* Added a more user-friendly application environment
* Added support for desk accessories (i.e. Chooser)
* Added display of number of fonts, fonts per page, & total pages needed
Introduction
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The major reason that I wrote this program was for my own purposes, but then I thought that maybe some other people would find it useful also. My problem was that I found myself collecting a large number of public domain TrueType fonts and then I would forget what they all looked like. It was also a problem when other people used my computer and they wanted to know what each and every font looked like. My first solution was to use a word processor and type in a sample of each font onto a two column page. This worked OK, but it was extremely slow and tedious to add in new fonts and change old ones.
That's where FontPrinter comes in, basically all you have to do is launch the program and then click the mouse a few times. Then the program will create and print a document containing all of your fonts in their own typeface.
NOTE: Before starting FontPrinter, you should use ResEdit to rename any of your fonts that contain only uppercase letters to end with ' Caps'. FontPrinter uses this as a flag to print that particular font with only uppercase letters to prevent you from getting all those missing character boxes on the printout.
Starting Up
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After the information dialog comes on the screen, you can click the mouse button to dismiss it and continue. If this is the first time you are running FontPrinter, it will present an alert and then prompt you for a location for its data file. After this step is complete, a small window will appear. This window contains a program logo and also shows you the total number of fonts visible to FontPrinter, how many of those fonts are new**, how many fonts will be printed on each page, and how many pages will be needed using the current print settings.
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** The way I have written FontPrinter, the meaning of 'New' may not be quite the way you think. Here it means any font that wasn't printed via the 'Print All Fonts...' option the last time you used the program. My rationale for doing this was so that you could, for example, print out only pages 1 - 5 (see above figure.) That would print 115 of the 130 fonts that were installed. Then you could wait until you found 8 more fonts and then use the 'Print New Fonts...' option to print those 8 plus the 15 that were left over from before on one full page.
Configuring Output
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You can change some values that will affect the appearance of the final printout by using the 'FontPrinter Setup...' option from the File menu. When you choose this item, you will be presented with the following dialog :
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From here you can set several printing options, including printing in a single column across the whole page instead of two half page columns, having your own text used on the printout instead of just the font name, having the preferred font size maintained, even if it won't fit in a column (some characters will be truncated), and including the name of each font in your choice of font and size in front the sample text (useful if you enter your own text string).
If you check the 'Make Current Settings the Default' checkbox then, when you click the OK button, the current setup values will be saved and then reloaded each subsequent time the program is launched. This allows you to configure FontPrinter to your own preferences and then next time you run the program you only need to select the print option.
Printing
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FontPrinter now offers two printing options, 'Print New Fonts...' and 'Print All Fonts...'. I thought it was kind of a waste to have to re-print the entire document whenever I added new fonts so I added this second option. Now the program creates a data file the first time it is run and stores the font IDs of all the fonts that it sees in that file. Then on subsequent launches, it checks the currently installed fonts against the IDs stored in that file. Any that aren't in that file are considered new and can be printed out separately via the 'Print New Fonts...' option.
If you choose the 'Print All Fonts...' option, then the existing data file is overwritten, after printing has completed successfully, with a list of all the fonts that were just printed. This can cause confusion if you choose this option and then change the printing page range (see explanation in Startup section.) The 'Print New Fonts...' option, however, just appends the IDs of the newly printed fonts to the data file.
When you choose one of the print options from the File menu, the standard Print Job dialog box will appear. Then when you press the OK button the page creation and printing process will begin and the following window will appear :
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As FontPrinter draws each font on the page it will let you know what its name is and approximately how far it has to go via the progress bar. You can stop this process by clicking on the Stop button.
NOTE: If you are using a laser printer, you should choose 'Page Setup...' from the File menu and use the 'Options' button to turn on the 'Unlimited Downloadable Fonts' checkbox, otherwise your printer might run out of memory part way through the document.
I have only tested this program on the limited number of machines and printers that I have access to so I make no guarantees that it will work with every possible combination of software and hardware.
If you find this program useful I would appreciate it if you would send $5.00 to:
Mark J. Anderson
Bloss Hall #306
Corvallis, OR 97331-1201
Or at least send me some E-mail saying what kind of system setup you have (ie. what printer, computer, VM? 32-bit?) and whether or not my program worked for you. Any suggestions for future versions, general comments, and/or bug reports are welcome via E-mail to andersm@prism.cs.orst.edu.
