Gander Quill will operate under any version of System 7 or System 8, on any PowerMac or 68k Macintosh of MacII class or higher. The program is useful only as part of the Font Gander Pro package, but it has no hard-coded dependencies on Gander Pro and can be treated as an entirely separate entity. You might want to place an alias of the "Gander Plug-ins" folder inside Gander Quill's folder, so that you can more easily save plug-ins there.
◊ Overview
To understand Gander Quill, you must first know something about Font Gander Pro. Font Gander Pro is a very simple and easy-to-use program which allows you to view fonts without first installing them, and to print sampler sheets of those fonts at high resolution (both TrueType and Type-1 PostScript). There's only one built-in sampler-sheet layout, which only prints one font per page, but additional layouts (with up to 99 fonts per page!) can be added in the form of plug-in modules. That's where Gander Quill comes in. Gander Quill provides a very simple draw-program interface for the design of Font Gander plug-ins. Most any graphic artist should find it to be almost as intuitive as, say, Adobe Illustrator® or QuarkXpress®. In some ways it is a far more primitive program (no "Undo" feature, all coordinates are expressed in points, and the user has to do all the math), but considering that most people will use it only rarely, and considering that they mostly just need a familiar interface that doesn't take more than a few minutes to learn, it is an extremely capable and well-suited program.
In this documentation, we will assume that you are familiar with the basic features of at least one draw program such as Illustrator, MacDraw, Canvas, or the drawing module in ClarisWorks. There are three basic differences between such a program and Gander Quill:
1) What appears to be a toolbar in Gander Quill is not actually a toolbar at all. When you click on one of the items, your mouse does not suddenly assume the power to create a line, a rectangle, a text box, or the like. Instead, you must click and hold down the mouse button while you "drag" one of these items from the toolbar into your document window. It's a "palette", not a toolbar. We call it the "Object Palette".
2) Once an object is created (dragged into your document), you cannot set many of its properties (line weight, shading, font size, etc.) without using a modal dialog box. In fact, about all you can do is drag it into position, drag-resize its dimensions, change its front-to-back ordering, group/ungroup, and copy/paste/duplicate. The modal dialogs would be a major nuisance in an ordinary draw program, but here they're not so bad, because most of what you'll do will be repetition, using copy/paste. For instance, if you want the alphabet printed in 30 different fonts, all bold italic, you would simply create one text object, bring up its modal dialog box, type in the alphabet and set the style, then click OK and copy it to the clipboard. From then on it would simply be a matter of pasting the same object into 29 different layers.
3) Layers? This is the biggest departure from the standard draw-program interface. Although many other draw programs do use layers as a way to do scan tracings or separations or the like, it's not what you'd call a "standard feature", and layers don't behave in a standard way from one program to the next. In Gander Quill, hopefully, the layers are so obvious and so integral to the interface, you'll learn how to use them in no time at all. The basic idea is this: as you design your layout, every time you want to add a new feature font, you must create a new layer for that font. If you do a layout showing 3 fonts, you must create 3 layers. "Font Layers," we call them. If you think about it, this is the only really elegant way to assign different fonts to text objects when the identities of those fonts won't be known until print time. We could have designed the program instead to segregate each font onto a different part of the page, but then you'd be restricted to 4-up layouts, or 6-ups, or whatever. Layers give you far more freedom. Or, we could have insisted that you link each text object to a font index, but then you'd have to deal with a potentially mind-numbing nightmare of entangled links. Although Gander Quill does utilize links for some optional features, they're links between layers, not an intangible index, and they're very easy to deal with.
◊ Guided Tour
• Launch Gander Quill and select "New…" from the File menu. You'll see a page setup dialog, very much like a printer's page setup. Play with the options for a while, just to see what's available. The "Custom Size…" option gives you enough flexibilty for any oddball situation, hopefully. In any case, choose a page size, click OK, and enjoy that beautiful new clean blank page while you still have a chance, because we're going to mess it up some.
• Let's mess it up with guides first. Guides are VERY important in the Gander Quill scheme of things. Since you'll only be working in one font layer at a time, and you can't align objects in one layer with objects in another layer, the guides are the only way to get nice even columns and baselines. Guides apply globally, across layers. You create them by "dragging" them off one of the rulers. Once you've placed a guide on the page, it's a little hard to move it - you have to do some mousing-around to click just the right sweet spot - but with practice you can simply grab it and move it someplace else if you change your mind. To delete it, just grab it and drag it back to the ruler. Try it now. If you're not familiar with the use of guides in other programs, try placing a few now, just to get a feel for it. The rulers are repeating patterns every inch (72 points), with diamonds showing half-inches and quarter-inches. If you ignore the diamonds, it's all strictly in picas and points (a pica equals 12 points). The numbers that appear in your mouse cursor during drags are distances from the zero point at the top- left corner of the page. Inch values appear at inch marks, pica values (e.g., "4p") appear at pica divisions, and point values (1 to 11) appear between the picas. It pays to do your calculations ahead of time.
