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- ................................................Oct 26 1986
-
-
-
- AD+AF HP Soft Fonts: PRD file plus Utilities
- --------------------------------------------
-
-
- by Denis DeLaRoca [72406,1717]
-
-
- Introduction:
- -------------
-
- The following package contains a PRD file to utilize the
- newly released Hewlett Packard AD and AF sets of soft fonts
- under Microsoft Word 3.x. In addition, an updated font
- download program and some useful font utilities are
- included.
-
-
-
- Files on Disk:
- --------------
-
- SOFTAD.TXT - This file
- SOFTAD.PRD - PRD File for AD+AF Soft Font set
- SOFTADHP.PRD - Same as above for HP-150 computers
- SOFTAD.EXE - Font Download Program for AD+AF set
- SOFTAD.CFG - Configuration data for Download Program
- WIDTHS.COM - Font Width Table Extract Utility
- USASCII.COM - Font Conversion Utility, Roman-8 to USASCII
- WIDTHS.PAS - Source code in Turbo Pascal
- USASCII.PAS - Source code in Turbo Pascal
-
-
- PRD File: SOFTAD.PRD
- -----------------------
-
- The IBM MS Word 3.x PRD file included is for the Portrait
- version of the HP AD-AF Soft Font sets. These sets include
- both Times Roman and Helvetica fonts in sizes 6, 7, 8, 9,
- 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 18, 24 and 30. Each size is provided in
- regular, italic and bold face versions. The supplied PRD
- file assumes certain default values, if you need to change
- those values make use of the Microsoft supplied utility
- MAKEPRD. The default values of interest as they appear on
- the PRD file are:
-
- SerialInterface: 0
- tells Word that your printer is connected via a
- parallel interface.
-
- WidthTSwap: 1
- tells Word to load one Character Width Table at a
- time. Since the PRD file contains 66 width tables,
- this setting is recommended.
-
- DownloadFlag: 1
- tells Word that your PRD file contains downloadable
- fonts to be managed with the Font Download program
- HPDWNSFP.EXE.
-
- Character Sets Supported: Roman-8 and USASCII
-
- Two PRD files are actually supplied, SOFTAD.PRD is the IBM
- version, while SOFTADHP.PRD is the HP-150 version.
-
-
-
-
- Download Program: SOFTAD.EXE
- ------------------------------
-
- To allow Word to manage font downloads automatically a
- suitable font download program SOFTAD.EXE is supplied. For
- a detailed explanation of how Word manages soft fonts
- consult the Printer Information Manual provided by Microsoft
- with version 3.x of Word. Briefly, a PRD file for soft
- fonts may specify a printer initialize file INI and a
- font download program EXE. Each PRD file may then have
- corresponding INI and EXE files. SOFTAD.PRD merely needs a
- font downloader SOFTAD.EXE. For release v3.0 of Word, the
- Microsoft supplied font download program has its
- configuration data hard coded within the program. The
- replacement font download program supplied here is instead
- driven by a configuration file SOFTAD.CFG. This is a plain
- ASCII file whose contents, for the supplied PRD file, is as
- follows:
-
- d:\hpfonts Font File Directory
- []()0?pn.<>p Font File Name Mask
- yes Erase Previous Font Download
- yes Mark Downloaded Fonts Permanent
- 8,hv,r8,ribi Helvetica Font - Roman-8 set
- 9,hv,us,ribi Helvetica Font - USASCII set
- 24,tr,r8,ribi Times Roman Font - Roman-8 set
- 25,tr,us,ribi Times Roman Font - USASCII set
-
-
- the first line specifies the file directory where your soft
- fonts may be found. The second line specifies a mask used
- by the download program to build Font File names. The wild
- chaaracters are as follows:
-
- [] - font name, HV for Helvetica, TR for Times Roman and
- so on. The actual codes are those used by HP to
- name their font files.
- () - font size in points
- <> - font character set, US for USASCII or R8 for
- Roman-8.
- ? - font style, a single character style code, follo-
- wing HP conventions R for regular, I for italic,
- B for bold and T for bold-italic.
-
- Lines 3 and 4 of the CFG file tell the download program
- whether to erase any previous downloaded fonts and whether
- to mark the fonts to be downloaded as permanent.
- Downloaded fonts marked as permanent survive the Printer
- Reset sequence issued by Word at the end of each print job.
- The erase sequence is, however, able to delete these fonts.
-
- Line 5, and succesive lines, describe the font families
- supported by a particular PRD file. The syntax of a font
- descriptor is as follows:
-
- <font-id>,<font-name>,<character-set>,<font-styles>
-
- where <font-id> is the number assigned to the font within
- the PRD file by means of the "F#" directive. <font-name> is
- the 2 character label used to identify this particular font.
- <character-set> specifies the 2 character label used to
- identify USASCII and Roman-8 fonts. Font ids range from 0
- to 63, their mappings onto Font Names are given in the Word
- Printer Manual. These mappings as well as the Font's
- Character set, size and face style are all encoded within
- the file names chosen by HP to name their font files.
