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- \V
- FONT DESIGNING
-
- SCDESIGN, PRDESIGN and LSDESIGN
- Copyright 1990, 1991 by Ho`a G. Nguye^~n
- ______________________
-
- I\. FILE DESCRIPTIONS:
-
- The font designing utilities for VIE^'T include the following
- files:
-
- SCDESIGN.COM (Screen font design program)
- PRDESIGN.COM (Dot-matrix printer font design program)
- LSDESIGN.COM (Laser printer font design program)
- SCRFONT (Screen font used by VIE^'T)
- SCRFONT.1, SCRFONT.2, SCRFONT.3 (Other screen fonts)
- COURIER.PRF, PALATINO\.PRF (Dot-matrix printer fonts)
- COURIER.LSR, PRESTIGE\.LSR, CHANCERY\.LSR, PALATINO\.LSR
- (Laser printer fonts)
- LAYOUT.CHR (Table containing VIE^'T's character
- assignments)
- SCDESIGN.PAR, PRDESIGN.PAR, LSDESIGN.PAR (Environment files)
-
-
- II\. CHARACTER ASSIGNMENTS:
-
- The file LAYOUT.CHR contains a table listing the mapping
- between VIE^'T characters and numeric codes. You should print out
- this file\. You will need to refer to it often as you design or
- modify VIE^'T's screen or printer fonts.
-
- Note that the mapping preserves the printable portion of the
- normal ASCII codes. This allows VIE^'T to read in ASCII text files
- generated by other programs.
-
-
- III\. DESIGNING SCREEN FONT:
-
- The program SCDESIGN.COM allows you to modify VIE^'T's
- existing screen font or to customize your own screen fonts.
-
- We ask that you do not change SCRFONT.1, 2 and 3 (to prevent
- multiple versions with the same name). To customize your own
- font, select the font that is closest to what you want
- (SCRFONT.1, 2, or 3), and do (from DOS):
-
- COPY SCRFONT.1(2 or 3) yourfilename
-
- then use SCDESIGN on your file\.
-
- To use SCDESIGN on a specific file, type
-
- SCDESIGN yourfilename
-
- Section VI contains a description of the SCDESIGN commands.
-
-
- IV. DESIGNING DOT-MATRIX PRINTER FONT:
-
- PRDESIGN is the counterpart of SCDESIGN for printer fonts.
- We again ask that you do not change the two supplied fonts,
- COURIER.PRF and PALATINO\.PRF. Use the DOS "COPY" command as
- shown above to create your own file before modifying.
-
- To modify a font named FontName, type:
-
- PRDESIGN FontName
-
- You do not have to type the extension, .PRF, in FontName\.
- It is assumed. If an extension is typed, it will be ignored.
-
- Note that when designing dot-matrix print fonts, you should
- not have two adjacent horizontal dots, or the second dot would
- not be printed. This is a limitation of the printers themselves.
-
- Section VI describes the commands for the font design
- programs. In most cases, the commands are common for all
- programs. Where they differ, it will be brought to your
- attention.
-
-
- V. DESIGNING LASER PRINTER FONTS:
-
- LSDESIGN allows you to design HP-Laserjet printer fonts.
- To start up the program, type
-
- LSDESIGN FontName
-
- All VIE^'T laser fonts have the extension .LSR, and you don't have
- to enter this extension in FontName\. It is assumed.
-
- Due to the much larger bit map of laser fonts, a few new
- commands have been ad\ded (which are not available in the other
- two font-\design programs) to facilitate the designing process.
- Most other commands are similar to those of PRDESIGN and will be
- described in the following section.
-
-
- VI\. COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS:
-
- These font designing programs allow you to design the
- characters by moving a cursor (using the arrow keys) over a large
- box (representing a character) composed of rectangular tiles, and
- turning these tiles ON of OFF. When a block is OFF (same color
- as the background), the corresponding pixel will not be displayed
- on the screen or printed on the paper.
-
- Tile "flipping" is accomplished very conveniently by
- pressing the space bar. If a tile is currently ON, pressing the
- space bar will turn it OFF, and vice versa\.
-
- The SCDESIGN program also displays the actual-size character
- to the right of the box. The actual-size character continously
- changes as you change the tiles in the large box. This enables
- you to view directly what the character you are designing will
- actually look like when used by VIE^'T.
-
- The following is a summary of other commands which appear on
- the menu of these design programs. Note that to back out of any
- multi-level commands, you can use the ESC or backspace keys.
-
- C (Copy): Overwrites the current character with another
- character. This command will ask you for the source character to
- copy from.
-
- O (Overlay): Similar to Copy, but will overlay the source
- character on top of the current character instead of overwriting.
- This command is useful for modifying a group of similar
- characters. For example, you can create an accent mark as a
- temporary character (use one of the blank character codes, but
- make sure you delete it before saving the font), then overlay it
- on top of a group of vowels all needing this accent mark.
-
- D (Display, for SCDESIGN only): displays the entire font,
- showing modifications which have been made so far.
-
- P (Print, for PRDESIGN and LSDESIGN): prints the entire
- modified font on your printer. Your printer must be connected
- to the parallel port and is enabled.
-
- F (new File): loads a new font for modification.
-
- N (Next character): goes to the next character. This
- command will load the character immediately after the current
- character in the alphabet if you answer Y to the question,
- "(Y/N/+/-)?" If you answer N, then you can type in a character
- code\. You can also use the + and - signs to move to a next or
- previous character.
-
- Q (Quit): Exits the program. This command will ask if you
- want to save the file if it detects modifications which have not
- been saved.
-
- S (Save): Saves the file and continues.
-
- F2: Cycles through the 16 available colors. You should
- modify the screen font under the color which you normally use for
- VIE^'T in order to get the best idea of how your font would look
- under VIE^'T. The color selected is automatically saved in the
- appropriate environment file for future use\.
-
- U, D, L, R (shift, for LSDESIGN only): Shifts the entire
- character up, down, left or right (respectively).
-
- X (pick up row, for LSDESIGN only): Picks up the current
- row and stored it in internal memory\.
-
- Z (put down row, for LSDESIGN only): Replace the current
- row with the row which has been picked up earlier.
-
- Note: Once a row has been picked up, it remains in memory until
- replaced by another row, no matter how many times it has been
- "put down".
-
-