Rebecca & Mark's Wedding Invitation Typesetting
Typesetting with QuickDraw GX 
- The Good: QuickDraw GX typography is beautiful.
- The Bad: There aren't that many packages that can do it.
- The Ugly: It has heavy system requirements (but see #1)
- Where to learn more about QuickDraw GX
Click invitation to see it printed on handmade paperQuickDraw GX: The Good
The only way to get typography as good as that provided in QuickDraw GX is to hire a professional typesetter and tell them to spend twice as much time on it as they usually would. The kerning is fantastic (and automatic), the tracking can be completely controlled (and defaults to "perfect"), and the letters can be automatically connected with swashes and ligatures that even many pros wouldn't take the time to think about.
It prints on any printer, laser, inkjet, or even dot-matrix(!).
All you have to do is type your text, tell it how fancy you want it, and print. We loved using it; the results are great. (See above!)
When you install it, it comes with a beautiful script font, complete with all the features mentioned above, free.
QuickDraw GX: The Bad
First, QuickDraw is a Macintosh thing. If you've got a PC, either find a very close friend (more on this later) with a Mac, or stick to the "Zapf Chancery" font. (Or wait for OpenDoc for Windows?)
Second, QuickDraw GX is a Macintosh System 7.5 thing (mainly). So, you need to find a machine with that system installed (or your very close friend with a Mac who's willing to upgrade.)
Third, although it has typographic features that make professional typesetters sigh with envy, there is currently little commercial software that supports these features. "Ready Set Go GX 7.0" is out now, and "Lightning Draw GX" may be. There are two noncommercial programs that let you access the special type features: "Poster" which can be downloaded from many online sources, and "GX Write 1.0" which is distributed to Macintosh developers to test GX typography. We used both; GX Write to produce the actual invitation, and Poster to produce the envelopes. We're using RSG GX to do some other printing, but when we were doing our invitations, RSG GX was not yet available.
QuickDraw GX: The Ugly
Not only is GX a Mac-only, 7.5-only, commercially-not-too-supported-as-of-yet technology, it's a hog. It takes up about 1.5 megabytes of RAM beyond what the system usually uses when it's installed.
So, that friend we mentioned (or you if you have a Mac), has to buckle down and
- upgrade to System 7.5 ($19-$99 depending on other things)
- install the 7.5.1 System Update (free, but you have to download it)
- install QuickDraw GX 1.1.1 or later (free once you have System 7.5)
- either obtain the free programs that allow GX typography, or buy RSG 7.0 GX or Lightning Draw GX from their respective publishers ($249-$349)
- buy more RAM.
So, how did we pull it off with relatively little sweat? I'm a major Macintosh typography geek, who already upgraded to 7.5.1 and GX 1.1.1, and already bought more RAM, and was able to get both free GX programs through various channels.
Rebecca and I had a blast designing the typography for our invitation, (although she gave me a funny look at the paper store when I first told them that we'd be doing our own typesetting...) and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. If you can find some way of doing it and you love type, this can be worth the journey.
Also, if you can wait a few months, some of the weirdness will settle down and you'll be able to rent use of a Mac with RSG 7.0 GX at the local Kinko's for $10/hour and then life will be easy.
Where to learn more about QuickDraw GX
If you're feeling brave, we'd be happy to share more information. To learn more on your own, you can visit QuickDraw GX Fan Club (how many operating system components have "fan clubs" ?!?) or the Introduction to QuickDraw GX Typography.
You can also check out the QuickTime
video and flipbook we sent with each invitation!
Our Wedding home page was selected as a Way Cool Wedding!