¢Font Master¢¢Written By Mike Fulton¢¢This program is copyright (c) 1987 by Mike Fulton. Permission is given to the user to copy and distribute this program freely in its complete, original form. The program may not be copied or distributed in an altered form without the express written permission of the author. This program was written using Action! from Optimized Systems Software. The Action! runtime portions of this program are (c)1984 Action Computer Services.¢¢* * * * * * * * * * * *¢¢ Font Master is a print utility program for the Atari. It is compatible with all Atari 400/800/XL/XE computers with at least 48K memory, 1 disk drive, and an Epson-compatible printer.¢¢ The author encourages the user to make copies of this program for friends and/or upload it to any Atari Bulletin Board System. However, please remember that this program respresents a very significant amount of time and work on the part of the author. If you find this program useful, please send the author a suitable donation. If you also include a self-addressed, stamped disk envelope, in return you will be sent the most recently updated version of the program and documentation. Donations may be sent to the author at the following address:¢¢Mike Fulton¢4237 Cheshire Dr.¢Apt. NCC-1701¢Cypress, CA 90630¢USA¢¢* * * * * * * * * * * *¢¢ Font Master is designed to perform two basic file-printing functions. The first function is to print out files with all graphics characters included. Two different printer resolutions and a variety of line widths are available. The second function is a sideways printing routine for printing out Syncalc spreadsheet files. (Probably Visicalc too, but it hasn't been tested.) With either print function, the user has a choice of using the Atari's built-in character set or using one loaded from disk.¢¢ Upon loading, the credits screen will be displayed for a few seconds. After this, the main menu screen appears. You have several different choices, as shown below.¢¢1 - Print Text File¢2 - Line Width (Characters per line)¢3 - Load Character Set¢4 - Change Character Set¢5 - Top/Bottom Margins¢S - Sideways Syncalc Print¢D - Dots per line (Printer resolution)¢P - Change Printer (Epson FX/Gemini)¢M - Disk Directory¢Q - Quit Program¢¢* * Menu Choice Desciptions * *¢¢1 - Print Text File. This option prompts you to enter the name of the file to print. For disk files, you do not have to enter "D:" if you are using drive 1. For keyboard entry, use "E:" for the filename. By the way, the file to be printed does not have to be a text file; any type of file can be printed. But the program is designed mainly for text files.¢ If you decide to abort this function, you can hit the <Break> key while entering the filename. You can also hit the <Break> key to quit while the file is printing. An error message will be printed and the program will return to the main menu.¢¢2 - Line Width. This function controls the maximum number of characters which are printed on each line. There are several different values available. Choosing this function will step through the various line widths. The printer resolution setting and this setting work together to control the size and quality of your text. With 960 dots/line, you can have 120, 60, 40, and 24 characters per line. Using 1920 dots/line gives choices of 120, 80, 60, and 48 character per line.¢¢3 - Load Character Set. This function allows you to load a character set from disk. You will be asked for the name of the file on the disk. If the file does not exist, an error message is printed.¢ Font Master uses the standard Atari 8-bit font format. Fonts created with most font editors, including Instedit, Megafont II, and most Public Domain font editors, are compatible with Font Master.¢¢4 - Change Character Set. This switches between the regular Atari character set and a loaded character set. If no character set has been loaded, then the regular Atari set is used.¢¢5 - Top/Bottom Margins. If used, this creates a 3 line margin at the bottom of the page. This is useful mostly for program listings to avoid printing on the edge of the paper.¢¢S - Sideways SynCalc Print. This function allows the user to print out SynCalc spreadsheet files sideways on the paper, allowing printouts to be much wider than normal. You will be asked for the name of the file. Either the regular Atari character set or a loaded character set may be used.¢ In order to use this function, you will need to load SynCalc and your worksheet data, and then save the range of cells to be printed using the TEXT file option. (See your SynCalc manual for details.) You may have to save one line past the desired range for proper results.¢ There is a limit on the size of files which may be printed with this function. In version 1.0, this is 18,000 characters. Also, this function is limited to a maximum of 40 lines vertically. The lines can be as long as desired as long as the total size of the file does not exceed the maximum file size. That is, you could have a file with 1 line of 18,000 characters, or 3 lines of 6000, and so on. With all 40 lines, this allows 450 characters per line.¢ In version 1.0, this function may not work properly with other types of text files because it currently relies on the fact that SynCalc saves text files with all lines the same length. This and other aspects of this function may be addressed in future versions.¢¢D - Dots per line. This option switches the printer resolution between 1920 and 960 dots per line. The text quality is not very different between the two modes, but using both gives a wider range of available character widths. Please note that older Epson MX printers will only perform correctly in 960 dots/line mode, and that some Epson-compatible printers may not be completely compatible in this respect.¢¢P - Change Printer. This switches between the Epson FX and Star Micronics Gemini series printers for the 1920 dots/line mode. If your Epson-compatible printer does not work correctly in 1920 dots/line mode, changing this setting might fix the problem. If not, stick to the 960 dots/line mode.¢¢M - Disk Directory. This gives you a complete disk directory of any disk drive, including ramdisks, from 1 to 8.¢¢Q - Quit Program. Take a guess... Right! This exits the program. If Font Master was loaded as an AUTORUN.SYS file, the system will probably need to be rebooted.¢
