About Fonts

The areas of the software which allow font customization are:

• User interface: menu names, command names, tooltips, dialog box names and texts, etc.
• Specification tree texts.
• Texts you enter in certain applications, and which reference fonts: a typical example is the text you enter in drawing documents created using the Generative Drafting product.

You will also find information about how, in certain contexts, the text you see in the geometry area may not look exactly the same when you print.

If you used the CATFONT utility in V4 to customize your own fonts, you will also find information about how to recover the fonts for use in V5.

The following sub-sections are detailed:

• Which font formats are supported?
• Which fonts are provided?
• Which Bitstream fonts are supported?
• Which V4 fonts are provided?
• Region and Language: Default Fonts on Windows

Which Font Formats Are Supported?

Version 5 provides the following font formats:

• PostScript (PS) Type 1 format. PostScript font format is a quality-certified font format for professional printing thanks to its definition of analytical geometric elements. In addition to this, professionals also use high-quality PostScript font printers dedicated to publishing.
• CATIA V4 FONT format.
• TrueType font format (TTF and TTC). With respect to the PostScript Type 1 font format, note that on Windows only, if a TrueType version of the font exists or has been created, it can be used to optimize visualization quality.
• OpenType font (OTF) format. OpenType font format is an extension of the TrueType font (TTF) format, adding support for PostScript font data. This font format is supported on both Windows and UNIX.

PostScript Fonts

When using PostScript fonts on Windows operating systems, the font display may change while moving for performance and visibility reasons.

How does it work?

• When static, the bitmap representation is generated using the corresponding TrueType font.
• While moving, there are three display modes:
  • PostScript: the polygon is displayed
  • Stroke: the segment is displayed
  • Bounding box: the box (i.e. four segments) is displayed.

TrueType Fonts

Moreover, note that:

• All TTF fonts displayed until V5R17 are known as Version 0 and work on Windows only. If a TTF text is displayed on UNIX with Version 0, it is not displayed with a TTF font but with the default font available.
• TTF fonts of Version 0 do not support text spacing.
• Any future modification will be available in next versions.
• New modifications will have no impact on the way the text is displayed with previous versions.

Font linking mechanism

A font linking mechanism of any TTF font with another TTF (TrueType Font) or TTC (TrueType Collection) font is supported on Windows only.

This means that if a certain glyph is missing from a font file, then the glyph will be displayed using the linked or associated font. Generally, these linked or associated fonts are of type TTC.

For instance, in the Drafting workbench, individual fonts present in TTC are displayed in a combo box for selection.
If the required characters are not found in the selected font, they are displayed using the associated font.

This capability is especially useful for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. In that case, you can select English fonts such as Arial or Microsoft Sans Serif even though they do not contain the definitions of these glyphs. If appropriate entries for font association exist in the Windows registry, the characters will be displayed using the appropriate associated font (e.g. MSGothic in MSGothic.TTC).
However, these associated fonts are mostly system fonts and you will need to select the Use system TrueType fonts in CATIA option to be able to use this functionality.

If the style of the text is changed say from regular to bold, then characters from English fonts will be shown in bold if the specific version of font is available on the system, and the glyphs from associated font will also be shown in bold format if specific version of associated font is available on the system. If the bold version of the associated font is not available on the system, available version of the associated font on the system will be used to display the glyphs. This is applicable for other style change operations such as italic and bold-italic.

For more information about registry entry, see the Overview and Description-Font Linking sections at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688134.aspx (the support for scaling factors is not yet available).

Windows registry values can be accessed or modified by using the regedit command as follows: select Start > Run... then type regedit and click OK.

Editing or modifying the font link entries in the registry can be done, but is NOT supported by Microsoft and hence not recommended. The wrong font link entry can leave the system unstable and impacts machine performance The East Asian language pack must be installed on your machine to take advantage of the font linking mechanism.

More about the TTC font format

A TTC file is a collection of TrueType fonts. This file is made up of a TTC Header Table, one or many Offset Tables with Table Directories, and a number of OpenType Tables.
Note that the TTC Header must be located at the beginning of the TTC file.

The tables that should have a unique copy per font are those used by the system for identifying the font and its character mapping, including 'cmap', 'name', and 'OS/2'.

