Computer Life 1995 December/Computer Life December 1995.iso/fontoff/fontoff.txt

Text File | 1995-09-12 | 11.7 KB | 329 lines

                            Font Off
                          Introduction

The Font Off program helps you maintain your Windows TrueType
fonts.  If you are like a lot of people you have accumulated
several hundred true type fonts.  "I never know when I am going
to need them".  They are taking up a lot of valuable hard drive
space and slowing down Windows.  You may be using one of the
common font manager programs to remove the font from Windows (so
Windows is not so slow).  Although these programs remove the font
from Windows they leave the font's file(s) in the hard drive -
still taking up space but not being useful.

Font Off works differently.  In addition to removing the font
from Windows, Font Off removes the font from your Windows System
directory and stores it in another directory.  Since this
directory can be on any DOS drive media, you can move the fonts
to another hard drive (or network drive), floppies or other
removable media.  When you  need the font you simply reverse the
process and reinstall it to Windows.

Font Off will not install new fonts to windows, it only maintains
your existing fonts.  You must therefore use the font installer
that often comes with new fonts, or use the Windows font manager
to install new fonts.  Once the font is installed in Windows you
can use Font Off to move it off line until it is needed.

                       Font Off Evaluation
You are granted a 15 day evaluation period to try Font Off.  If
you use it after this evaluation period you must register it.
Please see the on-line help system for details about the license
agreement and  the registration process.
                     Additional Information
     * If a program was running while you were installing fonts,
       the program may not know about the new fonts.  Exit the
       program and restart it.
     * If a program was running while you were removing fonts,
       the program may not know you have removed a font.  If you
       try to use the fonts unpredictable results may occur.
     * In addition to the newly loaded fonts being immediately
       available to Windows, the WIN.INI file is automatically
       updated by Font Off.  The next time you start windows you
       will also have access to the new  fonts.
     *
       The True Type font must have a matching .FOT file in order
       for Font Off to work properly.  Some font managers do not
       properly maintain the FOT file (Font Off does).  If you
       receive errors when removing a font it is probably because
       the FOT file is not present.  Use Font Off to restore the
       font to Windows and then use the Windows Font Manager to
       reinstall the font again.  You can then safely remove it
       with Font Off.
     * Font Off does checks for available disk space when
       removing or installing fonts.  If you run out of space
       Font Off will notify you and stop moving fonts.
     * Font Off will not copy a font file (FOT or TTF) if the
       same file already exist in the target directory.  This
       saves time as the system will not bother copying over an
       existing off line font if you are removing a font you have
       previously saved.  If you need to update an existing
       font's file you should install the new font using Windows
       Font Manager, delete the FOT and TTF files from the off
       line storage directory, and remove the font using Font
       Off.
     * We recommend that you back up the Windows system and off
       line font storage directories regularly.
     * The Font Off program uses the Windows INI file conventions
       for storing information about off line files (and when
       updating WIN.INI).  These INI files are limited to 64K.
       You therefore have a limit on the number of fonts you can
       store in the same off line storage location (or have
       installed in Windows at any one time).  This limit is
       based only on the INI information which must be
       maintained, not the size of the font files themselves.
     * The Font Off program will only store fonts in a
       subdirectory.  You can not store fonts to an off line root
       directory.
     * The format of the [Fonts] section on WIN.INI is important.
       Some font managers will store the full path to the font
       file (when it is never needed as Windows always finds
       fonts in it's system directory.)  Font Off will not
       process fonts which have this path information.  Save
       space in WIN.INI and FONTOFF.INI by removing this path
       information.  A sample [Fonts] section on WIN.INI might
       look like this:
[Fonts]
V5 Lucida Sans 10,12,14,18,24=V5SP.FON
V6 Lucida Sans 10,12,14,18,24=V6SP.FON
Arial (TrueType)=ARIAL.FOT
Arial Bold (TrueType)=ARIALBD.FOT
Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)=ARIALBI.FOT
Arial Italic (TrueType)=ARIALI.FOT

          Notice that no drive or directory information is
included after the equal sign.


                   Upgrading from Version 1.0

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from version 1.0 of
Font Off you MUST follow the following procedure in order to use
the new version.  Extensive changes to the storage location of
off-line fonts has been made.

In version 1.0 we stored all off line fonts in one directory.
This works perfectly, but get 100 or so fonts in the same
directory (that's 200 files) and DOS chokes.  The speed to select
the directory and move fonts can be significant.  To reduce this
problem considerably we have changed the location of font
storage.  Instead of storing all fonts in the same directory as
the FONTOFF.INI file we now store all fonts in subdirectories of
this directory.  The subdirectories are named "A" - "Z" and
"OTHER".  A font file's storage directory is automatically
determined by Font Off based on the first letter of the font file
name (not font name).  Fonts which do not begin with letters
between "A" and "Z" are stored in the "OTHER" directory.