• Now we can start messing with the objects. Drag a Glyph object into the document. If you're wondering why we chose the glyph to default to a zero, it's because we spent millions of dollars and months of intensive research on the decision, and we concluded that a zero would allow us to make silly little puns about goose eggs. Anyway, notice how, when you drag the glyph near one of the guides, it doesn't snap into place the way you might expect. The little black selection "handles" that box the object in are not attracted to the guides, but rather the baseline of the glyph is. It's different with most other kinds of objects. Most objects do snap to the edges of their selection boxes. But for Glyphs - and also Line Text objects - the baselines are more important.
• Let's create a Line Text object now. Does it say, "Double-Click Me!"? If so, do so. If not, double-click it anyway. By double-clicking (or typing Command-I), you bring up the object info dialog box, which lets you change the text, the style, the point size, and lets you specify the position numerically if you don't trust the guides entirely. Every different class of object has a different dialog box like this. For the most part, they're self-explanatory, so we won't review each one. The key thing to know is that, although these dialogs would become rather tedious in a normal draw program, they shouldn't be a problem here, where so many operations are simply a matter of copying and pasting from one font layer to the next.
• Let's try that. Copy the line text to the clipboard, and create a new font layer ("New Font Layer" is the first item under the Layers menu, oddly enough). Now paste the clipboard object into this new layer. You see that it's the same "Double-Click Me!" text, in the same style and size, but it's in a new font. Something else is different about this layer, too. If you double-click on the text, you'll see that the Info dialog no longer lets you assign a 'custom' font to this individual object. Only objects in layer zero (the "Tags & Labels" layer) can be in a custom typeface. In any other layer, all fonts are assigned at print-time. Also, only objects in layer zero can be linked to other layers. This difference shows up in the Info dialog, too. In layer zero, there's a "Link to Target Layer" option, which is absent here. Why should objects in layer zero be linked to other layers? Well, let's say you want to print the name of the font in each layer, but you want to print it in a label font like Helvetica, so that it will be readable when you get to Zapf Dingbats. In this case, you would simply create a Line Text or Wrapping Text object in layer zero, type the word "<FONT>" into it, and link it to the target layer. At print time, Font Gander Pro will replace the "<FONT>" keyword with the name of the target font. (There are numerous other keywords. See the "Keywords" section below.) Non-text objects in layer zero can be linked to other layers, too. If they're linked to another layer, they won't print at all at the end of a print-job, if their target font is missing from the last page.
• You don't need to use the info dialogs to assign layer links, however. In fact, it's better if you don't assign them that way. There's a much easier method. Select "Reveal All" from the Layers menu. Notice that the rulers disappear, as do the guides and the cropping margins, and that none of your layers are grayed-out anymore. Among other things, "Reveal All" is a sort of print preview mode. You can't create objects when you're in this mode. Can't move or resize them. But when you click on an object, you see a little pop-up window that shows which layer it's in. If it's in layer zero, it also shows which layer it's linked to. Now hold down your Control key (not to be confused with the Command key!) and click on a layer zero object. Sudden the mouse pointer turns into a little chain-link icon. Aha! You probably know what to do next. Click on a layer #1 object. You see the brief flash of a layer link being formed. If you now click on the original layer zero object, you see that it's linked to layer #1!
• By the way, to delete a link, just link a layer zero object to another layer zero object (or to itself). Try it. You see the flash of an 'implosion' rather than a link being formed. Now the layer zero object is linked to "all" layers, meaning it has no reference to another layer's font and it will print on the last page no matter if fonts are missing.
• Oh, and if you DO happen to confuse the Command key with the Control key, you'll discover that Command-clicks always transport you to the layer of the object that you click on. This is true whether you're in Reveal All mode or not. With Command-clicks, you should never really need to navigate via the Layers menu. Didn't we say this program was easy?
• The last step in building a Font Gander Pro plug-in is to select "Build Plug-in…" from the File menu. This is probably the easiest step of all, since your design work is already done. We won't even go into it. We've left out a lot of details here, maybe, but as mentioned, we do expect you to have some previous experience with draw programs in general. Now it's up to you to jump in and design a layout for real. Have fun!
◊ Keywords
We already touched on the subject of keywords, using the "<FONT>" example. There are others. Let's start with three keywords that don't require layer links.
