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FontFiend

The complete manual for them most advanced Font Editor for RISC OS.

Setting up Memory

FontFiend requires quite a lot of free memory in order to run. Before trying to load FontFiend ensure that you have at least 4Mb of free memory. When loaded FontFiend will grab either 4Mb or the size of the Next slot in the Task Manager, whichever is the greater. We recommend that you drag the Next slot up to the largest amount possible, leaving about 300K spare for workspace.

To change to the size of the Next slot simply click Select on the Acorn icon on the Icon Bar. A window will open containing a lot of sliders which show memory usage. Drag the Next slot slider up to the amount you want and then close the Task Manager window. Do not drag the next slot all the way as then there will not be enough workspace memory, leave around 300K in the Free slot.

Loading FontFiend

FontFiend is loaded by simply double clicking on its icon. Provided you have enough memory the program will then load. Firstly you will see the FontFiend title screen and then the application will load. If you do get any messages about memory for example "3800K free memory is needed before the application will start. Quit any unwanted applications or see the RISC OS user guide for ways to maximise memory." then ensure you have enough memory free, for example quit any loaded tasks and try again.

If all is well when you next double click on FontFiend its icon will appear on the right hand side of the icon bar.

Loading a Font

To load a font into FontFiend drag the fonts Outlines file to the FontFiend icon on the icon bar. You can also double click on an Outlines file in order to load it into FontFiend. Also see Appendix 4 "Loading Base 0 fonts".

The hourglass will then appear and the font will load. You may see a percentage hourglass appear, this happens when FontFiend is producing the small thumbnails for the main window. Once the font has been loaded the main window will appear

The FontFiend main window consists of two sections, the button bar and the main character thumbnails table. The button bar shows the fonts name and displays helpful messages from FontFiend as you move the mouse around. Below these are the buttons themselves.

FontFiend will provide on-line help as you move the mouse over the buttons. Also note that FontFiend supports interactive help as well.

Looking at characters

FontFiend allows you to view the characters in a font in two different ways. If you move the mouse pointer over the top of one of the character thumbnails in the main window and double click with SELECT then a window will open showing the outline version of the particular character along with another button bar.

This "Outline window" displays not only the outlines that make up the character but also shows the following:

• Scaffolds applied to the character (green lines)
  
• Scaffold base lines (grey lines along left/top of the window)
  
• Skeletons applied to the character (cyan lines/control points)
  
• The characters width (red bar under the character)
  
• Any composite characters (grey outlines with no control points)

Filled character windows

You can also see what a character will look like when it is rendered by double clicking ADJUST on one of the character thumbnails in the main window. This "Filled character" window can be scaled to alter the size of the character. Users of FontED should be able to see that FontFiend has been designed to operate in a similar manner.

The FontFiend main menu

FontFiend has two main sets of menu. One menu applies to the entire font, this is opened by pressing MENU over FontFiend's main window.

As you can see from the illustration on the left this menu has various options. For example going past the Bounding option will lead to a submenu that is concerned with bounding boxes for the entire font.

The Characters option leads to a sub-menu that is concerned with entire characters (including Outlines, Skeletons, Scaffolds and Composites).

All of the other options should be obvious. If any are not then see the first chapter in this manual "What is a Font?". The FontFiend main menu is covered in chapter 5.

Character menus

The second type of menu is concerned with individual characters. To open the menu for a character you need to first open the Outline Window for that character. You do this by double clicking with SELECT on one of the character thumbnails on the main window.

The Outline Window for this character will then open. If you then press MENU in this window the menu for this character will open.

This menu is arranged in a similar way to the main menu. Each of the options (except Transform, Full char & Restore) leads to a sub menu.

The Transform option opens the Character Transformation window for this character. This is covered later in the manual

The Full char option will open the filled character window for this character.

Filled character windows (2)

The filled character windows do not have a menu since they are only designed to show you what the particular character will look like when rendered. However if you click any mouse button inside one of these windows the Outline window for the same character will open on top of the filled window. This can be useful as it means you do not have to close the filled window and then find the correct thumbnail to click on in the FontFiend main table in order to open the Outline window.

The Icon bar menu

FontFiend also has an icon bar menu. This is opened by going to the FontFiend icon on the icon bar and clicking the menu button. The Info option leads to an information dialogue box that tells you about the copy of FontFiend that you are running.

The quit option will quit FontFiend. If you are editing a font at the time a confirmation window will open first. This prevents you quitting accidentally.

The preferences option will open the FontFiend preferences window. This controls a number of settings regarding how FontFiend will work.

The preferences window has its own chapter later in the manual.

Getting started summary

These 5 pages cover where things are located in FontFiend. To sum up:

1. Options that alter the whole font are found by clicking MENU on the main table.
2. You can view a single character by double clicking Select on its thumbnail in the main table. This opens an Outline Window for the particular character.
3. Options that alter a single character are found by clicking MENU over the Outline Window for a single character.
4. Commonly used parts of FontFiend can be quickly found using the button bars on top of the main window and attached to the side of the outline windows.

We recommend that you have a play with FontFiend at this point. Remember that whatever you do to a loaded font will not matter provided that you do not save the font back out of FontFiend.

We also recommend that initially you use the menus rather than the button bars, as many less frequently used options are only found on the menus. Once you have become familiar with the menu structures then try using the buttons bars to speed up operations.

Those who are experienced with Acorn outline fonts will quickly be able to pick up how FontFiend works. From the outset FontFiend was designed to be quick and easy to use. For this reason many of the conventions established by Acorns own FontED application have been followed. If you can use FontED then you are already halfway towards being a FontFiend yourself!

APDL and Foundation RISCWorld