Adobe Type Manager (ATM) was the name of a family of computer programs created and marketed by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

for use with their

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...

Type 1 fonts. The last release was Adobe ATM Light 4.1.2, per Adobe's FTP (at the time). Modern

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also inc ...

such as

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

MacOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

have built-in support for PostScript fonts, eliminating the need for Adobe's 3rd party utility.

Apple Macintosh

The original ATM was created for the

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computer platform to scale

Type 1 fonts for the computer monitor, and for printing to non-PostScript printers. Mac Type 1 fonts come with screen fonts set to display at certain

point Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

sizes only. In Macintosh operating systems prior to

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, Type 1 fonts set at other sizes would appear jagged on the monitor. ATM allowed Type 1 fonts to appear smooth at any point size, and to print well to non-PostScript devices. Around 1996, Adobe expanded ATM into a

font-management program Font management software is a kind of utility software that computer users use to browse and preview fonts and typically to install and uninstall fonts. Some font management software may be able to also: * activate and deactivate fonts (users c ...

called ATM Deluxe; the original ATM was renamed ATM Light. ATM Deluxe performed the same font-smoothing function as ATM Light, but performed a variety of other functions: activation and deactivation of fonts; creating sets of fonts that could be activated or deactivated simultaneously; viewing and printing font samples; and scanning for duplicate fonts, font format conflicts, and PostScript fonts missing screen or printer files. Around 2001, with Apple's Mac OS X, support for Type 1 fonts was built into the operating system using ATM Light code contributed by Adobe. ATM for Mac was then no longer necessary for font imaging or printing. Adobe discontinued development of ATM Deluxe for Macintosh after Apple moved to Mac OS X. Adobe ceased selling ATM Deluxe in 2005. ATM Deluxe does not work reliably under OS X (even under Classic), however, ATM Light is still helpful to Type 1 font users under Classic.

Microsoft Windows

Adobe ported these products to the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

operating system platform, where they managed font display by patching into Windows ( 3.0, 3.1x, 95, 98, Me) at a very low level. The design of Windows NT made this kind of patching unviable, and Microsoft initially responded by allowing Type 1 fonts to be converted to

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating sy ...

on install, but in Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft added "font driver" support to allow ATM to provide Type 1 support (and in theory other font drivers for other types). As with ATM Light for Macintosh, Adobe licensed to Microsoft the core code, which was integrated into

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

and

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

, making ATM Light for Windows obsolete, except for the special case of support for " multiple master" fonts, which Microsoft did not include in Windows, and for which ATM Lite still acts as a font driver. ATM Light is still available for Windows users, but ATM Deluxe is no longer developed or sold. Users of ATM 4.0 (Light or Deluxe) on Windows 95/98/ME who upgrade to Windows 2000/XP may encounter problems, and it is vital not to install version 4.0 into Windows 2000 or later; affected users are encouraged to visit the Adobe web site for technical information and patches. Version 4.1.2 is fully compatible with Windows 2000 and XP (It will run on XP 64-bit, but because the installer doesn't work it must be first installed on 32-bit XP and then copied over to 64-bit XP). ATM installed on XP may prevent a system from entering standby - the error message indicates keyboard driver needs updating. Uninstalling ATM corrects the issue.

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

is incompatible with both ATM Light and ATM Deluxe. Windows Vista can use Adobe Type 1 fonts natively, making add-ons like ATM unnecessary. The latest version of ATM for Windows 3.1 is 3.02. There was no ATM Deluxe for Windows versions prior to 95.

Acrobat Reader Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (former ...

, starting with version 2.1, installs a version of ATM for its own use, referred to as a Portable Font Server, but there is no control panel or other user interface for it. It is therefore unsuitable for the tasks which most people need to install ATM for.

Other operating systems

Adobe Type Manager was also made available for a select few PC operating systems available during the early 1990s, including

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

DESQview DESQview (DV) is a text mode multitasking operating environment developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Running on top of DOS, it allows users to run multiple programs concurrentl ...

, and

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

. Unlike the Windows and Mac versions, these versions of ATM were bundled with the OS itself. There were also ATM versions for extremely popular

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

applications, the most notable being WordPerfect 5.0 and 5.1. This incarnation of ATM, made by LaserTools was named PrimeType in the United States and Adobe Type Manager for WordPerfect elsewhere. An alternative to ATM for WordPerfect 5.1 was by

SoftMaker SoftMaker Software GmbH is a German software company based in Nuremberg that produces office productivity software and digital fonts. SoftMaker was founded in 1989 by Martin Kotulla. Best known in Germany and the EU, SoftMaker is offering its s ...

. WordPerfect 6.0 and newer included its own Type 1 system, making third-party solutions obsolete.

Competing products

Bitstream A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...

FaceLift * Bohemian Coding FontCase *

Extensis Celartem, Inc., doing business as Extensis, is a software company based in Portland, Oregon. History Extensis and its parent company ''CreativePro.com'' were sold to ''ImageX'' in year 2000, which in turn sold Extensis to Japanese content-manage ...

Suitcase Fusion * Linotype FontExplorer X *

References

External links

*
List of Adobe product releases

Using Adobe Type Manager with Windows 3.0

Font packages for Windows - Bitstream's FaceLift and Adobe Systems' Adobe Type Manager
{{Adobe Systems Classic Mac OS software Type Manager Type Manager Font managers