-
- For each font definition, the <font-styles> parameter string
- specifies from left to right the style codes associated with
- font styles regular, italic, bold and bold italic. These
- are the codes used to build Font File names. In the
- supplied CFG file, the parameter string "ribi" associates
- the codes "r", "i", "b" and "i" with font styles regular,
- italic, bold and bold italic. Since no real bold-italic
- font is available, its closest sibling, italic, is used in
- its place. For this mapping to work note that the supplied
- PRD files assume that all four distinct font styles are
- available for use. Which styles or faces actually get used,
- or remapped, may be controlled to some extent by the
- download program.
-
- The download program has been tested on an IBM PC-AT, it
- should work with any IBM compatible computer. It may, or
- may not, work on the HP-150. Save for a direct BIOS call
- to write to the printer, SOFTAD.EXE uses standard DOS
- services. It was written under MS "C" v4.0.
-
-
-
- Installation:
- -------------
-
- Install all files on your MS Word 3.x directory. You may
- need to modify the PRD file to change some of the supplied
- defaults. After that you should be ready to go. Notice
- that the supplied PRD file supports both sets of USASCII and
- Roman-8 fonts, this assumes that you have the corresponding
- font files of both types. Roman-8 font files look as *.R8P,
- while their USASCII counterparts look as *.USP. If you
- don't need to work with extended characters use the USASCII
- fonts, they roughly about half as much memory on your
- LaserJet+ printer as Roman-8 fonts do.
-
- The current download program doesn't have the smarts to
- keep track of LaserJet+ memory usage. Specifically, it
- cannot detect the LaserJet+ status "20", out of memory. If
- such a thing occurs it is best to restart the print
- operation again selecting this time a lesser number of fonts
- to be downloaded. Maybe a future version of SOFTAD.EXE will
- be able to parse the downloaded fonts and figure out the
- amount of memory used and issue a warning message at the
- right time!
-
-
-
- CUSTOMIZATION:
- --------------
-
- The supplied font download program, unlike its Microsoft
- counterpart, is general enough to be used with other PRD
- files using downloadable fonts. Simply, create a copy of
- SOFTAD.EXE with the name of your new PRD file and configure
- it with an appropiate CFG file. For example, if you have
- some other downloadable soft fonts PRD file by the name of
- SAMPLE.PRD, then the download program would be named
- SAMPLE.EXE and the configure file SAMPLE.CFG.
-
- As already mentioned, SOFTAD.PRD supports both Roman-8 and
- USASCII font sets. It does this at the price of a slight
- incompatability with the rest of the family of PRD files.
- Microsoft suggests the use of consistent font numbers across
- the range of PRD files, see Word's Printer Manual Chapter.
- The TmsRmn font is assigned the number "24", Helvetica is
- assigned font number "8". To support USASCII fonts within
- the same PRD file, SOFTAD.PRD arbitrarily assigns font
- number "25" for USASCII Times Roman, and font number "9" for
- USASCII Helvetica. When moving among PRD files, Word
- equates fonts by the numbers, font number 24 (roman i) in
- one PRD file matches whatever font has been assigned a
- number of 24 (roman i) in the other PRD file. If such a
- font does'nt exist on the other PRD file, then Word chooses
- the default printer font, Courier for the LaserJet+.
-
-
-
-
-
- Font Information Display Utility: WIDTHS.COM
- --------------------------------------------
-
- Font descriptor and width table information may be displayed
- by means of the utility WIDTHS.COM. The program uses DOS
- re-direction for its input and output. Input must be a
- standard HP font file, output whatver you desire, examples:
-
- WIDTHS <d:\hpfonts\hv060bpn.r8p >CON:
-
- WIDTHS <d:\hpfonts\hv060bpn.r8p >LPT2:
-
- WIDTHS <d:\hpfonts\hv060bpn.r8p >hv060bpn.doc
-
-
- Font descriptor information is diaplayed in symbolic form.
- Two width tables are produced, the first with characters
- ranging from 32 to 255. The second, as used by MS Word for
- the IBM PC family, with characters ranging from 32 to 175.
- The first table is suitable for use by HP micros, while the
- second width table is for use by IBM micros, it remaps
- printable characters in the range 128-255 from the first
- table into characters 128-175 as specified by the translate
- table T0 in the PRD file.
-
-
-
- Font Conversion Utility: USASCII
- --------------------------------
-
- The utility USASCII.COM allows you to convert a
- Roman-Extended font to its USASCII version. You invoke
- USASCII in a similar fashion to WIDTHS. For example:
-
- USASCII <hv060rpn.r8p >hv060rpn.usp
-
- would convert font HV060RPN.R8P to its USASCII counterpart
- HV060RPN.USP. USASCII fonts use considerably less memory on
- your LaserJet+ and ought to be used when possible.
-
-
-
- Feedback:
- ---------
-
- Please report all problems and or suggestions for
- improvements to Denis DeLaRoca [72406,1717].