info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (08/29/84)
From: hplabs!hao!ward@Berkeley (Mike Ward)
I've gotten a few call about using the font editor, so I thought I'd post this.
If you got the version of the font editor that comes up with
the selection window and the font "system" selected, you should
type <backspace> (the key, not the word), then <return>.
This should leave you with a big window with a little zero up
at the top, and a little window. The zero refers to character
0, which should be a starting point if you want to create a new
font. If you want to create a new font, play with the character
region stuff (increase-decrease ascend-descend, add-delete columns).
"Read fonts" reads from a file created by font editor's "save font"
command. Neither will have anything to do with the font file(s) created
by font mover. To use font mover compatible files, read using
"load from resource", write using "install font". Font editor
will create a file named "fonts" that is in the same format as
the "fonts" file created by font mover. To use it with font
mover, use setfile to change the creator and type.
Installing fonts is memory intensive. It is easy to run out of
memory (system error 25) if the font is too big (like New York-24)
I plan on trying to build a London-72 font in several stages.
Should be fun. The Fat Mac should take care of this.
Have fun, and you get into trouble give me a call, or drop me
a line.
Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD
UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!sa!ward
ARPA: hplabs!hao!sa!ward@Berkeley
BELL: 303-497-1252
USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (11/26/84)
From: Stephen C. Hill <STEVEH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> @ MIT-MC I have just gotten the Font Editor along with Keith Sproul's MacFonts PD package, so therefore have no complete documentation. I have been trying, without success, to figure out the ascend/descend feature. Could anyone give me a hint as to what it is supposed to do?
info-mac@uw-beaver (12/18/84)
From: Bern Haan <decvax!genrad!brunix!iris!bjh@uw-beaver.arpa> THE FONT EDITOR Documentation Bernard J. Haan Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University, Box 1946 Providence, RI 02912 bjh%brown@csnet.relay copyright 1984 Brown University (IRIS) may be copied but not sold without permission ___________________________________________________________________________ Getting Started: The fonts of the system and those created by the user are stored in resource files. The system fonts reside in the system resource file while the user created fonts are in an applications resource file called Fonts. Resources are used by applications and the system, residing as separate entities so that they may be changed without recompiling code. Before entering the Font Editor, it is necessary to have created the correct type of Fonts file. This file is different from a standard document file and is created through the Font Mover application. If this file does not exist, the fonts will be saved to a standard document file named Fonts, but it will not be useable. This file can be created by going into the Font Mover and inserting any font from the system into the Fonts file. This will create the correctly formatted file and should appear in the directory. Upon entering the Font Editor, the user will be prompted with a dialog box. It is not possible to get a font from a resource file from this point. Therefore, it is necessary to bypass this step in order to get the proper menu which gives the option of reading a font from a resource file. This is done by picking the Cancel option. The next screen will be a blank standard Font Editor screen. Choosing the Load From Resource... option from the File menu will cause a display similar to the one above to appear. The name block will be highlighted and the name of the desired font is to be entered at this point. If the a new font is to be created, one of the standard fonts should be used as a basis. If the font size to be worked on is 12 point (the type size being used in this document), then the OK option is picked and the font is displayed. If the font to be worked on is another size, then both the Current Size and the Newsize boxes must be changed to that size. If scaling is being done, the Current Size should be set to the size of the font that exists and is being scaled from. The NewSize is the size to be scaled to. Changing Current Size and NewSize is done by selecting the entire box and then typing in the size desired. The Editing Process: The font editor allows new fonts to be created by the user. This is done by editing a blown up image of the character. This image is shown in 'fat bits' format which simply represents the character's bits at several times their actual size. The actual editing process is simply a matter of turning those bits on and off. A bit will be turned on if a blank space was picked and will be turned off if a filled-in bit was picked. The screen of the Font Editor is divided into two windows, one containing the blown up images and the other containing the actual characters as they appear when typed. The character currently being edited is demarked by