Copyright: Copyright 1991-1994 by Bryan T. Kinkel
Citation: Copyright 1991-1994 by Bryan T. Kinkel


Contents
Printer's Apprentice Help	ASP

Printer's Apprentice is a professional tool for exploring your entire font and typeface catalog. Printer's Apprentice will work with any scalable TrueType or Adobe Type 1 (with ATM software) installed on your system. With this program, desktop publishers, designers, and layout artists can choose the perfect typeface for their creation. For help with the Windows help resource, press F1. Check out the Release Notes section for answers to the most popular questions...

Please remember this package is shareware! If you have registered this product, thank you! Your payment will help with continued development of this software. Development is not cheap!

If you have not registered, please do so. Registration entitles you to the following:

36 page printed manual

diskette with the latest version of Printers Apprentice

timely notification of upgrades and new products

technical support via CompuServe, AOL, and phone

Please fill out the Registration Form and mail it in!!

Contents

What does it do for me?	Where to find high quality fonts!

What is new in 5.9?	Release Notes

Installation	About Lose Your Mind Software...

The Windows	Print Registration Form

Specimen Sheets	Technical Support & Upgrades

Commands

Printers Apprentice Options

	Lose Your Mind Development is a proud member of ASP, The Association of Shareware Professionals


Introduction

With the introduction of Windows 3.1, PC users now have access to the high quality Adobe and TrueType font engines. Thousands of typefaces are available from both large firms and independent design houses. New companies such as SoftMaker, Emigre, the FontShop, and Lazy Dog Foundary are making more fresh and exciting typefaces available each month.

However, keeping track of all these typefaces is not as much fun as designing with  them. Printers Apprentice will help you by printing specimen sheets for your typefaces. You can generate a personalized font catalog in about an evening with Printers Apprentice. Four different font sheets are available along with keyboard charts and ANSI charts. The program will also print font inventories - line by line listings of the installed fonts on your system. The program works with both TrueType and Adobe Type 1 (ATM) fonts.

The only current limitation is that Printers Apprentice works only with the typefaces installed on your Windows system. It will not work with uninstalled fonts on a CD-ROM or a floppy disk. We are currently working on this feature... Hopefully it will be in place by early summer 1994! If you register your software, you will be notified of upgrades.

Use this help file as you would use the help file for Excel or other programs. Many dialog boxes in Printer's Apprentice have a question mark button that will pull up the help system. This help system is context sensitive. Whenever you need help, just press the F1 key or select Contents from the Help menu.


What is new in 5.8?
What is new in 5.9?

5.9

•	Association of Shareware Professionals information added to help file and opening splash screen.

•	Various cosmetic changes to the software in an attept to lower resource usage.

•	Request for feature ideas for 6.0 form added to help file.

•	I moved! New address in the program and help file.

5.8

•	We have a lot of users in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Australia, etc. All of these countries use A4 sized paper. Printers Apprentice now supports A4 paper for international use. All specimen sheets and font inventories will now print correctly on A4 sized paper.

•	Hewlett-Packard DeskJet support has been improved. These are just weird printers...

•	Mini-Page-Preview! When you print a single specimen sheet, Printers Apprentice will now show you a snapshot of the page! It will help refresh your memory when you try to remember what the pages look like!

•	New, cleaner, interface for the Printers Apprentice Options dialog box. This dialog box now uses the famous tabbed interface used by Excel 5.0 and Word 6.0

•	Changed heading on the character set sheet. On some printers, the landscape orientation of the heading would overlap onto the table. The heading is now at the top.

•	A footer has been added to the charcter set sheet.

•	Revised cosmetics in some dialog boxes to make them look like Microsoft applications.

•	Updated help file, added context sensitive help for the Printers Apprentice Options dialog box application. Help file now contains graphics for the Options dialog box. Release notes section has been updated.

•	Many parts of the program have been updated to use the new 3D borders on dialog boxes. The effect is similar to dialog boxes in the Microsoft Office™ suite of programs.

•	The Options menu has been changed to Tools. The Printers Apprentice Control Panel is now called Printers Apprentice Options. This was done to eliminate confusion.