<PAGE> inserts the page number. Use it anywhere. 'Nuff said?
<DATE> inserts the date of printing.
<NOTE> is a very special keyword. It gives your plug-in a whole new property. If you type "<NOTE>" in a line text or wrapping text object, the resulting plug-in will be built with its own special dialog box, which you can invoke anytime by double-clicking on the layout's thumbnail in Font Gander Pro's "Page Setup / Print" window. For instance, let's say you have a lot of fonts on CD ROMs, and you want your layout to include the CD's publisher, the full jacket title, the date of copyright, or whatever. There are no keywords that can automatically insert this information, but "<NOTE>" allows you to insert it manually at print-time. Just double click on the thumbnail before you print, type the information in the dialog box (type shift-returns to force linebreaks), and click "OK". Your note will be saved into the plug-in's own file structure, and it will print whatever text you entered, and all your printouts will contain that same information until the next time you change it via the dialog box.
If you build a plug-in without the "<NOTE>" keyword, your double-click will merely bring up a "Built with Gander Quill™" blurb. (In case you were wondering.)
From here on, all the keywords we mention will require a linkage to a specific feature font layer if you use them in layer zero. In other words, using the "<FONT>" example again, just to be very clear about it, if you use that keyword in a layer zero object, and if you don't link the object to another font layer, the object won't know which font you're referring to, and it won't insert a font name. In that case, the keyword will come through on your printouts. You don't want that. If it ever happens, you need to re-edit the layout, making sure that that object is properly linked.
<FONT> inserts the font name. (We mention it once more in case you want to excerpt this for reference.)
<ID#> inserts the font's ID number.
<FILE> inserts the name of the suitcase that the font is in. Or it might be a 'naked' font rather than a suitcase, but "<FILE>" gives its filename. If you're proofing installed fonts under System 7.0 or 7.0.1, it will probably insert "System File". Rarely, it will insert the words "ROM-resident", which means that the font doesn't have a file, but exists in a computer chip.
<DISK> inserts the name of the disk or the disk partition that the font file resides on. This too might insert "ROM-resident" on rare occasion.
<PATH> inserts the entire file heirachry, from the disk name to the file name. In other words, if the font is in a suitcase called "Cooper Black.suit", in a folder called "Fonts C - D", on a Zip disk called "Merged Adobes.BAK", the "<PATH>" keyword will insert "Merged Adobes.BAK:Fonts C - D:Cooper Black.suit". Or, once again, there's a rare chance of "ROM-resident".
<PSi00> inserts the internal PostScript name of the font. For instance, it would insert names like "AGaramond-Regular" and "Palatino-Roman", which you generally don't see under the Font menu. But these internal names are style-dependent, so we need variations on this keyword to insert things like "AGaramond-Semibold" or "Palatino-Italic". We need 95 variations, in fact, because there are that many combinations of bold, italic, condensed, etc. You can always get the variation you need by selecting any text object in the style in question, then bringing up its Object Info dialog box, and selecting "Get Style Keyword" from its Style popup menu. Or, you can use a little math to create the variation you want. For the math, you need to realize that the "00" in "<PSi00>" is a pair of zeros, and the variations all range from "<PSi00>" to "<PSi95>", always with two digits, following a simple pattern. We'll explain the pattern in a moment.
<PSp00> inserts the name of the downloadable PostScript printer file. It's the same as the PostScript internal name, except that it's abbreviated in a certain way, so that "Palatino-BoldItalic" becomes "PalatBolIta". Once again, this keyword needs 95 other variations to account for styles. Again, you can get the correct variation from the object's Style menu, or use a little math.
Alright then, here's the math behind both of the aforementioned style-coded keywords: Each style is assigned a value, and combinations of styles are merely the sums of those values. So, if Bold has a value of 01 (and it does), and if Italic has a value of 02 (and it does), then we would add them together to get the value for BoldItalic, which is 03. It works because each value assigned to each different style occupies a different position in binary numbering. It's like, if computers used decimal numbering instead of binary, we would assign 1 to Bold, 10 to Italic, 100 to Underline, and so forth, so we could see at a glance that a style code of 101 means Bold Underlined, and does not include Italic's 10. It's the same with binary, except that binary increases by powers of 2 instead of powers of 10, so the numbers are more manageable. Here's a chart:
Note that all these styles added together would total up to 127, but you can't use Condensed and Extended at the same time, so that brings the maximum down to 95. Internally, also, fonts don't recognize the Underline style (it's just a line that's added after the text is drawn), and through the miracle of some bit-shifting, the maximum comes down even further and ends up at 47. But you don't have to worry about that. For you, the user, the maximum is 95. What you do have to worry about (if you like to worry) is that there's probably not a font in the world that supports all possible internal styles, and so you'll often get the same results from "<PSi95>" as you would get from "<PSi03>". You can pretty much get along just by remembering that Plain is zero (00), Bold is one (01), Italic is two (02), and BoldItalic is three (03).
