FractionalBoldPatch: Patches a bug in MacOS 8.5 and 8.5.1
Version 1.1 is now PPC native and it is free.

The Bug

If fractional character width is enabled, bold face types are displayed with extra white space. This looks rather odd and breaks WYSIWYG when printing. The bug affects only screen types, therefore a partial work around is using the new Font Anti Aliasing function of the Appearance Manager. In this case outline fonts are used generally, also for screen display. However, this doesn´t help for small font sizes below 12, and also it affects the performance and look and feel of the system too much.

FractionalBoldPatch corrects the bug without any major impact on system performance and appearance. Since this symptom was introduced with MacOS 8.5, the patch needs not to be used for previous MacOS releases.

FractionalBoldCheck is a small application, which visualises the problem. In a simple window it displays a string in standard Helvetica in bold face and in different sizes. It shows the effect of disabling and enabling the <Fractional Character Width> setting, with and without a temporary patch installed. Please note, if FractionalBoldPatch is already installed in the Extensions Folder of the System Folder, there will be no differences with and without the temporary patch installed. Please note also that FractionalBoldCheck temporarily disables outline fonts and font aliasing, to make sure that the incriminated screen fonts are used.

Hints

Keep FractionalBoldCheck around, so that you can launch it again when Apple releases an update or a new MacOS. By this way you can check easily, if FractionalBoldPatch is further needed.

Have a look at the behaviour of a Macintosh with MacOS 8.1, 8.0 or even 7.x and see the difference to MacOS 8.5.x. Please use the small application in the folder Check MacOS 8, since FractionalBoldCheck won´t run on pre 8.5 systems.

Installation and Removal

FractionalBoldPatch is a system extension, therefore, it should reside in the Extensions folder inside the System Folder to be operative. For this, drag FractionalBoldPatch onto the symbol of your System Folder. You should confirm the Finder putting it to the extensions and then restart your Macintosh. Upon startup FractionalBoldPatch patches the system routine FMSwapFont, so that its results can be postprocessed. However, FractionalBoldPatch makes no permanent changes to your system and hard disk data. Therefore it can easily be removed just by drawing itself into the Trash.

Additional Information

FractionalBoldPatch corrects only the bug described above!

But there are other mostly ATM related bugs, which FractionalBoldPatch cannot address. For descriptions and work arounds, please have a look at the December 98 archive of MacFixIt.

I myself applied the suggestions of MacFixIt and in addition I needed to install FractionalBoldPatch to get the typesetting environment of MacOS 8.5.x essentially bug free. The steps were as follows:

1. I deleted all Adobe Type Manager files and folders in the Preferences Folder, inclusive the invisible ones, "ATM Temp Fonts" and "ATM Temp.ATM", because they may be corrupted. (Don´t delete anything, if you are not sure!)

2. Since I´m not using QuickDraw GX anymore, I deleted all TrueType Fonts, which were derived by the way of the
"Type 1 converter" tool from Postscript Type 1 fonts. (Don´t delete anything, if you are not sure if you got derived fonts!)

3. I reinstalled ATM 4.02 from the MacOS 8.5 CD. Older versions of ATM got even more problems with 8.5.x

4. In the ATM control panel I turned on <Preserve Line spacing> and <Precision Character Positioning>. Specially the setting <Preserve Character shapes> leads according to my own experience to very hard font displaying problems.

5. I omit the suggestions to turn on the <Smooth Font Edges on Screen> settings in the ATM control panel. I like neither this settings nor the new Font Anti Aliasing function of the Appearance Manager, because both degrade the system performance too much and affect the overall look and feel. Furthermore this work around doesn´t help for small font sizes.

Fortunately, because I installed the FractionalBoldPatch there was no need for character smoothing at all.

Disclaimer

FRACTIONALBOLDPATCH AND FRACTIONALBOLDCHECK ARE PROVIDED "AS IS". THE AUTHOR DR. ROLF JANSEN MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE GIVEN SOFTWARE. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!