As you can see, some of the improvements may or may not be drastic to you. That is why this is a maintenance release... Here is a look at what is on tap for version 6.0... Preview & print uninstalled fonts (hopefully), more specimen sheets, flexible toolbar, more detailed font information, and more font inventory styles!  Remember, you will only be notified of the upgrade if you Register  your copy of Printers Apprentice!


Installation

Unlike many programs that seek to dominate your computer,  Printers Apprentice aspires to be small but effective. Many applications ship on fourteen high density diskettes or an entire cd-rom. To install Printers Apprentice on your Windows system,  just run the install.exe program located on the single diskette.  The installation routine will decompress the files, copy them to your hard drive, and create an icon in your Program Manager.

Step-by-Step

1. Start Microsoft Windows

2. Insert the distribution diskette into your floppy drive.

3. From the Program manager, select File menu and choose Run.

4. Type a:\install and press enter.

To start the software, double click on the new Printers Apprentice icon from the Windows Program Manager.  When the program is run for the first time,  it will notify you that you need to select a system font.  The system font is used on every printed page for titles, headers, and footers.  The system font should be a simple, sans serif face.  TrueType Arial will work well, although any Helvetica looking face will do.  Its all a matter of personal preference. You can change the system font later if it does not look good.

Step-by-Step

1. Select Setup from the Options menu item or click the setup button. The Printers Apprentice Options utility will load after reading in your fonts.

2. Click on System Font from the list of options on the list.

3. From the list box, click on Arial or a similar sans-serif typeface.

4. Click the Save button.

5. Click the Close button.

The separate setup utility, PACONTRL.EXE,  allows you to change options for program features, specimen pages,  as well as the system font.  Choosing Setup on the Options menu from Printers Apprentice will start the program.  On the left side of the screen is a list box.  Click on a setup topic on the left. The settings for the option topic will appear on the right.  Make your changes and press the Save button.  A whole variety of options for the software can be set here including page headers,  footers,  inventory point size,  and viewing defaults.


Windows

Printer's Apprentice is built around one main window. However, there are several other windows that allow the user to view his fonts in a variety of ways. These are all accessed through the view menu or the toolbox.

More info...

 The Main Window

 The Keyboard

 Paragraph Window

 Character Set Window

 The Toolbox

 Batch Printing Window


Main Window

Presented above is the Printer's Apprentice main window. To find out more about the elements of the screen, click on the picture above.


Keyboard
The Keyboard

A unique feature of Printer's Apprentice is the on screen, visual keyboard. This feature is similar to a utility on the Macintosh platform, the KeyCaps desk accessory. The visual keyboard allows you to find special characters on the IBM keyboard. To see the keyboard with the current font on the keys, select VIEW.KEYBOARD. The typeface used on the keys will change whenever you change the font in the Printer's Apprentice main window. This window may be minimized or moved around on the screen as needed. Minimizing the Printer's Apprentice main window will also minimize the keyboard on the desktop.

The (physical) keyboard or the mouse may be used to send keys to the small edit window above the keyboard. When the font is changed, these characters will also change. Clicking the buttons with the mouse has the same effect as using the (physical) keyboard. Changes to shift state and the caps lock keys will be reflected on the visual keyboard.

You can also use the edit window to send characters to the Windows clipboard. With the caret in the edit window, pressing shift and the arrow keys will highlight the text. Press CRTL-C to copy the text to the clipboard. Pressing CTRL-X will cut the text out and place it into the clipboard. Use CTRL-V to paste data into the edit window.

The button with the red X will clear the edit window while the button with two little documents will copy selected text to the clipboard.


Paragraph Window

In this window, the user may view a variety of pre-defined strings, special symbol sets, or random text entered from the keyboard. Use the two listboxes to change font and point size. Note: This window is sizable and may be sized for ease of viewing.

The list box at the top right of the sizable window lists four sets of characters and ten quotes. The defined quotes may be changed by using the quote box in the  setup window. The four symbol sets include the alphabet in both upper and lower case, the numerals, punctuation marks, and the extended characters.

The text strings may be viewed in normal, bold, italics, and bolditalic. Use the buttons at the top left of the window to change paragraph attributes.

