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1989-05-31
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LQCHAR.DOC
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Instructions for LQCHAR.COM
Version 1.21 (5/31/89)
(c)1988-89 Eric Meyer
Requires: IBM PC compatible computer
Epson LQ compatible dot matrix printer
LQCHAR is a small, efficient utility for designing downloaded character
fonts for Epson LQ-compatible 24-pin dot matrix printers. It will run on any
MSDOS system (2.x or above) with an IBM compatible video adapter (MDA, CGA,
EGA, VGA). LQCHAR lets you design each character individually on screen, and
builds up a disk file containing all the character definitions. This file can
then be sent to your printer anytime you wish to use the font.
******************************************************************************
* *
* LQCHAR and its documentation are (c)1988-89 Eric Meyer, *
* all rights reserved. They may be freely distributed, but not *
* modified or sold for profit without my written consent. *
* (Voluntary contributions are welcome.) The user takes full *
* responsibility for any damages resulting from the use of this *
* program. *
* *
* Eric Meyer *
* 401 12th Ave SE, #139 CompuServe [74415,1305] *
* Norman, OK 73071 USA *
* *
******************************************************************************
INTRODUCTION
The ability of many dot matrix printers to accept downloaded fonts makes
them far more versatile than formed-character (daisy wheel) printers. You can
change fonts in the middle of printing without touching your printer, and you
can design any characters you like. (Combined with the font definition
ability of the EGA/VGA adapter, this allows word processing in a wide variety
of typefaces, using ordinary off-the-shelf software. I recommend an excellent
freeware screen font editor called CHET.ARC, from Mylex Corp.)
If you design some really nice fonts with LQCHAR (artsy, foreign,
whatever), please consider sending me a copy of the LQC files.
ABOUT YOUR PRINTER...
LQCHAR should work with any Epson LQ compatible printer; I use it with a
24-pin Alps ALQ-200. But no manual I've ever seen describes the design and
use of downloaded fonts in a comprehensible fashion, and I suspect that some
details may vary from one printer to another. Anything I say below applies to
the Alps, and "probably" to your LQ printer (Epson or whatever) as well.
First let's clear up some terminology:
QUALITY - What you select with the ESC-x command (Draft, LQ, etc).
FONT - A set of characters designed for a given print quality.
FONT TYPE - Whether the font includes undefined characters (see below).
PITCH - Spacing of a given font (Pica, Elite, etc).
PROPORTIONAL - This is a variety of PITCH, not of FONT!
LQCHAR designs fonts in either Draft or Letter Quality (LQ) mode. Some
printers (such as the Alps) have a third print mode, "High density", that
falls in between; LQCHAR does not support this mode. Some printers have a
third "Proportional" mode with an even larger dot pattern; LQCHAR does not
support this either. However, an LQ font designed with LQCHAR can be declared
proportionally spaced! (Don't get confused between the two.)
-------------------------- CREATING LQC FILES ------------------------------
TYPE: A>lqchar FONTNAME
FONTNAME: a 1 to 8 character name for the font. Do not specify the ".TYP" of
the file; LQCHAR will automatically make it ".LQC".
* A disk or directory may precede the fontname.
* An option may follow the fontname:
NO option - EDIT the font file
/P - send it to the PRINTER
/U - send to the printer and start USING it
You can get this help message onscreen by typing simply "LQCHAR".
If you are starting a new font from scratch, you will have to declare it
to be either Draft or Letter quality (LQ); and you will start out with every
character blank. I have included two files called DRAFT.LQC and LETTER.LQC,
containing a full plain ASCII font for each print quality. These are often a
good point of departure for designing modified fonts. You can use them to get
a feel for the program, simply by typing:
A>lqchar draft OR A>lqchar letter
Once you are in LQCHAR, you will see a "box" on the left side of the
screen, in which each character will appear, dot by dot. The character matrix
is always 24 dot rows high; its width varies according to the print quality: 9
dot columns for Draft, 29 for Letter. (Note: in Draft mode LQCHAR spreads out
each dot by a factor of 3 so as not unduly to distort the aspect ratio.)
Background shading indicates the vertical boundaries of a normal capital
letter. The rows above are available for accents, etc; those below, for
lowercase descenders, etc.
To the right you will see a header with general information about the
font, and the cursor on a prompt that says "Character". Below will appear a
list of characters, with those that are already defined highlighted, for
reference. At this point you can do a variety of things.
MODIFYING THE ENTIRE FONT
First, several commands can be used to modify the whole font in some way:
<F1> - Change PRINT QUALITY between Draft and Letter
<F2> - Change FONT TYPE between full and partial
<F3> - Change CHARACTER PITCH: pica, elite, or proportional
<ESC> - EXIT to Save Menu
When you use the <F1-F3> commands, you will see the information in the header
change appropriately. Nothing is changed on disk until you Save the font.
PRINT QUALITY: It is possible (with the <F1> key) to expand a Draft font
into a sort of skeleton LQ font, or to compress an LQ font into a Draft font.
In the first case, each character is expanded to fit the larger LQ pattern,
leaving blank columns in between; you can enhance and fill in the gaps however
you like. In the second case, two rows out of every three are deleted; much
detail will be lost, so retouching will again be necessary.
Since changing print quality is a drastic modification which, if invoked
accidentally, could lose valuable data, LQCHAR prompts for confirmation (Y/N)
first.
FONT TYPE: The font can be stored as Full or Partial (selected with the
<F2> key). The only difference concerns characters that you have NOT defined:
in a Full font, they simply won't print. In a Partial font, the printer's
resident font will "show through" any gaps; so a Partial font is an easy way
to modify just a few characters.
PITCH: The font can be stored as Pica, Elite, or Proportional (selected
with the <F3> key). This choice affects only the spacing between characters,
not the size of the characters themselves: Pica prints 10 characters per inch
(cpi), Elite prints a more compact 12 cpi, and Proportional is also about 12
cpi but will vary according to the actual width of the characters. (Some
printers can vary the pitch of a downloaded font, and will not require the use
of this command. See MORE ABOUT DOWNLOADED FONTS below.)
THE DOS MENU
When you are finished modifying the font, pressing <ESC> takes you to the
DOS MENU, which presents several choices:
<P>= PRINT THE FONT. The entire ran