Related Info: Font Manager

Ghost Fonts

By Kurt Matthies, Dennis Ward, Macreations

Ghost Fonts

Copyright 1989 Macreations

This paper describes the technique known as Ghost Fonts, developed at Macreations to manage font name/number combinations in Macintosh-application documents. We invite all other Macintosh developers to adopt the Ghost Font technique. The address to obtain the no-cost license to do so appears at the end of this article. Licensees will receive automatic updates as we extend and improve the Ghost Font idea.

Font Management without Ghost Fonts

Initially, Macintosh font creators were required to register their fonts with Apple, who arbitrated and assigned font numbers. This policy assured the isomorphic relationship between font name and numbers, i.e., each font number corresponded to one and only one font family name. Therefore, Geneva was #3, Courier #22, Helvetica #21, etc. Developers relied on this assumption and published programs that stored the font number representation of the font in application data files. The problem with this approach, however, was that Apple reserved 128 of the available 256 numbers for Apple/Adobe fonts, and the number of requests for font number assignments soon exceeded the available numbers.

Not surprisingly, the clamor for font assignments made Apple soon decide that it shouldn’t be in the business of managing font number assignments after all--so it publicly changed the policy, and the Font/DA Mover program was rewritten to assign font numbers on a first-come-first-served basis. Unfortunately, this did little to solve the problem. Confusion reigned because applications created their data files with embedded font numbers--the file would thus be fine until it was moved to a machine where the fonts had been assigned different numbers, then the application either got the font wrong, or worse, the system crashed because a font number was referenced that didn’t exist on that machine.

In the midst of this mess, Apple released Macintosh Technical Note #191, which was titled Font Names. This tech note recommended that applications reference fonts by name, not by number. The Font Manager routines GetFontName and GetFNum form the basis for this management scheme, and examples of using these functions, as well as a suggested data structure and strategy for implementation are found in that note. Many programs on the market today use this technique (but not all--apparently Microsoft and a few others don’t read Apple’s programming documentation very carefully). Unfortunately for users, there are two issues not addressed by the Apple solution: first, there is no suggested way to use fonts referenced in a document but which are not installed in the current system (the problem that used to cause crashes); and second, what of the case where the same font is assigned a different number on two systems? When a file is moved between systems with mismatching font IDs, applications must detect this case and resolve the font number conflict. Macreations’ Ghost Font strategy offers a solution to both of these problems.

Ghost Fonts in Tycho™

During the development of our table editor, Tycho, we realized that if an application stores a document’s fonts by name in its data file, then that font can be used in the editing process, whether or not it exists in the current System! At Macreations, we define Ghost Fonts as those fonts that are referenced in a document but are not resident in the current System.

What this means is that if I’m using Palatino for the Entry cell settings font of a Tycho table (for those of you who are not familiar with our product, Entry cells make up the the body of a table) on my Mac II at the office, I can bring the Tycho file home and continue to edit the document using the Palatino font, even if I don’t have that font installed on the Mac Plus that I use at home. The text appears on my Plus in the default application font, which happens to be Geneva. I can change the size or face of the effected text, apply the uninstalled Palatino font to newly created cells or text, or otherwise format the document just as if Palatino were installed on the machine. The next day, when I open the edited data file back on the office Mac II, all Palatino referenced text appears in the correct font, since Palatino is installed on that machine.

User Interface Is Intuitive

Ghost Fonts are listed in the application’s font menu. To help distinguish the Ghost Fonts from the real ones, we place them at the bottom of the menu, set off from the real fonts with a dotted line, and preceded by a special character--Tycho prefixes the font name with an asterisk (*). For example, Palatino appears in the font menu as *Palatino if it is a Ghost Font. Menu feedback--the updating of the font menu with a check mark reflecting the current text selection--is no different using Ghost Fonts than in any other document processing software. The novelty of the divided font menu and the asterisk is very quickly overcome and users soon take Ghost Fonts for granted.

Managing the User Interface

Figure 1 demonstrates the Ghost Font user interface. Each document can contain its own unique set of Ghost Fonts. Take, for example, a standard system with its complement of fonts--Chicago 12, the Geneva family, Monaco 9 and 12, the New York, Helvetica and Times families. Now use that machine to open a few documents created on one that contains most of the available Apple/Adobe fonts. Chances are that these documents will contain style runs from these more expressive fonts and then again, not all in the same combination. One document might contain Bookman and Palatino, another Garamond and Zapf Chancery. A third might use only Helvetica. To support Ghost Fonts in an application that manages multiple open documents, the font menu must change to reflect the current document. As the user pulls down the font menu, the correct Ghost Font combination for the top document should be shown.