In addition to viewing character strings set in your favorite typefaces, the paragraph window may be used to cut, copy, and pastespecial characters between Printer's Apprentice and other application programs. Simply use the mouse to select the desired character and press the copy button. The printer icon will show you the printing dialog box. Click the question mark for help.


Character Set Window

This window allows you to view the entire character set of your typeface in a large, easy to read format. The grid contains all 255 characters in the font. To see more, click the scroll bars. Selecting a character in the grid with the mouse will change the specimen character in the main Printer's Apprentice window. To copy the selected character to the clipboard, use the copy button. The printer icon lets you print. Click the close button to return to the main window.

The character set window also shows the ANSI codes in red for the selected character. The ANSI code may be used to enter the character directly into an application. For example to use the "oe" character, hold down the ALT key and press "0156" on the numeric keypad.


Floating Toolbox

The Printer's Apprentice toolbox works just like the toolboxes in programs such as AMI Pro and Excel 4.0 . It serves as a simple alternative to repetitive menu clicks. You can make Printer's Apprentice default to displaying the toolbox by selecting the toolbox option in the default views section of the setup window. To get a description of each tool, click on the picture to the left. A short explanation will pop up.

See the help section on specimen sheets for descriptions and more information.


Batch Printing Window

Now you know how to print a specimen sheet or a character chart for a single font.  But you have forty-five different dingbat and wingding fonts.  Printing a character set for each face would take too long.  Printers Apprentice has a batch mode to remove the drudgery of printing individual font sheets.

Printers Apprentice also will print font inventories.  An inventory is simply a line-by-line listing of the fonts along with a sample string.  Printers Apprentice can print four types of font inventories.  They are each described briefly below.

Single Column	Displays a line of text set in each font with the name of the font below the text.  Printed in alphabetical order, this makes an excellent quick reference guide to every typeface on your computer.  Keep it close by when it comes time to figure out what GrotesqueSans looks like on your printer.

Font File Listing 	Similar to the Single Column inventory, this prints every attribute available for each font as well as the filename.  You need  this list when it comes time to clean out your beloved collection of 400 fonts.  This list is also handy for finding duplicate fonts on your hard drive.

Double Column	Prints out a two column, alphabetical listing of the fonts you select.  This sheet can be cut and half and given to clients who need to narrow down their selection of fonts for a project.  A few font vendors, such as Emigre, distribute catalogs using a half page format.  The double column inventory has ample space for a three hole punching on each half.

Three Up	This inventory prints three fonts to a page.  The alphanumerics and a sample text line are printed for each font.

The font inventory and batch printing functions use the same window to select fonts.  The only difference between the dialog boxes is the list of available printouts in the upper right corner.  You may want to refer to the diagram above as you read this.  The selection window contains two lists of fonts. On the left is a list of typefaces available on your system.  It is the same list that appears in the main Printers Apprentice window.  On the right is the list of faces you want to be printed.  It starts out empty,  you need to add the fonts you want printed.  Use the following techniques to copy fonts from one list to the other.

Step-by-Step

To add a single font to be printed:

1. Use the mouse and click on a font from the list of available fonts.

2. Click the Add button. It has the arrow pointing to the right.

3. The font will appear in the list of fonts to print.

To add a series of fonts to be printed (fonts #1, #2, and #3 in a list):

1. Hold down the shift key

2. Drag down the list of available fonts with the mouse

3. Release the mouse button when you have selected the series of fonts you want to print.

4. Click the Add button.

5. The fonts will appear in the list of fonts to print.

To add a selected group of fonts to be printed (fonts #4, #8, and #12 in a list):

1. Hold down the control key.

2. Use the mouse and click on the fonts you want to print.

3. Click the Add button

4. The fonts will appear in the list of fonts to print.

To select all fonts in a list

1. Hold down the shift key.

2. Click on the first font in the list.

3. Scroll down to the end of the list.

4. Click on the last font in the list.

5. Release the shift key.

These same mouse techniques will work with the delete button also.  If you want to remove a font from the print list, use the click, shift-click, or control-click technique to select the fonts and press the delete button.

