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FontFX

RISCWorld

Introduction

FontFX is a utility to create a drawing of a string using outline font designs. A number of special effects are available to modify the result; these include colours, shadows, rotation and distortion. The finished product is a Draw-format file, which is ideal for use with desktop publishing software.

NOTE: Version 6.00 (and later versions) of FontFX no longer support RISC OS 2.

How it works

The Acorn Outline Font Manager stores the definition of its characters as a sequence of coordinates linked by straight lines and curves, i.e. an outline. This is the same method of storing a drawing as is used by the Draw module, which is the heart of the !Draw application, and which is used by many other applications to reproduce line drawings. It is a relatively simple process, therefore, to convert the definition of a character from an outline font into a 'path' (a sequence of lines and curves) compatible with the Draw module. Once these 'paths' are packaged into a file, the file can be saved, or transferred directly into another application. During the conversion process, the 'paths' can be transformed, that is, rotated, scaled, duplicated (shadowed) or otherwise distorted, and the fill and outline colours selected.

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