Figure 1 - An example of the font menu using Ghost Fonts. Fonts above the dotted line are resident in the system. Ghost Fonts appear below the line.

Implementation Strategy

Tycho can be thought of as a word processor for tables. Any number of cells can be defined and each cell can contain an unlimited number of text style runs. Because of the sheer number of style combinations in a Tycho document, for program efficiency our internal representation of a font is numeric; this is true for most other applications, as well. The cornerstone of our implementation strategy is the resolution of all font references whenever the document is opened or saved. The major assumption we’re making is the system font list will not change during the time the document is resident. Beware--when using programs like Master Juggler and Suitcase II, that manage font sets independently of the System, it’s possible to remove fonts from the System while other programs are resident and using those fonts. We discourage this practice, as do Master Juggler and Suitcase II--they hint at the consequences for taking such an action. Users who operate with such reckless software abandon get exactly what they deserve--file corruption, disk crashes, and the ever present bomb box.

Font representation by number is also the basis for the QuickDraw call TextFont , which sets the current GrafPort’s font and thus determines all subsequent text drawing. What you may not know is if you pass the number of a non-resident font to TextFont , it will draw all subsequent text in the application default font, whose value is kept in the parameter RAM (that small area of memory kept alive by the battery on your Mac; the parameter RAM holds other interesting data such as the current country and longitude of your Mac, your mouse and keyboard preferences as set in the Control Panel, your alarm setting, port configurations, and other custom information). The Macintosh global at location $984--apFontID-- contains this application font number and in most cases, its value will be the number that corresponds to Geneva. (Note that while TextEdit seems to have no problem with Ghost Fonts, text wrap and line layout will probably differ between the real font and the substituted one.)

Saving the Document Font List

When a document using Ghost Fonts is saved, a font list must be saved with the data file. This list contains one instance of all font names and numbers used in the document. Its purpose is to provide a mapping of all the fonts referenced in this file. Remember, the internal format of fonts in the file is numeric, so this map gives you the ability to find the name associated with any font number referenced in the file. One possible structure for the list is:

/* 1 */

 typedef struct FontMap {
 short  fontNumber;
 char   fontName [64];
 } FontMap, *FontMapPtr, **FontMapHdl;

 typedef struct FontList {
 short  count;
 FontMapfontMap [1];
 } FontList, *FontListPtr, **FontListHdl;

Font names are maintained as Pascal string (a Pascal string consists of a length byte followed by the characters of the string). The fontName structure member is defined here as a static array of 64 characters for simplicity. Your implementation can and should be more efficient and only write the necessary characters to the file. If you process the list sequentially, you’ll have no trouble calculating the next array element address when you read it back in. Note the FontMap member of the FontList structure is defined as a one-element array, but in practice, data instantiations of this type must be fit to the correct number of entries.

We build the font list from our text style list. It helps if your file structure consolidates all style information in one place. The following code fragment runs through a style list and writes the font list to disk. It uses a temporary buffer to keep track of font numbers already encountered so that each font is listed only once. Once this buffer is created, it loops through it, calling the function, getLocalFontName for each font number that it encounters to get the name of the font that corresponds to this number. It then writes the font number and name in the font list data structure.

/* 2 */

 /* styleListHdl is a handle to document’s style list */
 styleCount = (*styleListHdl)->count;
 
 /* allocate temp buffer to hold list of font IDs used */
 if (!(fontBufHdl = NewHandle (sizeof (short) * styleCount))))
 {
 err = kNotEnufMem;/* can’t allocate */
 goto doneErr;
 }
 
 localFontCount = 0;
 fontBuf = *fontBufHdl; 
 /* dereference handle for efficiency */
 /* 
 NOTE that nothing in this next loop compacts the heap so this pointer 
will be valid without locking the handle 
 */

 /* loop through style list, making one entry in fontBuf for each unique 
font ID in the list */
 for (styleIndex = 0; styleIndex < styleCount; styleIndex++)
 {
 /* get next style list element font number */
 fontID = (*styleListHdl)->style [styleIndex].font;