After you have selected the fonts you want printed,  select and inventory or a specimen sheet to print.  Click on the print button to start the process.  After a few moments,  pages should start coming out of your printer.  All specimen sheets and inventory pages have sufficient left margins for three hole punching.


Specimen Sheets

Specimen sheets are commonly used by printers and professional designers as a visual guide to the entire font catalog.  It may be organized alphabetically by face name, by font style (bold, italic, etc), broad font categories (ornamental, swiss, etc.), or by use and purpose.  Todays desktop publisher or service bureu may want to catagorize fonts by publisher, technology, or project.  The only correct method is the method that makes it easiest to locate the typeface needed for a job.

You read earlier about how easy it is to use Printers Apprentice.  Just point and click.  Printing a specimen sheet is the same way.  Use the main window to select the font to print.  A quick mouse move to select the Print command from the file menu is all it takes.  For the lack of a better set of names, the specimen sheets are simply numbered.

To print a specimen sheet:

1. Use the mouse and click on a font from the list of available fonts.

2. Click on a font style (bold, italic, etc.) from the list of available fonts.

3. Select PRINT... from the FILE menu.

-or-

Press the print hot-key, CONTROL-P.

4. Click the check boxes next to the specimen sheets you want printed.

5. Press the OK button with the mouse.

6. Sit back and wait a few moments while your sheets are printed.

Specimen sheets I, II, III, IV as well as the Character Set, will print in the font style (ie bold, light, etc.) you select. The ansi chart and keyboard layout only print in roman. All of the specimen sheets can be customized with headers and footers.  See the section on the Printers Apprentice Options dialog box for more information.

Future versions of Printers Apprentice will have a broader selection of font pages. Please feel free to send us any designs you would like to see included in the program.

Specimen Sheet I

Best for viewing the alphanumeric characters with some lines of text, this specimen sheet is an excellent, all purpose guide to the typeface.  All the alphanumerics and keyboard symbols are displayed at a very readable 24 points. On a 300 dpi printer, you should  be able to notice the subtle character of your fonts.  This specimen sheet has been described as less than artistic, but it is good for giving to clients.

Specimen Sheet II

This design is based on an advertisment we saw in a publishing magazine. The particular font company was offering some gorgeous renditions of older Frederick Goudy.  Specimen Sheet II prints a string of text, in a variety of point sizes. The default string, as well as the headers and footers may be changed through the options button on the main window.  Please note, this sheet prints with two styles. The first style is always the roman or normal variation of the typeface selected  The second style is the one you pick from the list of available styles.  For example, if you select the bold variation of a font and print this specimen sheet, every other line will be bold.  If a font does not have any available styles or you select normal, then the entire sheet will be printed in Roman.

Specimen Sheet III & IV

These are two interesting designs taken out of an antique book from the Montgomery County Library in Norristown, Pennsylvania.  The copyright was in the 1960s, so we don't know if that qualifies the book as an antique or not.  You may want to check out your library.  You will be surprised at how many good typeography books your library has.  To give credit where credit is due, I think the book was issued by the American Type Foundary.

ANSI Chart

A good typeface will have close to 255 characters defined.  This includes the traditional alphabet in upper and lower case,  symbols,  punctuation marks, and accented characters.  Of course, the keyboard doesnt come close to having that many keys.  You are a designer.  You dont want to remember codes just to get the perfect dingbat.  The ANSI chart will print out a reference guide to all character codes in the fonts character set. When it comes time to input that strange character that isnt found on the keyboard, remember the ALT-0-ansi trick.  Just look at your chart for the code.

Keyboard Guide

Another handy guide to dingbat fonts, this will print a graphical keyboard as well as a small chart of the extended characters that dont lie on the keyboard.

Character Set

Prints a large print version of the ANSI chart. Contains the complete alphabet, symbols, numbers, and extended characters of a typeface.  In our opinion, this chart is better looking than the other ansi chart. The type is much larger, but it still manages to fit all the character and key codes on a single page.


Commands

Listed below is an index to the Printer's Apprentice command set.

 File Menu

 Edit Menu

 View Menu

 Tools Menu

 Run Menu


File Menu

FILE.PRINT - Printer's Apprentice currently has seven different specimen sheets. The specimen sheet will use the current font listed in the main window. To change options, such as headers and footers, for the specimen sheets, click OPTIONS.SETUP. See the help section on specimen sheets for descriptions and more information.