a box that surrounds it. There are two ways to select a new character to edit; picking a character from the fat bits window and picking a character from the character set window. It is possible to copy a character into a different position, but it is necessary that the position that the character is being copied into be empty. This is done by choosing the Delete Character option from the Edit menu. The character currently being edited will be deleted when this option is chosen. Copying a character is done by using the Insert Character option from the Edit menu. Note that when inserting a character it is necessary to have something to copy into the slot (it would be nice to just be able to insert without copying if a new character is being created). If no character is specified to be copied, it will not be possible to edit the new character position. NOTE: Do not choose the Undo All Changes option from the File menu. It will cause a system crash. Scaling the Fonts: MacWrite provides some automatic scaling of fonts which means that a font can be entered at a single size and will be automatically scaled up and down to fill in for all the sizes available. The problem with this is that the scaling is done in a rather crude way which does not yield acceptable results in many cases. Therefore, it is mostly up to the person creating the font to touch it up in as many of the sizes as s/he foresees working in. It should also be noted that when a font is being printed out, it is printed at twice its size. So if a 12-point font is being printed out, it will actually be printed at 24-point. So if a 24-point font has been created by the user, it will be used, otherwise it will be an automatically scaled version. The sizes used in MacWrite are 9, 10, 12, 14, 18, and 24-point. If a the font has been created at a certain point size, that size will be displayed in outline form (12 point) in the Style menu. If the font is automatically scaled, it appears in standard type in the menu. Saving The Font: Once the font has been completed, there are two ways to save it. It can be saved into the resource file or into a separate document file. It is most useful to save the font to the resource file which is done by choosing the Install Font option from the File menu. This will automatically save the font and place it in the Fonts resource file. To install a scaled font, it is necessary to specify the new size in both the Current Size and the NewSize boxes. Choosing the Save Font In.. option allows the font to be stored in a document specified by the user. This is a useful backup tool. Installing the font into MacWrite: In order to get the font that has been created into the Font menu in MacWrite, it is necessary to use the Resource Mover application or the Font Mover. The Font Mover simply copies fonts into the System Resource. The fonts are then available for use in any application that supports multiple fonts. The Resource Mover allows the user to copy files from one resource to another. So in this situation there now exist new files in the Fonts resource which need to be copied into the resource file for MacWrite. This is done with simple cutting from the Fonts file and pasting into the MacWrite file. Opening the files is just a matter of picking the file name and choosing the Open option from the File menu. If more than one font is to be installed, there is an additional step that must be taken. When a new font is installed from the Font Editor, it automatically gets the ID 1536 for the font at slot 0 and 1548 for the 12-point font at slot 12 (installing a new font will automatically also put the 0 slot font in the file). The problem is that all new fonts are installed with these ID's which means that the first font installed will be overwritten. This is solved by changing the ID of the fonts using Change ID from the Edit menu. Each font requires 128 copies for the different sizes and styles. These correspond to the ID number of the font. So if the 0 slot font is installed at 1536, the new font id should be 128 greater for the 0 slot and 140 greater for the 12-point size. Any other size should be placed in its appropriate slot relative to the 0 slot. It is important to place the 0 slot font at a position that is a factor of 128 greater than 1536. This will result in the proper placement of the new font and will mean that all of the different sizes and styles will automatically be available for the new font. The Font Table The font table is the place in which the characters of a font are stored. Each character is assigned a position in the table which will be the position that must be addressed if the character is to be generated. The process of addressing a character from the font table is called key-mapping. A position in the font table is returned when a key or sequence of keys is pressed. There are 256 slots in the font table of which about 230 can be accessed. These slots are reached from four different keyboard combinations. There is the standard keyboard that generates all of the unshifted characters, the shifted keyboard, a keyboard with the [Option] key depressed, and a keyboard with the [Option] key and [A copy of this has been saved as <INFO-MAC>FONTEDIT.DOC -jma ]