/* loop through fontBuf to see if we already have font */ 
 font = 0;
 while (font < localFontCount)
 {
 if (fontBuf [font] == fontID) /*found it, not unique*/
 break;

 font++;
 }
 
 if (font == localFontCount)
 /* this case if unique, add it */
 fontBuf [localFontCount++] = fontID; 
 }
 
 /* write the FontList.count (localFontCount) */
 if (err = writeDataSize (localFontCount, fileRef))
 goto doneErr;
 
 /* write FontList.fontMap (FontMap array) to disk */
 for (fontIndex = 0; fontIndex < localFontCount; fontIndex++)  
 { 
 fontID = fontBuf [fontIndex];
 getLocalFontName (fontID, fontName);
 
 /* write font number */
 nWrite = sizeof (fontID);
 if (err = FSWrite (fileRef, &nWrite, &fontID))
 goto doneErr;

 /* write font name */
 nWrite = fontName [0] + 1; 
 if (err = FSWrite (fileRef, &nWrite , fontName))
 goto doneErr;
 }

 DisposHandle (fontBufHdl); /* free temporary buffer */

Reading the Document Font List

On reading a file, each element of the Font List is categorized into one of three cases:

1. The font number returned by GetFNum is non-zero and the font name matches that returned by GetFontName. In this best of all possible cases, no special processing of the font is necessary, since it is installed in the System and can be used directly.

2. The font does not exist in the system. Detection of this case is documented in the Apple tech note: GetFNum returns 0 and the name returned by GetFontName does not equal the name of the font corresponding to this number. In this case we have found a candidate for ghost fontdom and this entry must be entered in the document’s Ghost Font table.

3. The GetFNum returns a non-zero value for this font, but the number does not match that stored in the document. We have a conflict in font numbering and something must be done to prevent the application from displaying the wrong font for any style that uses it. (In all likelihood, the user has moved a document between systems, and Font/DA Mover numbered the same font differently on the two systems. Alternatively, the user may be playing with Master Juggler or Suitcase II and installing/removing fonts dynamically. Either way, the problem is that we must adjust the number referenced in the document to the appropriate--read: current--number for the font.)

Resolving Font Numbering Conflicts

Font numbering conflicts occur when Font/DA Mover detects two fonts that share the same number. The volume of available fonts grows every year, and until all of us convert to the NFNT format, conflicts will become more commonplace; even using NFNT conflicts are possible, albeit not as likely. There are two alternatives that you can choose from to resolve this conflict. The first is to maintain a lookup table of document font number to system font number. This is the sort of strategy hinted at in the Apple tech note; however, going through a translation table each time that you set up a font for drawing can slow down your application. The other method is to change all those document font numbers where a conflict was detected to the system font numbers returned from GetFNum. The following code fragment processes the document’s font list, determines which of the three cases an element of this list falls into, and takes appropriate action. A temporary buffer FontMap is created to hold all fonts which have been detected as conflicting. The ghostFontTbl is created and attached to the document at the end of the process.

/* 3 */

 readSize = nRead = (Size) sizeof (short);   /* read font count */
 if (err = FSRead (fileRef, &nRead, &fontCount))
 goto doneErr;
 
 if (nRead != readSize)
 {
 err = kBadFileFormat;
 goto doneErr;
 }
 
 if (!(ghostFontTbl = NewHandle ((Size)(sizeof (FontList) + 
 (sizeof (FontMap) * (fontCount-1))))))
 {
 err = kNotEnufMem;
 goto doneErr;
 }

 if (!(fontMapHdl = NewHandle ((sizeof (short) * (fontCount << 1)))))
 {
 DisposHandle (ghostFontTbl);
 err = kNotEnufMem;
 goto doneErr;
 }
 
 MoveHHi (ghostFontTbl);
 HLock (ghostFontTbl);

 fontMapIndex = 0;

 (*ghostFontTbl)->count = 0;
 ghostFontPtr = (*ghostFontTbl)->fontMap;
 
 for (index = 0; index < fontCount; index++)
 {
 /* read font number */
 readSize = nRead = (Size) sizeof (short);   
 if (err = FSRead (fileRef, &nRead, &localFont))
 goto doneErr;
 if (nRead != readSize)
 {
 err = kBadFileFormat;
 goto doneErr;
 }

 /* read string length */
 readSize = nRead = 1;
 err = FSRead (fileRef, &nRead, localFontStr);
 /* error check */
 
