DTP Toolbox/DTPToolbox.iso/goodies/post/fontutils/readme_fontmanipulator

Text File | 1991-10-02 | 11.2 KB | 259 lines

Font manipulator for dtp.  Version 3.  Adrian Aylward, 01-Oct-91
================================================================

This distribution was released as the archive file "fmdtp3.lzh".

You may freely copy, use, and modify these files.

This package contains a number of programs that are useful for manipulating
for fonts for DTP on the Amiga.  It is especially useful in conjunction
with Professional Page, but may be useful with other packages too.  It can
create bitmapped fonts from PostScript fonts using my PostScript interpreter
library "post.library".  It can create metric files for use with PPage and
either PostScript or Compugraphic fonts.  It can create or change the
encoding of a PPage Compugraphic font.  It also makes it possible to use the
PPage Article Editor, or most other editors, with a different character set.


Programs contained
------------------

mkbmap    V1.3    Creates Amiga bitmapped fonts from PostScript fonts
mkmetric  V1.1    Creates PPage .metric files from Adobe .afm files
mkatc     V1.0    Creates PPage Compugraphic font .atc encoding files
remfont   V1.0    Removes a bitmapped font from memory - so it can be changed

To use mkbmap you will also need a copy of my PostScript interpreter,
distributed as the package "Post".  This is freely distributable, and should
be available from any good BBS or PD disk library - it is on the Fish Disks.
You need version 1.5 or later.

I have tested these programs under WorkBench V1.3 only, but they should work
under V2.0 too.

Installation
============

Copy the programs in the "bin" directory into your "c:" directory.

Copy the documentation files in the "doc" directory into wherever you keep
you doc files.  (Write yourself a "man" script for displaying them.)

If you have Post already installed you should already have a "PSFonts:"
directory.  If not then you should make one.  Make sure there is a copy
of your "init.ps" file in it.

Copy the the encoding files (*.ps) in the "encodings" directory into
"PSFonts:".  Choose a default encoding (read "encodings/ABOUT_ECODINGS"
to make up your mind) and copy it to "PSFonts:encoding.ps".

If you want to use the version of the topaz font with the extended PPage
character set then copy it into a suitable fonts directory - probably
"PPageUtil:fonts" if you have PPage.  If you have the ARP version of the
COPY program you can use the "CLONE" option to copy the filenotes.

If you have any compugraphic fonts installed you should have a "CGFonts:"
directory.  If not then you should make one. Then copy the Compugraphic
fonts character codes file ("misc/cgcharcodes") into it.

For example:

(I am using the ARP commands, so "*" is a wildcard.)

    copy bin/* c:
    copy doc/* sys:doc/commands
    more encodings/ABOUT_ENCODINGS
    copy encodings/*.ps PSFonts:
    copy encodings/ppext_encoding.ps PSFonts:encoding.ps
    more fonts/ABOUT_FONTS
    copy fonts/* PPageUtil:fonts/* all clone
    more misc/ABOUT_MISC
    copy misc/cgcharcodes CGFonts:

Adding a new PostScript font to PPage
-------------------------------------

PPage V2.0 does not actually use the PostScript font proper, instead it uses
an Amiga format bitmapped font for its screen representation.  So before you
can use the font you must generate some bitmaps.

First install the font so that Post can use it.  If it came on an IBM disk,
you need to copy the outline font file into the "PSFonts:" directory, and the
font metrics file anywhere convenient - I keep mine in "PSFonts:afms:".
For example:

    copy df0:JTR_____.PFB PSFonts:JansonText-Roman
    copy df0:JTR_____.AFM PSFonts:afms/JansonText-Roman.afm

There are various packages available that can read IBM format disks, such as
CrossDOS, DOS-2-DOS and others; some of them are freely distributable.
(N.B. I have had file corruption problems using PCPATCH/PCCOPY, so I don't
recommend this combination.)

Now you can generate some bitmaps:

    mkbmap -n PPageUtil:fonts/Janson/* JansonText-Roman 10,11,12,14,24

The "-n" option creates the file "Janson.font" automatically, so there is
no need to run "FixFonts" afterwards.  My machine has a 68030 processor and
takes about 40 seconds for each point size; unaccelerated machines will
take proportionally longer.  If you are making a lot of bitmaps, it is
better to write a shell script to generate all the ones you want, and then
go away and leave the machine running.  (That is why "real programs are
run from the CLI".)  For a favourite font is is well worth making all the
point sizes you are likely to use.  For fonts that you don't think you will
use very often just make the 12 and 24 point sizes; you can easily make some
more later.  You can even generate them while PPage is running, but it won't
pick up the new font unless you generate it before that size is first used.
PPage generates the bold and italic versions of its fonts algorithmically,
so there is no need to make them yourself.

You also need a metric file.  The metric file has exactly the same name as
the bitmapped font, but with a ".metric" suffix.  There is no need for the
name to bear any particular relation to the PostScript name, but it helps if
it is reasonably mnemonic.  A single .metric file contains all the metrics
of up to four PostScript files - the plain (or Roman) style, which cannot
be omitted, and optionally the Bold/Italic/BoldItalic styles.  For example:

   cd PSFonts:afms
   mkmetric PPageUtil:fonts/Janson.metric ...
        JansonText-Roman.afm,JansonText-Bold.afm,...
        JansonText-Italic.afm,JansonText-BoldItalic.afm

Now run PPage, and you should find "Janson" in the font menu.  The point
sizes that you generated should look respectable.  It you select another size
then PPage will scale the bitmap - the results are rather ragged.

