home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
World of Shareware - Software Farm 2
/
wosw_2.zip
/
wosw_2
/
PRINTING
/
ASLFONT.ZIP
/
ASLFONT.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1991-08-21
|
14KB
|
340 lines
ASLFONT
American Sign Language Manual Alphabet
Soft Font
for the
IBM PC (and clones)
and the
HP LaserJet II/III
Printers
USER'S MANUAL
Created by
Janet Gomez
August 1991
INTRODUCTION
ASLFONT is a soft font that consists of pictures of the handshapes used for
fingerspelling in American Sign Language. The font was created to be used
with an HP LaserJet II printer attached to an IBM PC clone, and has also
been tested on an HP LaserJet IIIP printer.
I am a computer programmer who has spent the last 7 years writing programs
for the IBM PC at work, and I am also a part-time student still working on
my bachelor's degree in Computer Science at California State University,
Hayward.
In the Fall of 1990, the beginning class in ASL was finally offered at a time
during the day when I could attend. Having long been awed by the sheer
beauty of American Sign Language and interested in finding a class, I jumped
at this chance. Now, three classes later, I have decided to minor in ASL
and have become an active member of our student club, Student Advocates for
Deaf Awareness.
The student who took care of creating the flyers for all of the club's events
worked on an Apple computer and had a fingerspelling font. He is now attending
Gallaudet University (along with his computer, I assume), and so I volunteered
to create the various flyers for club events. Unfortunately, I have an IBM
PC clone at home, know very little about Apples, and have no access to one.
I liked the fingerspelling font (with some reservations; some of the hands
are turned sideways to the viewer and look a little odd) but was unable to
find one for the IBM PC. Since my job has given me much experience in working
with the LaserJet, I decided I would try creating one for myself. The result
is ASLFONT.
MONEY MATTERS
Shareware authors typically request a comparatively small amount of money
for their time and effort in creating their programs. If you use such a
program and plan to continue to use it, you should send the amount the
author requests and register your copy. I fully support this concept and
have registered several shareware programs that I've found useful; I urge
you to do the same.
That being said, I will now say this: Don't send me money. I didn't create
ASLFONT with profit in mind; in fact, if it can generate any revenue at all,
I would much prefer that the money go to a school or organization for the
Deaf. In these tight and budget-cutting times, I'm sure they can use the
money in more worthwhile ways than I.
Therefore, if you like ASLFONT and plan to use it, I request that you:
1) Send a donation -- say $15.00 or $20.00 or so -- to a school for the
deaf in your area or state, or to some organization that serves the
Deaf and their interests. If you are using ASLFONT for the activities
of a school for the deaf or a parents' or students' club associated
with a school for the deaf or a sign language class, you are exempt
from this requirement. Consult your own conscience and do what you
feel is right. Send any donations in your own name or that of your
organization, please (not in mine).
2) Register your copy by sending me a letter. I'd like to know what
you're using the font for, how you like it, and, if you're using the
font for a club's or group's activities, something about your
organization. Programmer's efforts are like their children: we send
our programs out into the world in the hope that they will be useful,
appreciated, and do their jobs well. If there are changes to the
font in the future, your registration will allow me to send you an
update.
Send your letter to:
Janet Gomez
5150 Cordoy Ln.
San Jose, CA 95124
I look forward to hearing from you.
FILES IN THE DISTRIBUTION .ZIP FILE
The following files are contained in the ASLFONT.ZIP file:
ASLFONT.DOC this file
ASL49SML.SFP ASLFONT, portrait version, small (contains only
the uppercase letters A through Z)
ASL49BIG.SFP ASLFONT, portrait version, big (contains both
uppercase and lowercase letters A through Z)
ASL49SML.SFL ASLFONT, landscape version, small (contains only
the uppercase letters A through Z)
ASL49BIG.SFL ASLFONT, landscape version, big (contains both
uppercase and lowercase letters A through Z)
DOWNLOAD.EXE a soft font downloading utility, copyright 1987 by
Gary Elfring.
DOWNLOAD.DOC documentation file for the above
ASLTEST.BAS BASIC program that creates file ASLTEST.DAT containing a
test-print, portrait-mode page for the portrait fonts
ASLTEST.DAT the file that contains the portrait-mode test-print page
output by ASLTEST.BAS
LASLTEST.BAS BASIC program that creates fiel LASLTEST.DAT containing a
test-print, landscape-mode page for the landscape fonts
LASLTEST.DAT the file that contains the landscape-mode test-print page
output by LASLTEST.BAS
HOW TO USE ASLFONT
About ASLFONT
ASLFONT is a bitmapped, proportionally spaced font (as opposed to the "outline"
fonts that the LaserJet III printers use, which are scalable to any size). The
characters are approximately two-thirds of an inch high (49.2 points). Because
it is a soft font, you must download it -- that is, you must send the font id
command, the font file itself, and the commands that make the font either
permanent or temporary and either primary or secondary -- to the printer before
you can use it, and it will remain in printer memory only as long as the power
is on (or until you send the printer a command to remove it). Fortunately,
Gary Elfring's DOWNLOAD program makes this process almost painless.