 /* read font name string */
 readSize = nRead = localFontStr[0];
 err = FSRead (fileRef, &nRead, &localFontStr[1]);
 /* more error checking */


 /* get the system’s idea of a font number for this font */
 GetFNum (localFontStr, &systemFont);

 if (systemFont) /* the font exists */
 {
 if (systemFont != localFont) /* agree with ours ? */
 {
 /* case 3: font number conflicts */
 /* store localFont, system font in this map */
 *(*fontMapHdl + fontMapIndex++) = localFont;
 *(*fontMapHdl + fontMapIndex++) = systemFont;
 }
 else 
 {
 /* case 1: we agree on the number */
 /* nothing to do here but I wanted you to see where
 this case was detected */
 }
 }
 else /* font is not resident in this system */
 {
 /* this code is taken from Apple tech note */

 /* get system font name */
 GetFontName (0, systemFontStr);

 /* does it compare with our font name ? */
 if (!EqualString (localFontStr, systemFontStr, false,false))
 {
 /* case 2: this is a Ghost Font */
 pStrCpy (ghostFontPtr->fontName, localFontStr);
 ghostFontPtr->fontNumber = localFont;
 
 (*ghostFontTbl)->count++;
 ghostFontPtr++;
 }
 }
 } /* read font list loop */

 /* make the pass through the style list and change conflicting fonts 
*/
 count = (*styleListHdl)->count; 
 for (styleIndex = 0; styleIndex < count; styleIndex++)
 {
 for (index = 0 ; index < (fontMapIndex >> 1) ; index += 2)
 {
 localFont = *(*fontMapHdl + index);
 systemFont = *(*fontMapHdl + index + 1);
 
 if ((*styleListHdl)->style [styleIndex].font == localFont)
 {
 /* change style list */
 (*styleListHdl)->style [styleIndex].font = systemFont;
 break;
 }
 }
 }
 
 HUnlock (ghostFontTbl);
 disposeHdl (fontMapHdl); /* no longer need map */

 if ((*ghostFontTbl)->count)
 {
 count = sizeof (FontList) + (sizeof (FontMap) *((*ghostFontTbl)->count 
- 1));
 SetHandleSize (ghostFontTbl, (Size)count);
 if (err = MemErr ())
 goto doneErr;
 }
 else
 {
 DisposHandle (ghostFontTbl);
 ghostFontTbl = 0L;
 }

 theDoc->ghostFontList = ghostFontTbl;

Building the Font Menu

Your application’s font menu must change to reflect the Ghost Fonts in the current document. The function buildFontMenu uses the document’s Ghost Font table to add the Ghost Fonts to the end of the font menu. The logical place to call buildFontMenu is during the document activation function, i.e., the function that is called in response to an activate event. Note that buildFontMenu also initializes the menu if passed a null value.

/* 4 */

#define kGhostFontChar    ‘*’ /* asterisk flags these fonts */
#define kGhostFontDelim   ‘-’/* dashes delimit Ghost Fonts */
/* --------------------------------------------------------
 buildFontMenu - create the font menu from the document’s ghost list
 © 1989 by Macreations. All Rights Reserved
---------------------------------------------------------- */
MenuHandle
buildFontMenu (theDoc, fontMenuHdl)
 DocPtr theDoc;
 MenuHandle fontMenuHdl;
{
 register char   *fontNamePtr, *fontMapNamePtr;
 FontListHdlfontListHdl;
 FontMapPtr fontMapPtr;

 register short  count, font, fontCharCount;
 Str255 fontStr, delimitStr;

 if (!fontMenuHdl) /* first time, init menu */
 {
 delimitStr [0] = 1; /* create delimiter string */
 delimitStr [1] = kGhostFontDelim;

 AddResMenu (fontMenuHdl, ‘FONT’); /* create menu */
 AppendMenu (fontMenuHdl, delimitStr);
 InsertMenu (fontMenuHdl, hierMenu);
 }
 else if (count = CountMItems (fontMenuHdl)) /* strip old Ghost Fonts 
 { from menu */
 /* search menu from the bottom up */
 GetItem (fontMenuHdl, count, fontStr);

