Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/w3_scrn/fonter4.arj/FONTER.DOC

Text File | 1991-09-14 | 23KB | 503 lines

                  Fonter 4.0 for Windows

                          By
                    George Campbell

                     User's Manual

INTRODUCTION

WARNING: Fonter may not operate properly on systems using the
SuperPrint font scaling program.

Fonter was designed to fill a gap in current Windows 3.0 programs.
Since Windows can use and display many fonts, especially with font
scaling software like ATM or FaceLift, it's easy to accumulate
enough fonts that you soon forget what you have. Even worse, many
companies' fonts use a different character set, especially in the
extended ASCII characters.

Also, creating a notebook containing samples of all your fonts is a
time consuming process if you use a word processor to do the job.
So here's Fonter, which does all that and more.

Fonter runs under Windows 3.0 and lets you view and print all the
fonts available for your printer and screen. You can use the
program in five ways:

        1. As a font viewer, with full access to both a simple
        sample of type for each font, plus an extended ASCII
        character set display, with ASCII codes beside each
        character. View your fonts in sizes from 6 to 36 points.
        NOTE: Printer fonts which lack equivalent screen fonts
        will not appear correctly on the screen, but will print
        correctly. If a font size is not available for the font
        you select, Fonter will show the closest available size.

        You can also select bold, italic, or bold italic attrib-
        utes for your font, whether you're looking at it on the
        screen or printing.

        You may even create customized text to appear in the
        sample window and in sample printouts.

        NOTE: In this mode, you can also type characters to see
        what they look like. First, click inside the font sample
        screen, then type your text. You can use any normal
        editing controls. It's a good way to see samples of
        characters not shown in the sample. Click the "Clear"
        button first, if you want to work on a blank screen.

        2. As a full-screen font viewer. This mode allows you to
        see the complete character set of any font, then cut and
        paste between Fonter and any other Windows application.
        Two zoom levels allow you to see either an enlarged version
        of the entire font chart or, by Zooming again after
        highlighting a character with your mouse or keyboard, you can
        see a single character enlarged greatly. This lets you
        view the details of any character from any font.

        3. As a font sample printer, which prints a sample of
        every available font, formatted on 8.5" X 11" pages.
        Again, you can select font sizes from 6 to 36 points.
        NOTE: Fixed size printer fonts can only be printed
        in their default size. Fonter ignores the size you
        choose for these fonts.

        Normally, Fonter prints a simple alphabetical sample
        of each font. However, you may specify other text to
        be included.

        For symbol and other pictorial fonts, your printout will
        print the font name in a basic font, or in one you
        select.

        4. As a character set printer. Fonter will print a
        sheet containing either keyboard characters or the
        complete ANSI character set. You'll see the ANSI
        code for each character, its keyboard equivalent, plus
        the character produced in the selected font. This is
        especially valuable for symbol and dingbat fonts. Here
        you're limited to sizes from 6 to 12 points, to conserve
        paper. To insert a special character in another
        application, either paste it in from Fonter, or hold
        down the <ALT> key while you type 0 plus the ANSI code
        for the character.

        In its normal mode, Fonter prints a sample paragraph of
        text in your chosen font, followed by the complete
        keyboard character set. Below that is a chart of
        extended ANSI characters, as described above. If you
        click the "Include Text Sample" box, you can turn this
        feature off, printing simple character charts.

        5. As a font book printer. Fonter will print a complete
        set of pages showing the character set for your fonts,
        plus the sheet showing all fonts. This takes a long
        time, but the finished product is worth it.

        6. All three printing options allow you to either print
        the complete set of fonts, or just those fonts you
        select. This makes printing font books for customers a
        breeze, since you can just print the fonts they use.

You can easily see the advantage of using Fonter. You can print up
a notebook of your fonts, with complete character sets, plus a
single sheet that shows all your fonts at once.

Even better, you can run Fonter, minimize it, then pop it up over
any Windows 3.0 application for quick reference to your fonts. You
can even cut and paste special, foreign language or symbolic
characters between Fonter and another application. Once you try it,
you'll wonder why Fonter wasn't around long ago.


SHAREWARE INFORMATION

Fonter is a shareware program, with a registration fee of only
$15.00. If you find it useful to you, please register your copy.
Registered users will receive the latest version of the program,
telephone and E-mail support, plus my undying gratitude.

To register, send a check or money order for $15.00 to:

George Campbell
1472 Sixth Street
Los Osos, CA  93402


INSTALLING FONTER

If you're using Windows, you've probably already installed a number
of programs. If so, you can skip this section. If not, read on.

