Editing Fontographer (section)

===Altsys Corporation===
In December 1984, [[James R. Von Ehr II]] founded the Altsys Corporation to develop graphics applications for personal computers. The first foray by Altsys into commercial font editing software was a [[Computer font#Bitmap fonts|bitmap font]] editor called Fontastic, released in the mid-1980s for the Apple Macintosh. The program, developed by Altsys founder Von Ehr, was able to edit the native bitmap font format of the Mac. It introduced many of the interface elements that would carry over into Fontographer. Fontastic Plus was later introduced with new editing tools and kerning pairs.<ref name="ref1">{{cite web|url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-8385652/altsys-small-company-bit.html|title=Altsys: small company with bit-time graphics impact.|publisher=MacWEEK|date=1990-04-24|access-date=2011-02-11}}</ref>

Fontographer, developed by von Ehr for the Mac and released in January 1986 — before [[Adobe Illustrator]] — was the first commercially available [[Bézier curve]] editing software for a personal computer.<ref name="ref1" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://fontographer.blogspot.com/2006/05/interview-with-fontmeister.html |title=Fontographer: Interview with the FontMeister |publisher=Fontographer.blogspot.com |date=2006-05-31 |access-date=2010-05-29}}</ref> High quality fonts in the [[PostScript]] format could be developed for a fraction of the cost of all other existing methods ([[URW++|URW]]'s [[Ikarus (typography software)|Ikarus]] required systems costing over $100,000<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atypi.org/30_past_conferences/80_lyon/azerty_2.pdf |title=AZERTY 2 FINAL |date= |access-date=2010-05-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918063606/http://atypi.org/30_past_conferences/80_lyon/azerty_2.pdf |archive-date=2010-09-18 |url-status=dead }}</ref>), leading to what has been called "the democratization of type design":<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jyanet.com/cap/003-1.htm |title=CAP Online_Les plaisirs du Monde: preface on the democratization of type |publisher=Jyanet.com |date= |access-date=2010-05-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.typotheque.com/articles/peter_bilak_founder_of_typotheque_dot_dot_dot |title=Peter Biľak, founder of Typotheque, Dot Dot Dot by Rudy VanderLans |publisher=Typotheque |date= |access-date=2010-05-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://themicrofoundry.com/ |title=The MicroFoundry / Top |publisher=Themicrofoundry.com |date= |access-date=2010-05-29}}</ref> for the first time in history, numerous self-taught type designers without substantial capital investment produced fonts for professional use. Fontographer 2.0 was released eight months later in the Fall of 1986.

With the PostScript background established with Fontographer, Altsys developed [[Adobe FreeHand|FreeHand]] in 1988 as a Macintosh Postscript-based illustration program using Bézier curves for drawing and editing. In 1989, Fontographer 3.0 was released, featuring an auto-trace tool and automatic generation of hints for Postscript printer fonts.<ref name="ref1" /><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rjAEAAAAMBAJ&q=fontographer+3.0&pg=PT39|title=Font Editor Now Creates Postscript Hints|publisher=InfoWorld |date=1989-08-21|access-date=2011-02-28}}</ref>