 /* search for dashed line delimiter,
 delete all items until found */
 while (fontStr[1] != kGhostFontDelim)
 {
 DelMenuItem (fontMenuHdl, count--);
 GetItem (fontMenuHdl, count, fontStr);
 }
 }
 
 if (theDoc)
 {
 if (fontListHdl = theDoc->ghostFontList)
 {
 if (count = (*fontListHdl)->count)
 {
 /* add the Ghost Fonts to the menu */
 for (font = 0; font < count; font++)
 {
 fontMapPtr = (*fontListHdl)->fontMap + font;

 /* get the font name, setup name buffer ptr */
 fontMapNamePtr = fontMapPtr->fontName;
 fontNamePtr = fontStr;
 
 /* prepend the asterisk to the name */
 fontCharCount = *fontMapNamePtr++;
 *fontNamePtr++ = fontCharCount + 1;
 *fontNamePtr++ = kGhostFontChar;
 
 /* copy into name buffer */
 while (fontCharCount--)
 *fontNamePtr++ = *fontMapNamePtr++;

 InsMenuItem (fontMenuHdl, fontStr, 999);
 }
 }
 }
 }

 return (fontMenuHdl);

} /* buildFontMenu */

Applying Fonts In Your Application

Using Ghost Fonts in your application should be as easy as using the real fonts. Fonts are applied to selected text based on a menu selection from the user. The normal application code looks something like this:

/* 5 */

void
getFont (theItem)
 short  theItem;
{
 Str255 menuStr;
 short  theFont;

 GetItem (fontMenu, theItem, menuStr);
 theFont = GetFNum (menuStr);
 applyFont (theFont,       /* and so on... */

With Ghost Fonts, use the function getLocalFNum instead of the toolbox trap GetFNum.

/* 6 */

 GetItem (fontMenu, theItem, menuStr);
 theFont = getLocalFNum (menuStr);
 applyFont (theFont,       /* and so on... */

Menu Feedback In The Application

Menu feedback is usually done with the same trap GetFNum. Given a font number in the selected text, the code to update the menu looks something like:

/* 7 */

 menuItems = CountMItems (fontMenu);
 for (i = 1 ; i <= menuItems; i++)
 {
 GetItem (fontMenu, i, menuStr);
 font = GetFNum (menuStr);
 CheckItem (fontMenu, i, font == theStyle->tsFont);
 }

With Ghost Fonts, menu feedback becomes a little more involved. The following function checks the correct font menu item, given a TextEdit style record and a corresponding document pointer. The document can be of any structure and only needs to somewhere have a handle to the Ghost Font list. The menu handle, fontMenu, is a global value in this example, but you could very easily make it local and pass it to the function.

/* 8 */

/* ----------------------------------------------------------
 fixFontMenu - check the correct font menu item
 © 1989 by Macreations
----------------------------------------------------------*/
static void
fixFontMenu (theDoc, theStyle)
 DocPtr theDoc;
 TextStyle*theStyle;
{
 register short  i, item, menuItems;
 short  font, count, base;
 Str255 menuStr;
 FontListHdlghostFontHdl;
 FontListPtrghostFontPtr;
 
 menuItems = CountMItems (fontMenu);

 /* uncheck all real fonts */
 for (i = 1 ; i <= menuItems; i++)
 {
 GetItem (fontMenu, i, menuStr);
 if (menuStr[1] == ‘-’)
 {
 base = i + 1; /* the first item of the Ghost Fonts */
 break;
 }
 font = getLocalFNum (menuStr);
 CheckItem (fontMenu, i, font == theStyle->tsFont);
 }
 
 /* now do the Ghost Fonts */
 if (theDoc)
 {
 if (ghostFontHdl = theDoc->ghostFontList)
 {
 if (count = (*ghostFontHdl)->count)
 {
 HLock (ghostFontHdl);
 
 ghostFontPtr = (*ghostFontHdl)->fontMap;
 
 for (i = 0; i < count; i++)
 {
 if ((base + i) > menuItems)/* done */
 break;

 font = ghostFontPtr->localFont;
 CheckItem (fontMenu, (i + base), font ==
 theStyle->tsFont);
 ghostFontPtr++;
 }

 HUnlock (ghostFontHdl);
 }
 }
 }
} /* fixFontMenu */

getLocalFontName and getLocalFNum

The two functions at the crux of this strategy are getLocalFontName, which returns a font name for a given font number, and getLocalFNum, which returns a font number for a given font name. Both functions search first the document Ghost Font table and then the system font list (by using GetFNum or GetFontName) and are guaranteed to return a value given parameters in either environment. These functions assume the global gTopDocument, which contains a pointer to the topmost document if one is open, or nil if there’s none.