Fonter was written in Microsoft Visual Basic. To run it, you must
have Microsoft's run-time module file, VBRUN100.DLL, installed in
your Windows directory. If you don't have a copy of this file,
you'll find it on CompuServe and GEnie and on most BBS systems. You
only need to download it once, since it works with all Visual Basic
.EXE files. If you're receiving a copy of Fonter on a distribution
disk, VBRUN100.DLL is included on that disk.

To install Fonter, either create a directory on your hard disk,
then copy FONTER.EXE into that directory, or copy the file into
your Windows directory.

Next, start Windows and bring up the Program Manager, if that's not
your default startup program. Click in the program group where you
want the Fonter icon, click on File in the Program Manager's menu,
then click on New and Then on OK.

In the next window, type FONTER, then press the <Tab> key and enter
the full file specification for FONTER.EXE to let Windows know
where the program is.

Click OK and the Fonter icon will appear in the program group that
was active at the time you installed it. You may have to scroll to
find it, but then you can move it wherever you like. Just remember
to check the "Save Changes" box when you quit Windows to preserve
the location of the icon.

NOTE: Fonter uses the Windows Print Manager to control the printer.
To avoid memory and disk space problems, you should have the "Use
Print Manager" box checked in the Print Manager Window. Check this
by loading the Print Manager program. Failure to do this may lead
to "Out of Memory," or "Out of Disk Space" errors in Windows.

MEMORY PROBLEMS

This information applies to all Windows applications:

Windows 3.0 uses disk space as virtual memory, swapping data in an
out of a file when needed. Being the disk hog that it is, Windows
can quickly create a 5 MB swap file, or even more.  Because of this,
your Windows directory should be on a drive or partition with plenty
of disk space.  A good minimum is about 10 MB.

If you can't do this, use the SWAPDISK program, as described in the
"Optimizing Windows" section of your manual, to move the swapfile to
another drive. Another option, and a good one, is to set up a
permanent swap file.  You'll find information on this in the same
chapter.

Fonter itself doesn't use any disk space, but the Print Manager
creates temporary files, and these can be very large indeed,
especially with ATM and a PostScript printer.  If you see unusual
errors when printing, this is probably your problem.

The same disk space problem affects all Windows programs.


USING FONTER

Fonter is very, very simple, and takes care of most chores without
any input from you, but there are several items to talk about.

First, start Fonter like any other Windows program. Just double
click on the icon. You'll see a message telling you that the program
is building a font list, then Fonter's window appears.

Fonter starts out in Screen Mode, as indicated in the Mode text box
at the upper right of the window. This mode allows you to view
fonts in the Font Sample box at the bottom right of the screen.

Next, look at the top line of the screen. You'll see the familiar
control bar, plus minimize and maximize buttons. You can minimize
Fonter at any time, then expand it by double clicking on its icon.
You can also size the Fonter window as you do any Windows window.
You will, however, only be able to see part of the screen.

Fonter's menu bar contains just four commands, Options, Edit, Tips
and About. The Edit command displays cut and paste options, plus
the shortcut keys used for those functions.

The Tips command lists several menu options which give you handy
tips about using various aspects of Fonter. The About command
displays a box containing my shareware request, plus copyright
information.

Naturally, you can use normal Windows keyboard shortcuts. Pressing
Alt plus an underlined letter will execute the command for that
button. Or you can Tab between commands, then press <Enter> to
execute the command.

If you click the Options menu command, a submenu will drop down.
Here are the commands, from top to bottom, with descriptions of
their functions.

*Screen Display Only -- This command switches Fonter back from any
other mode to the screen mode, the same as when you first ran the
program. You can type text in the sample window, after first
clicking inside the window.

*Print Font List (All Fonts) -- This command sets up Fonter to
print a sheet or sheets containing samples of every available
printer font for your current printer. Normally, when you click
this command, you will see a brief description of the command's
function. Just click OK to activate this mode. You'll see "Print
Font List (All Fonts)" in the Mode box. While in this mode, you can
set the font size for printing, using the drop down list under the
word "SIZE." The "FONT" list box is also active, but only affects
the font sample display. The bold and italic buttons also apply to
this mode.

*Print Font List (Selected Fonts) -- This command works just like
the one above, but it prints only those fonts you've added to the
"Selected Fonts" list. To add a font, click on the Font Selection
arrow, click on a font, then click the "Add" button. The font will
appear in the "Selected Fonts" window, and the Font Selection list
box will drop down again. To remove a font from the "Selected
Fonts" box, click on it, then click the "Remove" button.

