Alias File

The Alias File (alias.fnt lists the font metric file name and the font family name aliases in the FONT section. Font family name aliases let you change all of the requested instances of a font family name (as defined in the Character Set Definition File) to another font family name.

The next figure shows how the alias.fnt file is used with the afp2pdf transform to change all requests for the Sonoran Serif font to requests for the Times New Roman font.

    Note:
  • Font family name remapping, especially to TrueType fonts, can cause misalignment of text characters because the display font is not the same as the font used to create the AFP document. Remapping of one font family name to a different font family name with very different characteristics (such as STYLE) might mean a matching font cannot be found. You receive an error message if either font substitute cannot be found.

Example of how the alias.fnt file is used

[FONT]
	; ***** Requested font = Type 1 font, TrueType font *****
	Book=TNR,Times New Roman
	CourierOverstrike=Cou,Courier New
	SonoranSerif=TNR,Times New Roman
	SonoranSansSerif=TNR,Arial
	Text=Cou,Courier New

The next figure shows how the alias.fnt file is used with the afp2pdf transform to change all requests for the SonoranSerif font to requests for the Times font (which is one of the base fonts available in the Adobe Acrobat Viewer).

Using the alias.fnt file with afp2pdf transform

[FONT]
	; ***** Requested font = font name,Font metric/AFM filename (or 'NULL' for not used) *****
	SonoranSerif=Times, NULL

Rules:

  1. If multiple mappings are listed in the file for the same family name, only the first match is used.
  2. The Alias File is processed sequentially and is not chained (for example, if "Century Schoolbook" is set equal to "Times", and "Times" is set equal to "Times New Roman", "Century Schoolbook" is not set to "Times New Roman").
  3. Blanks in family names are treated as characters (for example, "New Century Schlbk" is not the same font as "NewCenturySchlbk").
Parent topic: The afp2pdf transform files supplied for mapping fonts