/* 9 */

/* ------------------------------------------------
getLocalFNum - return a font number corresponding to a font name
 © 1989 by Macreations. All Rights Reserved
------------------------------------------------------ */
short
getLocalFNum (fontName)
 Str255 fontName;
{
 register short  i, count, strLen;
 short  font;

 register char   *menuNamePtr, *docNamePtr;
 FontListHdlfontListHdl; 
 FontListPtrfontListPtr;
 FontMapPtr fontMapPtr;
 
 /* is this a Ghost Font named with the asterisk ? */
 if (fontName[1] == ‘*’)
 {
 /* strip off asterisk */
 fontName[0]--;
 for (i = 1; i <= fontName[0]; i++)
 fontName[i] = fontName[i+1];
 }
 
 if (gTopDocument)
 {
 if (fontListHdl = gTopDocument->ghostFontList)
 {
 fontListPtr = *fontListHdl;
 if (count = fontListPtr->count)
 {
 fontMapPtr = fontListPtr->fontMap;
 
 /* compare all names in the Ghost Font list with the 
 name passed */
 while (count--)
 {
 menuNamePtr = fontName;
 docNamePtr = fontMapPtr->fontName;
 if ((strLen = *docNamePtr++) == *menuNamePtr++)
 {
 while (strLen--)
 {
 if (*docNamePtr++ != *menuNamePtr++)
 break;
 }

 if (strLen < 0) /* names compare */
 return (fontMapPtr->localFont);
 }
 fontMapPtr++;
 }
 }
 }
 }

 /* if we got here, then its not a Ghost Font, call the system */
 
 GetFNum (fontName, &font);
 return (font);
 
} /* getLocalFNum */


/* ------------------------------------------------------      getLocalFontName
 - return the name corresponding to the font
 © 1989 by Macreations. All Rights Reserved
------------------------------------------------------ */
void
getLocalFontName (localFont, fontName)
 short  localFont;
 Str255 fontName;
{
 short  count;
 FontListHdlfontListHdl; 
 FontListPtrfontListPtr;
 FontMapPtr fontMapPtr;
 
 if (gTopDocument) 
 {
 if (fontListHdl = gTopDocument->ghostFontList)
 {
 fontListPtr = *fontListHdl;
 if (count = fontListPtr->count)
 {
 fontMapPtr = fontListPtr->fontMap;
 while (count--)
 {
 if (fontMapPtr->localFont == localFont)
 {
 BlockMove (fontMapPtr->fontName, fontName,                    
    (Size)(fontMapPtr->fontName[0] + 1));
 return;
 }
 fontMapPtr++;
 }
 }
 }
 }
 
 GetFontName (localFont, fontName);
 if (!fontName [0])
 pStrCpy (fontName, “\pUnknown Font”);
 
} /* getLocalFontName */

Summary

A brief summary of the Ghost Font management method follows:

1. Documents are saved with a font map, i.e., a list of all font names and numbers used in the document. There is no problem using numeric representation for fonts inside your application.

2. When documents are read, the font map is used to determine which of three categories each font can be classified into. Fonts that exist in the System and possess the same number are left alone. Fonts that exist in the system but conflict with the System’s number scheme must have their correct ID’s substituted. Fonts which do not exist in the system are Ghost Font and must be added to the document’s Ghost Font list.

3. The font menu is built so that the Ghost Fonts appear at the bottom. Each Ghost Font name has an asterisk prepended to it, to mark it for the user. The menu must change to reflect the current document’s Ghost Fonts.

4. Font management within a document is done by using the filter functions getLocalFNum and getLocalFontName. These functions access the document’s Ghost Font list if needed.

We hope that this technology helps to solve font conflicts in your application. The code in this application may be used freely and without acknowledgment, however, any implementation of Ghost Fonts should maintain the user interface. To insure that all Ghost Font use is reasonably consistent and evolves as the Macintosh System Software does, we ask that you obtain, fill out and sign the simple license agreement from Macreations and return it to us. There is no charge for a Ghost Font license. We are in the process of adding additional font mapping to Ghost Fonts (so that the closest approximation of the referenced font is used, not the application default font), and licensees will be the first to learn of those additions. We welcome your questions, comments and ideas regarding this method. You may address any correspondence via MacNet to kmatthies or write us at:

Macreations