N.B. for fonts such as Symbol and ZapfDingBats that have non-standard
character sets you will need to use the "-f" option to both mkbmap and
mkmetric.

Changing the encoding of PPage's PostScript fonts
-------------------------------------------------

You can change the encoding that PPage uses for its PostScript fonts.  See
the file "ABOUT_ENCODINGS" for a description of the encoding files included
in this package.  Or you can make one of your own.  But remember, if you do
than you may find it hard to share files with another PPage installation
that has a different encoding.

PPage uses the same encoding for all its PostScript fonts, except those that
are flagged in their .metric files as having a font specific encoding.  So
it is only really practicable to use a single encoding, except for a few
special fonts.

Choose an encoding file (or create your own) and copy it to the file
"PSFonts:encoding.ps", so the programs in this package will use it by
default.

You need to edit Ppage's PostScript prologue file "psprlg" in
"PPageUtil:data".  First save the original somewhere safe (such as
"org_psprlg").  Then edit the file, deleting the contents of "amigavec" near
the beginning and replacing it with the contents of your "encoding.ps" file.
Ther is also a prologue used foir colour separation; if you are into that
you will to edit it too.  (PPage has to re-encode all its PostScript fonts
as the standard encoding used by Adobe is different from the Amiga character
set.)

Then you need to regenerate the bitmaps and metric files of all your fonts.

You can also change the encoding of a single PostScript font.  You have to
write a PostScript program which creates a font wit the encoding that you
want.  Then you create a metric in which it is flagged as having a font
specific encoding, so that PPage will not re-encode it.  There is an
example of how to do this in the "misc" directory of this distribution.

Changing the encoding of PPage's Compugraphic fonts
---------------------------------------------------

PPage encodes each Compugraphic font individually.  The encoding tables are
in the ".atc" files in the "CGFonts" directory.  (The ".chardata" files do
not appear to be referenced by PPage; they might however be used by other
programs using compugraphic fonts.)  First copy the original .atc file
somewhere safe, then run mkatc to update the encoding.  For example:

    mkatc CGFonts:Times

(We will assume that the encoding you want is in "PSFonts:encoding.ps").

Then you need to regenerate the .metric file to match the new encoding.  The
.metric files in the CGFonts: directory are in exactly the same format as
those used for the PostScript fonts.  See above for an example of how to
generate one.  Effectively this means that you can only recode a
Compugraphic if you have the corresponding AFM file.  These are readily
available for the standard 35 Adobe compatible fonts - your BBS may have
them - but may be hard to get for any additional fonts.

N.B. There is a freely distributable PostScript program called "getafm.ps"
that builds AFM files from PostScript fonts.  So you could try converting
to PostScript and then bilding an AFM.  Unfortunately however the kerning
information would be lost, so the results might not be very satisfactory.

After changing the encoding you must purge the CG font cache directory of
any characters in fonts that have been changed.  For example:

    delete CGCache:Times*

Changing the encoding of the Article Editor
-------------------------------------------

PPage's Article Editor uses the standard system font "topaz", the 11 pixel
size.  So you can change the encoding by substituting for this font.
It is quite easy to use the font editor "FED" to make any characters you
like.  I have included in this package a modified version of topaz, in both
8 and 11 point sizes that uses the PPExt encoding.  To use it, copy it into
you "PPageUtil:fonts" directory as described in the installation section
above.

Amiga fonts are loaded from the "fonts:" on disk whenever they are first
opened.  After they have been closed they will normally be kept in memory
in case they are needed again - unless there is a memory shortage when they
will be purged.  So reassigning the "fonts" directory is not sufficient to
access a new version of a font; it is also necessary to ensure it is removed
from memory.  So to change to the alternative version of topaz/11:

    assign fonts: PPageUtil:fonts
    remfont topaz 11

This will ensure that any subsequent program, such as the article editor,
that references topaz/11 will pick up the new version.  So you can then
edit PPage text using the new character set.  However, screens, windows,
and programs that have already loaded Topaz/11 will continue to use the old
version.

To change the font of an existing screen or window there is a freely
distributable program called "SetFont".  For example to change the font
of a CLI window:

    setfont topaz 11 window

Fortunately the characters that differ between the encodings are not very
likely to be used outside PPage, so in practice it is unlikely that any
problems wil arise.

Many programs use topaz/8 rather than topaz/11; to do a full swap we ought
to change that too.  See the documentation file on remfont, as topaz/8 is
normally in ROM rather than loaded from the disk.

Changes
=======

    Version 1   06-May-91

The original

    Version 2   13-May-91

Bugs fixed: mkbmap.

Encoding file "ppageext_encoding.ps" changed to reflect the documentation and
the modified version of the topaz font.

Extended keymap "usa1ext" added.

    Version 3   01-Oct-91

Bugs fixed: mkbmap.