TouchType.app by Glenn Reid, www.rightbrain.com, was one of the classic third-party apps for NeXTstep. Made possible/easy by Display PostScript it was sold to Adobe Systems who has since lost the source code it seems. Glenn Reid went on to create PasteUp.app before exiting from the ranks of NeXT software developers. (see www.afstrade.com for information on its current state)

TouchType is an app for just that, adjusting type as if one were touching it as immediately interactive and well-nigh as tactile as hand-setting metal type. The interface is wonderfully simple and elegant, with menu entries for adjustments not immediately translatable to its minimalist toolset.

Each letter is individually selectable by merely clicking on it and may be immediately dragged so as to place it where desired. Multiple letters may be selected as shown below by click-dragging a highlight rectangle which selects/deselects letters as the selection touches/ceases to highlight them.

TouchType makes creating headline type effortless---and no matter how one rearranges a text, it still remembers the order of characters for ease of editing.

TouchType's features include:

• Saving as an eps or Illustrator file in addition to its native/proprietary file format
• Aligning text (left, center, right, justified)---unfortunately, it has no concept of text block, so one must be careful to not move a line past the edge one wishes to maintain.
• Aligning letters (at baseline or at x-height)---oddly ``x'' in x-height is capitalized in the menu entry. Unfortunately, it seems to align by character order, not extremity of position, which I find counterintuitive.
• Adjusting word-spacing and leading
• Rotating individual or selected characters
• Controlling characters (force uppercase, lowercase, or use dotless i or normal i)---is a dotless ``i'' a normal character in the GNUstep encoding default? What about a ``j''?
• Kerning (touch, tighten, loosen, apply pair data (I've always thought it should just default to that), and pair data (remember selected pair, save to AFM file, clear all))---the last sub-sub menu, ``Pair Data'' makes the final tweaking of a typeface design's kerning much easier.

Possible improvements include:

• It should be a Service: Select text, invoke the app, tweak the type, send back a .eps
• Easier rotation---currently a sub menu is used for this, which is klunky. There should be a tool which allows one to rotate directly.
• More Standard interface---COMMAND-T to get the type palette for example
• Inspector Palettes

Graphics include elements which are copyright 1990--1991 Adobe Systems.

Copyright 2001 William Adams. Last up-dated 29 March 2001