A lot of fonts, in fact, don't have any internal PostScript names. Whenever that's the case, all variations of "<PSi00>" will give you the same font name that's on the Font menu. The printer filename keywords (variations of "<PSp00>") will happily abbreviate that font name as if it were a legitimate PostScript name, so maybe we should call it a "theoretical" printer file name?
Non-merged PostScript fonts do contain legitimate names, but the various stylenames are not kept together in the same resources. Since Font Gander Pro needs to handle large numbers of non-installed fonts, and since, as a consequence, it's continually loading and purging font resources from memory, it cannot search for style names by reference to other font resources, which may or may not be in memory at any given moment. The bad news here is that a given font layer might print something like "AGaramond-SemiboldItalic" as its Plain style name, its Bold style name, and its Italic name, as well as its BoldItalic name. The good news is that you can design your layout specifically for non-merged fonts, using only the "<PSi00>" (plain) keyword without any style variations, and it will show the correct stylenames in the differing layers.
◊ Gotchas
In the Glyph Object Info dialog box, there is a "Clone…" button, which allows you to create a whole alphabet's worth of glyphs (or however many you want) in one easy step. But beware of how quickly these clones can fill up your page. You might want to temporarily create a new layer before you try this feature, so the clones don't get jumbled-in with your other objects. The clones are deposited starting in the top-left corner of your page, and they wrap to the right and downward. If you have a small monitor, and you create just a few clones, you might have to scroll the window to find them.
Glyphs and Line Text objects automatically resize their bounding boxes when you copy them from one layer and paste them into another. This is because each layer has different font metrics. It won't matter when you're dealing with individual objects, because they snap to guides according to their baseline and origin point, which remains unchanged. However, when these items are members of a group, they cause the entire group to resize, and groups _do_ snap to guides along their edges. This could cause grouped Glyphs and Line Text objects to be misaligned. The solution is to ungroup after pasting. Within the group, the objects maintain their correct positions relative to each other, and once you ungroup them they will snap to guides just fine.
If you use 'none-filled' rectangle objects to create borders and frames, be aware that they can interfere with your mouse clicks when you're switching layers or setting links. They can intercept a click before the intended target object has a chance to detect it. Solution: add borders and frames as a last step, after you've done all your other work.
During editing, the number of fonts being rasterized can greatly slow down screen redraws and hamper your productivity. If you do a layout with a lot of fonts, you should choose the "Use All One Feature Font" option. This option is available in the "Change Font…" item under the Layers menu, but it's not available when you're in layer zero. You must be in a feature font layer before you can choose a global feature font.
You cannot re-use an existing picture object. If it already holds a graphic, your double-click will only bring up a resize and reposition dialog. You must delete such unwanted picture objects entirely, and drag new ones into the document to place new graphics.
Picture objects should not contain embedded fonts of their own. If they do, make sure you use them only in layer zero. But even in layer zero, they can turn your printout into an unsightly mess if you should ever go to print without the embedded fonts being installed in your system. Our best advice: avoid PICTs with text in all cases.
Gander Quill makes absolutely no attempt to fit oversized graphics into memory. If you try to paste a large (i.e., memory-intensive) PICT into a picture object, you will probably be told to use a smaller PICT. This is good policy, as Font Gander Pro creates 2 spool files at print time, and these picts will be repeated on every page, and even dynamic memory can get pretty tight. You can override this limitation by increasing Gander Quill's memory allocation, but you'd be better off taking the Gander's advice and using a smaller graphic.
• MOST IMPORTANT GOTCHA:
Don't overlap objects in different layers, because you never know the order in which Font Gander Pro will superimpose these layers onto the printed page. The Gander needs to do some pretty fancy footwork in order to print offline fonts correctly, and there's no way to predict how it will collate. Above all, this means that you can't reverse text in one layer on a black box in another layer. Keep your reversal pairs together in the same layer.
• FINAL PRINTING GOTCHA:
This problem applies equally to both Gander Quill and Font Gander Pro. Some PostScript printers will not print properly reversed text unless "Color/Grayscale" is enabled in the print job dialog box (the dialog that the printer puts up at print-time, not the "Page Setup"). There's no way we can fix this on our end, at least not in the case of Font Gander Pro, and Gander Quill needs a similar print engine for faithful proofing. However, it's an easy fix for you, even if you do need to see your printer driver's documentation.
