Bah, humbug

A group of chess enthusiasts had checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After a while, the hotel manager came out and asked them to disperse, explaining, “I can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

A guy goes into a restaurant for breakfast while visiting his hometown for the holidays. After looking over the menu, he tells the waiter, “I’ll have the Eggs Benedict.”

When his order comes, it’s served on a large, shiny hubcap. The customer asks, “What’s with the hubcap?”

The waiter replies, “Oh, there’s no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!”

Hints for working with fonts for trouble free print jobs

Difficulties with fonts account for more delays, mistakes and extra costs than any other file preparation issues. Avoid problems with your jobs by following this checklist:

Include all the fonts used in your file, and any used in eps graphics files placed in your layout. Check against the font usage report in your layout document.

OpenType and TruType fonts have only one file, but Type 1 (Postscript) fonts have two: a screen and a printer font. Be sure to include both with your job.

Avoid MultipleMaster, or MM fonts. This technology did not become popular enough to be consistently implemented in high end systems. Results can be unpredictable.

If your layout software includes a collection utility, or you have access to one separately, do use it, but please double check that all the correct fonts were included, particularly if you have different versions of fonts installed on your system.

When formatting type in your layout, make sure to use the bold or italic versions of each font you wish to appear as bold or italic – for example, Times Bold Italic. Even though your software may allow you to apply bolding and other styles to Times Roman, for example, you should avoid doing this. The results may print well on your laser printer, but on our high resolution equipment the system cannot “fake it”, and may substitute a default font with unexpected results.

It is good practice to go through the fonts installed on your machine periodically, and remove duplicates or different versions of the same font from different manufacturers.

Business as usual?

The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach peak performance. On the big day they felt ready.

The Japanese won by a mile.

Afterward, the American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant’s finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.

After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the consultant firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team. So as race day neared again the following year, the American team’s management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.

The next year, the Japanese won by TWO miles. Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the mangers a bonus for discovering the problem.