The tables that should be shared by fonts in the TTC are those that define glyph and instruction data or that use glyph indices to access data: 'glyf', 'loca', 'hmtx', 'hdmx', 'LTSH', 'cvt', 'fpgm', 'prep', 'EBLC', 'EBDT', 'EBSC', 'maxp', etc.
In practice, any tables with identical data for two or more fonts may be shared.

The purpose of the TTC Header Table is to locate the different Offset Tables within a TTC file. The TTC Header is located at the beginning of the TTC file (offset = 0).
It is made up of an identification tag, a version number, a count of the number of OpenType fonts in the file, and an array of offsets to each Offset Table.

OpenType fonts

OpenType fonts can be used in Drafting workbenches and are identified by a specific icon: . OpenType font files are identified by the extension ".otf", ".OTF" or ".TTF", depending on the kind of outlines in the font and on the need for compatibility on systems without native OpenType support.

OpenType fonts are not delivered with V5:

• On Windows, some OTF fonts are provided natively. However, you can customize the list of fonts provided by copying your own fonts to C:\Windows\Fonts, or by selecting Start > Control > Panel > Fonts then File > Install New Fonts....
  For more information, see your Windows documentation.
• On UNIX, no OTF fonts are provided natively. To be able to use OTF fonts, you have to copy them to your V5 environment in installationfolder\resources\fonts\OTF.

The major benefits of OpenType fonts are:

• Cross-platform compatibility (the same font file can be used on both Macintosh and Windows computers)
• Better support for international character sets
• Support of advanced typographic control.

Besides this, OpenType fonts can include the OpenType Layout tables, which allow font creators to design better international and high-end typographic fonts.
OpenType Layout tables contain information on glyph substitution, glyph positioning, justification and baseline positioning, enabling text-processing applications to improve text layout.
As with TrueType fonts, OpenType fonts allow the handling of large glyph sets using Unicode encoding. Such encoding allows broad international support, as well as support for typographic glyph variants.

Among the font file Layout tables providing advanced typography that you can have in OpenType fonts, one of them concerning specifically the positioning of glyphs is supported in V5 and it is called "Kerning Table".

What is "Kerning"?
Kerning is the adjustment of horizontal space between pair of letters. This means that when some pairs of letters create awkward spaces, kerning adds or removes space between letters to create a more visually appealing and readable text.
A typical kerning table lists pairs of glyphs and specifies how much space a text-processing client should add or remove between the glyphs.
This is illustrated by the examples below:

Example 1 - Pair of glyphs

Without kerning:

With kerning - spacing between "A" and "W" is shortened:

Example 2 - Use of kerning information with text

Pairs "A-w" and "g-e" are not kerned:

Pairs "A-w" and "g-e" are kerned

Kerning information is built-in to most quality fonts. Some software programs use these built-in kerning tables to apply automatic kerning to text without manual intervention. But other programs (e.g. Microsoft Word) prefer to let the choice to the user. In V5, kerning values are not applied automatically: it is up to the end-user to set on or set off this property.

DS ISO 1

The DS ISO 1 OpenType font is provided. This font is an OTF font that has been designed to display annotations with respect to the various ISO standards defining text representations. It is based on the ISO 3098 standards (ISO 3098-5:1997, ISO 3098-3:2000) and Unicode definition.

DS ISO 1 is a variable-pitch font, designed as an OTF font with TrueType format outlines definition. It is named according to the following rules:

Style Name	Family Name	Full Name
Regular	DS ISO 1	DS ISO 1
Italic	DS ISO 1	DS ISO 1 Italic
Bold	DS ISO 1	DS ISO 1 Bold
Bold Italic	DS ISO 1	DS ISO 1 Bold Italic

This font contains glyphs covering the following Unicode ranges:

Range	Unicode	Defined Glyph in Range
0x0000 - 0x007F	Controls and Basic Latin	Present
0x0080 - 0x00FF	Controls and Latin 1 Supplement	0x00A1 - 0x00FF
0x0100 - 0x017F	Latin Extended A	Present
0x0374 - 0x03F3	Greek	0x0388 - 0x3F9
0x0400 - 0x045F	Cyrillic	Present
0x2460 - 0x24EA	Enclosed Alphanumeric	Present

There are also some extra Unicode ranges:

Range (FontLab)	Unicode	Defined Glyph in Range
0x02B0 - 0x02FF	Space Modifier Letters	0x02D9 (Dot above)
0x20A0 - 0x20CF	Currency Symbols	0x20A7 and 0x20AC
0x2100 - 0x214F	Letterlike Symbols	0x2104 and 0x2126
0x2190 - 0x21FF	Arrows	0x2197, 0x21AC, 0x21A7, 0x21B7
0x2200 - 0x22FF	Mathematical Operators	0x2205, 0x2211, 0x2217, 0x2220, 0x2222, 0x2225, 0x2229, 0x222B, 0x2259, 0x2260, 0x2261, 0x2264, 0x2265, 0x229A, 22A5, 22B2, 22B3

The bold style is not defined in the ISO 3098 standard. However, a thickness has been defined for the Bold and Bold Italic styles by adding 50% to the thickness of the regular style.