*Print Character Set (Single Font) -- this command lets you print a
sheet containing samples of the character set for the current font.
Like the previous command, this one opens a box which describes the
command's function. Again, click OK to activate the mode. The Mode
box will reflect the current mode at all times. In this mode, you
can set FONT and SIZE, in their respective drop-down list boxes. In
order to keep the entire character set on a single sheet, you're
limited to font\ sizes between 6 and 12 points. Notice the
"CHARACTER SET" buttons near the bottom of the Fonter Window.
Click either of these to tell Fonter whether to print just the
keyboard characters or the full ANSI character set. The Bold and
Italic buttons apply to this mode.

In this mode, the default is to print a sample paragraph in your
font, plus a chart showing the extended ANSI characters. To disable
this and print a simple chart, as described above, click the
"Include Text Sample" check box.

*Print Character Set (Selected Fonts) -- Works just like the
command above, but prints charts only for fonts in the "Selected
Fonts" window.

*Print Font Book (All Fonts) -- This command prints a complete set
of character set sheets for your printer, plus the Font list sheet
described above. The font size is locked at 12 points. NOTE: On my
HP LaserJet II, with a 25-Mhz machine and about 100 fonts, this
process took over seven hours, so run this one at night or sometime
when you don't need your system. If you need to cancel the
operation, just click the EXIT button. The program will abort at the
end of the next font. If you've checked bold or italic or both, that
will be reflected in your printouts.

NOTE: The choices you've made with the buttons on the main screen
will apply to the font book, so you can create customized text for
the font list sheets, and set all options for the character charts.

*Print Font Book (Selected Fonts) -- Same as above, but prints a
book of just your selected fonts. In this mode, you may set font
sizes between 6 and 12 points.

*Display ANSI Number List -- This command in the Options menu
toggles the screen display of ANSI characters in the Font Sample
box. If it's checked, the entire character set will appear in the
Font Sample box for the current font. You can scroll down to view
the ANSI code for each character. If it's not checked, you'll just
see a brief sample of the font's appearance, in either the default
text, or your customized text. Note that displaying the ANSI code
list takes some time each time you change fonts, so you may want to
leave this option unchecked most of the time. Also, the CHARACTER
SET buttons control how much of the ANSI code is displayed.

*Make Current Font Default -- On some systems, the font at the top
of Fonter's list of fonts will not be appropriate as the generic
font for titles and labels on printouts. This is especially true
for users with dot matrix printers. For this reason, you may use
this command to make any font on the list the default labeling
font. If your printouts don't look right, or the font used for
labels looks odd, then select a generic font, such as Courier or
Helvetica or another font, then click on this command. NOTE:
Selecting a font in this way will not affect your font choice on
other options, so you can continue to use the program as usual. Try
printing a font list without choosing a default font. If things
look OK, then you can ignore this command.

*Full Screen Font Chart -- This command displays a full screen
showing your current font. You can also display this screen by
clicking the "Full Screen" button or by pressing Alt-F. While in
this screen, buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to
control the character set for display, zoom the display, or return
to the Fonter main screen. If you press Zoom once, then use your
mouse to select a character or characters, pressing Zoom again will
display that character in a very large size for inspection. Click
the Un-Zoom button to return to the normal Zoomed display. You can
use the Edit menu or any normal Windows editing tools in this
screen. Bold and italic attributes appear in the full-screen
display.

*Run Control Panel - Printers -- This command runs the Windows
Control Panel, opening the Printer Setup window. Use it if you need
to change printers or alter the setup of your current printer. When
you're done, exit the Control Panel in the usual way to return to
Fonter. In some cases, you may have to exit Fonter, however, before
these changes go into effect.  I'm working on a solution for this.

*Colors -- These two options allow you to select the default Fonter
blue background or a simple white background. Use the one you like.

*Exit -- Another way to quit Fonter.


OTHER OPTIONS

You'll see several options in the Fonter main window.  To choose
any of these, simply click on the one you want, or press <Alt>
while you type the underlined character.  Here's what they do:

"Custom Font List Text" -- Click here to type in your own text to
appear in the Font Sample window and in your font lists.  An
editing box will pop up.  To revert to the normal mode, just click
this option again. The editing box will disappear, but the text
remains in the box. To re-activate the text, click this command
again. This command is equivalent to the "Custom Font List Text
Sample" command in the "Edit" menu.

Character Set Options -- These three buttons control the appearance
of character set charts. Choose either Keyboard ANSI (default) or
Extended ANSI. The Include Text Sample option determines whether a
sample paragraph is included in character charts. It overrides the
other two options.

Attributes Options -- You may choose Bold or Italic attributes or
both for displayed and printed fonts.  These settings affect all
operations of the program.

"Clear" -- This button clears the font sample window.  Use it when
you want to cut and paste your own text between applications, or
when you want to see just how your text looks in a particular font.