FILE.PRINT INVENTORY  - The inventory option is used to print laundry listings of fonts available on your system. A window similar to the batch window pops up prompting you for a list of which fonts you want  to be included on the list. For example, you may wish to  print a listing of all your by vendor, all the shareware  fonts, or all those beginning with the letter B. Additional  options for footers and the inventory size are available  by pressing the Options button on the lower right corner of the screen. Be sure to select which inventory you want to run. Printer's Apprentice offers single column and double column inventories. The double column listing is currently limited to one page at a time. Printer's Apprentice also has an inventory that prints in variable sizes, three fonts to a page.

The two column inventory can be printed on paper or card stock and then cut in half. You can put the half slips into a binder or givee them to clients.

One of the most useful inventory lists may be the Font File Listing. This lists all the fonts and the filenames associated with them. This is especially handy when it comes time to clean out your assorted collection of 600 TrueType and Type 1 fonts.

FILE.BATCH PRINTING  - This allows you to print multiple specimen sheets for a single typeface.. See Batch Window for more information on this option.


Edit Menu

EDIT.COPY - Places a copy of the specimen character into the Windows clipboard. The character is sent with no formatting, so you will have to change the font and point size of the character in the application you paste the character into.


View Menu

VIEW.KEYBOARD - Shows the Printer's Apprentice visual keyboard.

VIEW.CHARACTER SET - Printer's Apprentice has both a small ANSI chart as well as a larger one. This displays the larger  character window.

VIEW.PARAGRAPH - The paragraph window allows you to view both predefined and user defined strings in a paragraph form.

VIEW.TOOLBOX - Printer's Apprentice also sports a sharp looking floating toolbox for easy access to functions.


Options Menu
Tools Menu

TOOLS.REREAD FONTS - Use this to refresh the font list after you change printer options from the Windows Control Panel.

TOOLS.OPTIONS - Opens the Options dialog box.


Run Menu

You can run a variety of related utilities directly from Printer's Apprentice. These programs include the Windows Control Panel, the clipboard viewer, Adobe Type Manager, and the Windows 3.1 Character Map.


Control Panel
Options

 Click a tab to see an explaination of what the settings do!

For lack of a better name, all configuration information is kept in the Printers Apprentice Options dialog box. This application (it is a separate EXE file) lets you change all the settings for the font inventories and the specimen sheets.

The dialog box should be familiar if you use Word 6.0 or any other application in the Microsoft Office line. A series of tabs along the top allows you to change a family of settings. For example, clicking Font Inventory will activate a screen where you can change the headers and footers for the font inventory.

After you have changed your desired settings for each tab, click the Save button. All your settings will be saved to an INI file located in your Printers Apprentice directory. If you dont want your changes saved, just click the Cancel button.


Where to Find High Quality Fonts

With so many typeface companies trying to get your attention, it is hard to find high quality typefaces at a good price. Many of the smaller companies get their fonts by actually scanning in the font outlines from competitors. These fonts are called knockoffs and are not recommended. While a typeface cannot be legally copywrited, the ethics of using font knockoffs are questionable.

Here is what we recommend:

SoftMaker, Inc.

2195 Faraday Avenue, Suite A

Carlsbad, CA 92008

(619) 929-6030

CIS email 75500,3210

Excellent source for both general purpose, body type and display faces! Their definiType packages were recently cited by John Dvorak (PC Magazine) for containing better kerning information that Adobe!

Emigre

4475 D Street

Sacramento, CA 95819

1 (800) 944-9021

Emigre is a pretty wild design house in California (where else?!). Most of the typefaces put out by the company are display faces, but some of their fonts could be used in body type. Emigre faces are ussually seen in ads and on compact disk sleeves. Give them a call and ask to be placed on the mailing list. A new catalog or ad will arrive in your mailbox about every month. Their mailings look great and are enjoyable to read.