Below is an example using DS ISO 1:

Warning:

• DS ISO 1 font does not contain any Chinese, Japanese, or Korean character.
• DS ISO 1 is provided "as is". It is up to each user to decide whether this font fits requirements in terms of annotation representation and compliance to ISO standards (or any other standard).

Four new Drafting standards are also provided. For more information, refer to the Version 5 Interactive Drafting User's Guide: Administration: Before You Begin.

More about OpenType fonts

• OTF files can contain both TrueType font format outline data and PostScript Compact Font Format (CFF) outline data.

• Font files containing TrueType outlines can have either the ".OTF" or ".TTF" extension, depending on the need for downward compatibility with older systems or with previous versions of the font. These font files can contain both CFF and TTF data.

• Fonts with only CFF data (i.e. no TrueType outlines) always have the extension ".OTF".

• If a ".TTF" file is renamed to ".OTF" (or ".otf"), this file can be used on both UNIX and Windows as an OpenType font file.

• If you save a V5 document containing OpenType fonts then reopen it in an environment in which OpenType fonts are not installed, then the text is displayed using the default Version 5 font.

Which Fonts Are Provided?

The following fonts are supported and are installed ready for use without further customization when you install V5:

• All default stroke fonts delivered previously with V4
• 22 Bitstream Type 1 fonts
• An extra font (customized by Bitstream): CATIA Symbols; this font contains the symbols from V4 fonts
• TrueType fonts provided by Windows.

Note that the Bitstream fonts are delivered in several different styles (depending on the font), whereas the V4 fonts are delivered in regular style only.

Furthermore, the 22 Bitstream fonts support ISO-8859-1 environments only.

install_root\resources\fonts\TrueType

where "install_root" is the installation folder (Windows).

For TrueType fonts, a ".ttf" file is required.

Which Bitstream Fonts Are Supported?

The Bitstream fonts are:

• The Swiss 721 Bitstream font family is Bitstream's version of Helvetica
• The Monospace 821 Bitstream font family is Bitstream's version of Helvetica Monospaced
• The Dutch 801 Bitstream font family is Bitstream's version of Times Roman
• The CATIA Symbols font (not in the above list) contains the symbols from V4 fonts.

• In the Postscript folder or subdirectory: .pfb, .inf, .pfm, .afm
• In the ExtraFiles folder or subdirectory: .ttf. Note: On Windows only, installing V5 also installs in the ExtraFiles environment the equivalent fonts in TrueType format. The TrueType font format offers enhanced visualization quality. The installation adds the fonts (in TrueType format) to the list of system fonts you can view by selecting the Start > Settings > Control Panel command and double-clicking the Fonts control.

Which V4 Fonts Are Provided?

The following V4 fonts are supported and are installed ready for use without further customization when you install V5:

• SSS1.font, SSS2.font, SSS3.font, SSS4.font: 4 simplex sans serif fonts
• ROM1.font, ROM2.font, ROM3.font: 3 roman fonts
• GOTH.font: 1 Gothic font
• SYM1.font, SYM2.font, SYM3.font, SYM4.font: 4 symbol fonts
• KANJ.font: Kanji font (Japanese). Regarding the KANJ font, from now on, halfwidth Katakana characters are displayed with a smaller width than the width with which they were displayed in V4.
• KOHG.font: Hangeul font (Korean)
• TRCH.font: Traditional Chinese font
• SICH.font: Simplified Chinese font.

• SYM1 contains annotation and tolerance symbols, and plot markup characters
• SYM2 contains ISO symbols fonts
• SYM3 contains roughness symbols
• SYM4 contains graphic and mathematical symbols as well as miscellaneous technical symbols.

Region and Language: Default Fonts on Windows

Fonts might be changed to support different character sets which are needed to support a specific language. Below are listed the fonts used by default: