Demo Verions of Macromedia FontographerŪ 4.1 for Windows March 10, 1996 The Fontographer 4.1 Demo Version allows you to explore most of the functionality of Fontographer 4.1 with the following exceptions: 1. Please note that you cannot "Save" or "Save As" in this version. 2. You also cannot "Export" or "Generate Font Files". 3. "Copy" does not copy to the clipboard, so you cannot copy anything out of this version into any other program. We hope that you'll become a Fontographer 4.1 enthusiast and tell others of the quality performance and impressive capabilities of the best font creation package on the market. If you'd like to order Fontographer, call Macromedia sales at 800-288-4797. ------------------------------------------------ Welcome to Macromedia FontographerŪ 4.1 for Windows(TM)! If you run into a question and don't see the answer here,you can access our Web Site 24-hours a day to find a TechNotes addressing a technical problem. TECHNOTES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE 24-HOURS A DAY VIA OUR MACROFACTS FAXBACK SERVICE AT 800-449-3329, OR 415-863-4409. You will likely find that raoming out Web Site will gove you the most complete answer to your common questions Our Internet address is http://www.macromedia.com. ------------------------------------------------ Minimum System requirements: Windows 3.1 with 32s v1.3; 6 MB RAM; 5 MB HD space. ------------------------------------------------ If you notice that Fontographer's sounds preferences is greyed out, this is because you either don't have a sound board, or the board you have is not asychronous. ------------------------------------------------ In characters with "counters" (like "o"), where the outside path should go clockwise and the other should be COUNTERclockwise, beware: if both paths go in the same direction, the character will be solid black, with no white center. To avoid unpleasant surprises like this, check your path directions -- or, use Fontographer's useful, time-saving function, "Correct path direction". ------------------------------------------------ When autotracing a bitmap, particularly a signature, it is possible to overflow the buffer. If your trace has lines sticking out all over it, undo it, undo the paste, and go back and break the bitmap up into sections. Then paste the sections into individual character cells, and trace. ------------------------------------------------ The Control key causes a demagnified move -- but it is also used for other key combinations. If you find, for example, that you want to temporarily switch to the arrow tool and drag-select an object, when you start moving the mouse it will go VERY slowly. As long as the Control key was depressed before you started dragging, you can let go of it and the arrow tool will still be selected -- which will move a lot faster! ------------------------------------------------ Since certain characters (such as the curly quotes) don't exist in some Windows system fonts, when you type these characters into a field which uses that font (such as AutoKern/Advanced/Which characters), you will see only bars for your text. The characters will still get kerned, they just can't show up in the text field. ------------------------------------------------ Your custom-named characters, and a few others which are not visually represented, will appear as a double asterisk (**) in the Font Window (when viewing by Character). ------------------------------------------------ PRINTING WITH FONTOGRAPHER'S PRINT COMMAND If you have difficulty printing via Fontographer's "Print" command, then you most likely have a print driver that isn't 100% Windows compatible, or you don't have the proper fonts installed. Below are some tips to help you print successfully. - Install Arial: Fontographer depends on the font "Arial" for most of its printing. You should install this font from your Windows disks if it is not already installed. - Always print a test page: When you install your print driver, you should print a test page if the installer prompts you to do so. This will test the basic operation of the print driver. If you're running Windows95, the test page should contain about half a page of information about your printer. If you only see a small graphic at the top of the page, or less than one-third of a page of information, then your driver probably isn't 100% Windows compatible. - Choose a different print driver: Changing print drivers will almost always solve your printing problems. In general, you should switch to a driver with a similar name, and probably a less complex name. For example, if you have trouble printing to an Apple LaserWriter Pro 630, then switch to the basic AppleLaserWriter driver. Consult your Windows user manual to learn more about changing print drivers. - The "Apple LaserWriter" driver: This driver works well for most PostScript laser printers, including the Apple LaserWriter Pro series, the HP LaserJet 4M series, and many others. - Where to get new drivers: If you can't find a driver that works, then contact your printer manufacturer. You can probably find their phone number in the manual that came with your printer. Printer manufacturers frequently release new drivers that fix compatibility problems. ------------------------------------------------ If you are using pressure sensitive tablets with Fontographer, then be sure you have the most recent versions of the software drivers. In testing, we used the Wacom Art-Z tablet, the only tablet with an available Windows95 driver that we could get our hands on during development. ------------------------------------------------ We found that the Logitech PageScan (TM) Color Scanner would scan bitmaps directly into Fontographer's template layer. This may work quite well for you, or you may want to scan them into Paint/PaintBrush, clean up the scan, select the area you want to trace, and then use copy and paste to get the bitmap into Fontographer. ------------------------------------------------ Special thanks to Peter Belew, Erik Breiter, Michael Charness, James S. Clark, Mayrev Eleasari, Martha Forsyth, Bob Hallissy, Kelvin Ishigo, Nicole Josan, Ted Keener, Jim Link, Don Lyckman, Thomas Milo, Duane Roberts, Shannon Sidbury, Simon Smith and Bill Troop. ------------------------------------------------ IN CLOSING... That's about it. Thank you for trying Macromedia Fontographer 4.1 for Windows. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed creating it! The Macromedia Fontographer Team