Font Off maintains the proper storage location of your fonts
automatically.  If this is the first time you are using Font Off
you need do nothing more.  If, however, you are upgrading from
version 1.0 you MUST copy the fonts into the appropriate
directories.  You may do this manually or use the .BAT file
listed below to do it automatically.  If you choose to do it
automatically you must insure that you have enough hard drive
space available to store double the current space for font groups
(all A's are one group, B's are another).  You need to copy the
following text to a batch file and execute the batch file from
the directory that contains your fonts AND FONTOFF.INI.

Another option is to use version 1.0 of Font Off to restore all
off-line fonts to Windows, and the use the new version to remove
them and store them off-line again.  Since the off-line location
of the font files has changed you will need to delete the
off-line fonts just before you re-remove them from Windows.

We STRONGLY suggest that you backup your off line fonts before
running the update batch file.

Batch file to convert from 1.0 automatically:

@echo off
cls
echo This batch file MUST be run from the directory
echo that contains your offline fonts and the file
echo FONTOFF.INI.  This process will require extra
echo disk space and can be time consuming.
echo.
echo Press CTRL-C to abort or
pause
cls
echo Creating directories
md a
md b
md c
md d
md e
md f
md g
md h
md i
md j
md k
md l
md m
md n
md o
md p
md q
md r
md s
md t
md u
md v
md w
md x
md y
md z
md other
cls
copy a*.* a
del a*.*
copy b*.* b
del b*.*
copy c*.* c
del c*.*
copy d*.* d
del d*.*
copy e*.* e
del e*.*
copy f*.* f
del f*.*
copy g*.* g
del g*.*
copy h*.* h
del h*.*
copy i*.* i
del i*.*
copy j*.* j
del j*.*
copy k*.* k
del k*.*
copy l*.* l
del l*.*
copy m*.* m
del m*.*
copy n*.* n
del n*.*
copy o*.* o
del o*.*
copy p*.* p
del p*.*
copy q*.* q
del q*.*
copy r*.* r
del r*.*
copy s*.* s
del s*.*
copy t*.* t
del t*.*
copy u*.* u
del u*.*
copy v*.* v
del v*.*
copy w*.* w
del w*.*
copy z*.* z
del x*.*
copy y*.* y
del y*.*
copy z*.* z
del z*.*
copy *.* other
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo Respond "Y" to the next question.
echo.
echo.
del *.*
echo.
echo.
copy f\fontoff.ini
del f\fontoff.ini
echo.
echo.
echo Update from version 1.0 Complete!
echo.
echo.

Once you run this batch file you can resume using the new version
of Font Off.  If you have a lot of off-line fonts you should
notice a nice speed increase.
                      Initial Installation

This program is provided in one of two forms.  It is either part
of the an Applications diskette or can be downloaded individually
from CompuServe or other BBS systems.

Diskette
If the program is provided on diskette and you have used the
diskette's install program, the software has already been
installed and program manager icons created.  You can begin using
it immediately.  Please see the section "Running for the first
time."

Download
If you downloaded this file you should follow the instructions
below.   The program is provided as a Zip executable file.  Just
follow the instructions below to install the program on your hard
drive.  You MUST already have a copy of the Visual Basic 3.0
runtime DLL VBRUN300.DLL.  It must be installed in your Windows
\SYSTEM directory.  If you do not have this file you can download
it from the Microsoft Visual Basic forum on CompuServe.  This
file is not included with Font Off.

  1. Choose a drive and directory on which you want to install
     Font Off.  If the directory does not exist you must create
     it now.
  2. Copy the file FONTOFF.ZIP into the directory.
  3. Make a backup of this file for safe keeping.  You will
     delete this file later.
  4. UnZip the file with your UnZip tool.
  5. Delete the file FONTOFF.ZIP.  It is no longer used.  Make
     sure you make a backup per step 3 above.
  6. Create a Program Manager icon for Font Off and link it to
     the EXE file FONTOFF.EXE.
  7. Please see the section "Running for the first time."
                   Running for the First Time
  1. Start the program by double clicking the new Font Off icon
     in Program Manager.
  2. Since this is the first time you are running this program
     you are prompted for your Company Name, Your Name, Phone
     Number, and optionally your CIS ID (not password).  This
     information is saved for future reference.  The serial
     number is assigned and the registration reminder screen
     displays.  (This screen will never display after you
     register the program).
  3. Click the Continue Button to continue to the application.
  4. To access the on-line help system (which contains important
     information about the operation and license agreement  for
     File Find), press F1.
  5. A file with the .REG extension is created in the same
     directory as Font Off.  This file contains your name and
     phone number and is used during the registration process.
     It contains important information and should not be deleted.
  6. Installation is complete.

                Contacting Pride Software Works!
Should you have any questions or comments about this Pride
Software Works! program you can reach us at:

CompuServe ID  73337,2472
Internet:      [e-mail]
WWW:           http://www.infi.net/~pride


Mail Address:

          Pride Software Works!
          P.O. Box 11152
          High Point, NC 27265
                         USA

Remember, you are granted a 15 day evaluation period to try Font
Off.  If you use it after this evaluation period you must
register it.  Please see the on-line help system for details
about the license agreement and  the registration process.