SELECTING A FONT

To select a font name in Fonter, just click the list box arrow
under the FONT box. You'll see a drop-down list. Click on any
displayed font name. You can scroll through the list with the mouse
and the scroll bar, or type the first letter of your font for
faster action. If several fonts begin with the same letter, just
continue pressing the letter until your desired font appears.

Similarly, you can choose a size for your font in the FONT SIZE box
to the right of the FONT box. You can supply a size not shown in
the list by typing that size in the box. Fonter ignores fractional
font sizes. As soon as you choose a font, it will appear in the
sample box. If you have checked the Display ANSI Number List
option, you'll have to wait a few seconds while Fonter composes the
list. REMEMBER: you can type your own characters in the Sample
window as well. Just click in the window, then type as you wish.

You can also check the Bold or Italic check boxes, or both, to view
or print your fonts with those attributes.


USING THE SELECTED FONTS OPTIONS

To move the currently selected font into the "Selected Fonts" box,
just click the "Add" button. To remove a font, click on any font in
the "Selected Fonts" box, then click the "Remove" button. To use
these fonts, choose options containing the words "Selected Fonts"
in parentheses. You may add as many fonts as you like to this box,
and may even include duplicate fonts if necessary.


PRINTING WITH FONTER

Fonter begins printing as soon as you click OK in the message box
displayed after each print command in the Options menu. You won't be
able to do anything else the operation is complete. However, if you
click the Exit button, Fonter will exit after printing the current
font.

POSTSCRIPT PRINTERS -- The Catch...

If you use Fonter with a Postscript printer, or a laser printer with
a PostScript cartridge, plus ATM from Adobe systems, there are a
couple of things to watch.  First, ATM does not install fonts in a
downloadable format in WIN.INI.  See your ATM documentation for an
explanation of how to make the necessary WIN.INI changes.

Second, when using ATM, you may see fonts in the font list which
will not print.  In fact, you may receive an error from the printer
or have the printer actually lock up if you try to print with these
fonts. This problem is even more severe with some PostScript
cartridges, which cannot send error messages back to your PC.

Fortunately there's a simple solution. By using the "Selected
Fonts" feature in Fonter, you can simply add the fonts you know are
available in your printer, then print just those fonts in any of the
three formats.


SHAREWARE AND PUBLIC DOMAIN ATM FONTS

If you use ATM under Windows to scale fonts, you've made a good
choice. The program simplifies the entire font process to a point
where using fonts is child's play.  These days, you can find
literally hundreds of shareware and public domain PostScript Type 1
fonts for use with ATM.  But.....

Some of these fonts, especially those converted from Macintosh
fonts, have incomplete character sets.  When Fonter and many other
programs attempt to display these fonts on the screen, nothing
happens.  Indeed using such a font can cause others to disappear as
well.

To locate these fonts, print a complete font list with Fonter. If
you find lines showing just the font name, or nothing at all, you've
located a bad font.  NOTE: Remember, one bad font can spoil the
whole barrel. Once you print the sample list, which may have
several holes in it, you need to remove the offending fonts.

Look at the list, then load the ATM Control Panel. Delete the font
which was the first that didn't print. DON'T DELETE THE OTHER BLANK
FONTS!!!.  Now, use Fonter to print another sample list and repeat
the deletion process, if necessary.

While you may hate to lose a font, I guarantee that a font that
gives Fonter a bad time will certainly be a pain in the neck in
other programs as well.


BE PATIENT!

Printing either the character chart or the font sample sheets takes
some time. This is especially true if you're using ATM or have tons
and tons of fonts. The font sample sheets take an especially long
time, since Fonter has to load each font. Also, remember again that
printing a font book can take HOURS! If you need to abort printing
while in the font book mode, click the Exit button. Fonter will
exit after finishing the current routine.


YOUR MACHINE IS NOT LOCKED UP!

Once the pages go to the Print Manager or other spooler, you may
either select another font or option or exit the program.


EXITING FONTER

To quit Fonter, just click the EXIT button. You can quit anytime
the arrow cursor is visible, even if your pages haven't emerged
from the printer. If you click this button while an operation is
going on, you'll exit at the end of the current routine.

REMEMBER:  BE PATIENT DURING PRINTING!


THANKS for trying Fonter. Remember--if you like this program, or
any other shareware program, you have a responsibility to register
your copy. That's what keeps us shareware programmers in business,
after all. Since registration is only $15, it's no great expense.

George Campbell
1472 Sixth Street
Los Osos, CA  93402
CIS ID: 71571,222
GEnie: G.CAMPBELL
MCIMAIL: GCAMPBELL

Fonter is copyright 1991, by George Campbell. All rights
reserved.