The font contains only letters. There are no punctuation characters and no
numbers. Numbers were left out because ASL numbers are so different from
written numbers; for example, in ASL the number 21 is NOT a combination of
"2" and "1". It seemed to me that even having the numbers 0 through 9 would
be of very limited value in proportion to the work involved. (If you find that
there are many cases in which you would like to use the numbers 0 through 9,
however, let me know. If there is enough interest to justify the work involved,
I might add them.) Similarly, since I use the font for flyers, adding punctua-
tion characters also seemed of limited value.
If you give no command to the contrary, the LaserJet defaults to printing 6
lines per inch. If this is the setting you are using, you will need to allow
4 blank lines between each line of the font that you print to prevent the
hands from overprinting the preceding line of hands. Also, you must leave at
least 2 blank lines before the first line of the font that you print at the
top of the page, to avoid the LaserJet's "unprintable" area (you may have a
reasonably smart software package that can take care of all these details
for you). A "space" character is one-third of an inch wide (100 dots).
Using the Font
There are 4 different font files, 2 each for portrait and landscape mode
printing. Fonts with "SML" as the last characters of the filename (i.e.,
ASL49SML.SFP and ASL49SML.SFL) contain hands for only the uppercase letters
A through Z. If you have no trouble remembering to use only capital letters
when you type, downloading one of these files will take less printer memory.
If you have lots of printer memory and/or a poor memory yourself, the font
files with names ending in "BIG" -- ASL49BIG.SFP and ASL49BIG.SFL -- have been
included so that you can type in lowercase letters. There is no difference
between the pictures of the hands for uppercase and lowercase letters.
Note for LaserJet III/IIIP/etc. users: You only need to decide between the
small font and the big font, since these printers will very nicely rotate
any font to any required mode. Use any of the files for either portrait or
landscape mode.
First, decide which font you want to use. Then use the DOWNLOAD program
to download the font file to the printer (see the DOWNLOAD.DOC file for
instructions). An example of the download command is
DOWNLOAD ASL49SML.SFP LPT1 1 P P
Using the Font -- continued
which will download the small version of the portrait-mode font to the
printer attached to parallel port LPT1 with a font ID of 1, as a permanent
and primary font.
Printing the Sample Files
Two files and the programs that were used to generate them are included in
ASLFONT to test printing of the font. The files are named ASLTEST.DAT (which
is created by ASLTEST.BAS), for testing the portrait fonts, and LASLTEST.DAT
(which is created by LASLTEST.BAS), for testing the landscape fonts.
If you have used the DOWNLOAD command shown on the previous page, you can now
print the portrait-mode sample page by typing
COPY ASLTEST.DAT LPT1:
If you have one of the LaserJet III printers, you can also print the landscape
mode page (without having to download a landscape font). If you have a
LaserJet II printer, however, you must download one of the landscape fonts
before you can print the landscape-mode sample page (again using the DOWNLOAD
program). In either case, print the landscape page by typing
COPY LASLTEST.DAT LPT1:
Be sure that you substitute the correct printer port for your machine setup.
Selecting the Font
You can select the font (i.e., tell the printer that you want to use the font)
by using the ID # you assigned to it when downloading. This method of selection
is demonstrated in the sample page-printing programs.
My LaserJet IIIP reports that the font's full escape sequence selection string
is (for primary font):
<Esc>(10U<Esc>s1p49.2v0s0b11T
I defined each font with the PC-8 symbol set, Presentation typeface.
Qualifications
There are many word-processing and graphics programs that claim to handle
soft fonts. Unfortunately, I don't have any yet that I can test (I do all
my work the "hard" way, within BASIC), and, since I can't test them and
therefore can't tell you how well ASLFONT will be handled by them, I give
you the following warning:
Since ASLFONT is different from other fonts in that it is
comprised of pictures of hands rather than "pictures" of letters,
some programs may conceivably make assumptions about soft fonts
and thus display "funny-looking stuff" or maybe even little gray
boxes on the screen, rather than a picture that looks like a hand.
Some programs may be unable to display anything but actual letters
on the screen since there is no "screen font" for ASLFONT.
Also, given the lack of information available (and the difficulties
in understanding and applying what information is available) about
correctly defining soft fonts, I may well have made some erroneous
assumptions myself. For instance, part of the description information
that must be included in the font file sent to the printer is "typeface
value", but the HP LaserJet II Technical Reference Manual gives only
choices for this field that denote the names of fonts that are really
letters and other characters, and none that really seem to adequately
represent ASLFONT. The value I chose to use (Presentation) may cause
problems sometime, somewhere, with some software. I'm still trying to
find some answers to the many questions that came up while creating
ASLFONT, and would appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience
with font design issues or who can give me the names of references.
I'd also like to hear of the experiences of anyone who tries using
ASLFONT within a word-processing or graphics program, as it will guide
me in my quest for more information. I hope that no one will encounter
any problems that make ASLFONT useless to them.
************************************************************************
In these litigation-happy times, I am saddened by the fact that the
following seems always to be necessary:
**** No warranty is made or implied by this program. The user ****
**** assumes all responsibilities for its use. ****
************************************************************************
The files contained in this package may be freely shared provided that
(1) no fee is charged for the files themselves (although clubs and user
groups that distribute Shareware may charge only the amount required
to cover the costs of shipping, handling, and diskettes);
(2) it is distributed in its original form, including all font, program,
data, and documentation files.
Commercial use is strictly prohibited.