CD I didn't ask for.
Because of that, lack of time and the inconvenient way my CD-ROM drive was
hooked up, I didn't unwrap the CD until last week, some four months after I
received it.

	Anyway, I decided to have a look at the Fresh Fonts CD. And I was
immediately very impressed! At first only with the size of the CD's icon
(it's about half the width of my Workbench), shortly after that also with
the fonts on it. I used to do a little Desktop Video work, and in that I was
always on the lookout for new, good-looking fonts. How I wish I had this CD
in those days! All the fonts I looked at (about a third) are well-crafted.
They don't have the jagged edges often found in much converted fonts. There
are five categories of fonts:

	Deco
	Non-latin
	Sans serif
	Script
	Serif

	There are some nice colorfonts in the deco section. Shame they only
come in sizes 35 and 70. I couldn't find immediate use for most of the black
& white ones; I like the more conventional fonts better. Most of the
non-Latin fonts fall into the deco category as well, only some of the
Russian fonts look like something you could read for more than a couple
lines at a time. The Chinese font looks quite nice as well, but it has only
a few dozen characters. I didn't look at the script fonts, but I found a few
I like in the sans serif and serif sections.

	Apart from the standard Amiga Intellifont and bitmap format, the
fonts are also available as DMF, Truetype (Microsoft Windows) and the
industry standard Adobe (Postscript) format for maximum compatibility with
different platforms and applications.

DOCUMENTATION

	There is a directory "Documents" on the CD that contains both
AmigaGuide and HTML format documentation. The documentation is mainly in
English but there are some German and French pages as well. The various font
formats are explained, and the file tells something about the font. There is
also a picture that shows a sample of how the font looks. When using
Multiview you can see the picture by selecting a link, if Multiview isn't
available on your system AmigaGuide (on the CD) is used and you miss out on
the pictures. Of course you can also look at the HTML documentation. When
you double click this icon, Mosaic (presumably the "no Net" version) is
started from the CD. In Mosaic, you don't need to select a link to see the
font preview, it is shown as an inline image.

LIKES

	I like a lot of the fonts! They look good, no jagged edges. Also,
some thinking went into the way they were put on the CD. It's not too hard
to find a font you like after you've decided what kind of font suits the
purpose at hand.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	I dislike the lack of a way to get an overview of all fonts (of a
single category). I don't like it that some fonts are crippled (missing some
letters), particularly since you have to find out the hard way -- there is no
warning in the documentation. (However, I noticed this for only one font and
I haven't looked at every single font, so maybe this is only true for that
particular font.)

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I am not familiar with any similar products. When I compare the
Fresh Fonts collection to the selections of fonts that came with the
Workbench and with my word processor, Wordworth, I find that those, much
smaller, collections contain more fonts that I'd use on a day-to-day basis.
Most of the fonts on the Fresh Fonts CD are not suitable for large texts.
However, many are very nice for headings, flyers, video presentations and
more informal texts aimed to catch the eye.

BUGS, VENDOR SUPPORT AND WARRANTY

	There is a limited 90 day warranty on media defects. I didn't find
any bugs. I sent email to Fred Fish with a question about the current
pricing and got a reply the next day. I didn't try to contact Danny Amor.

CONCLUSIONS

	If you'd like to have a large number of very different, more exotic
fonts, this is a great CD. Don't expect to write a book with any of the
fonts on it, though. I'd give it four out of five stars.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1995 Iljitsch van Beijnum. All rights reserved.
Electronic distribution of this review is unlimited.

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