Precision Type

47 Mall Drive

Commack, NY 11725-5703

1 (800) 248-3558

Precision Type published the most comprehensive catalog of typefaces in the country (world?). Version 4.0 of thier catalog weighed in at 250 pages with typefaces from over 40 companies. Both large companies such as Adobe & Bitstream are represented along with smaller firms such as U-Design Foundry and The Font Bureau. The catalog will run you $6.95, but it is worth it.

Image Club Graphics, Inc.

729 - 24th Avenue Southeast

Calgary, AB Canada T2G 1P5

1 (800) 661-9410

CIS email 72560,2323

America Online: Image Club

Image Club carries a lot of inexpensive display type, clip art, and stock photography. Just about everything is on CD-ROM. Give them a call for a free catalog.


User Name

The User Name is a place to store your name or the name of your company. Most of the specimen sheets and font inventories let you insert a footer or a header. If you click on the Font Inventory tab, you will see a text box for the left footer and the right footer. There are also buttons that say User Name. The User Name buttons let you quickly enter your name as the header/footer. Most of the specimen sheet tab settings have a User name button.

Step-by-Step

1. Click the User Name tab

2. Type the your name or the name of your firm in the text box

3. Click the Save button

4. When you see a User Name button, you can click it to have it enter your name as the default text.


System Font

The system font is the typeface used for headers, footers, and other descriptive information on the font inventories and specimen sheets. A simple, sans serif face such as Arial or Helvetica will work the best. Because it is used in a variety of point sizes, the system font must be a scalable TrueType or Adobe Type 1 font.

You may want to use a more ornate font for the system font when printing specimen sheets for display type. The best idea is to simply experiment.

Note: The system font does not refer to the system.fon that used to ship with older versions of Microsoft Windows!!


Font Software

Printers Apprentice has a Run menu that allows you to start a variety of software utilities. From here you can run the Adobe Type Manger Control Panel or the TrueType Control Panel. There is also a button on the main Printers Apprentice window for quick access to your default font manager software. This button only supports ATM or the TrueType Control Panel. If you want ATM to be started, click the ATM radio button. If you want the TrueType Control Panel to start, click the TT radio button.

Printers Apprentice also has a toolbox. If you want the toolbox to show on startup, click the checkbox so an x is present. Leave it blank and the toolbox will not be displayed on startup.


Font Inventory

The Font Inventory feature in Printers Apprentice is one of the most useful functions. It is basically a line-by-line listing of all the fonts on your computer. There are several different styles below, but the options below apply to all of the inventory sheets.

Footers - Each inventory can have a left and a right hand footer at the bottom of the page. Clicking the User Name button will enter your custom text from the User Name section of the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.

Point Size - Each inventory, with the exception of the Three-Up style, can be printed in any size between 10 and 48 points. Smaller point sizes will get more fonts on each page. Larger point sizes will show the detail in ornate display faces.

Quotes - The quote is the sample line of text on the font inventory sheet. The sample text will be printed in the typeface so you can see how the font looks. You can change the quote lines in the Quotes section of the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.


Printed Quotes

Every typographer and printer has their own favorite line of text they like to use to see what the type will look like. Common strings include The quick brown fox jumped over the laxy dogs and Jack Sprat would eat no fat. Lines from Shakespeare are also very popular, especially when the specimen sheet is laid in an Old English face.

For maximum flexibility, the specimen sheets in Printers Apprentice can be customized with your own text. This tab dialog is where you can type up to 10 customized quotes for the specimen sheets. The ABCs and punctuation marks are build in.

When you go to customize an inventory or specimen sheet, you will see a listbox that contains your 10 favorite lines of text. The lines of text you type in on this tab dialog will appear in the listboxes for customizing the font inventories and specimen sheets After you make changes to your quotes, press the save button so they will be loaded into the listboxes!


Specimen Sheets

Mosf of the specimen sheets in Printers Apprentice use the same options from this screen. The exception is Specimen Sheet II, which can be printed in all capital letters.

Header/Footer - Place the line of text for your header. It may be your name, address, company name, etc. Clicking the User Name button will enter your custom text from the User Name section of the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.

Quotes - The quote is the sample line of text on the font inventory sheet. The sample text will be printed in the typeface so you can see how the font looks. You can change the quote lines in the Quotes section of the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.


Specimen Sheet II

Specimen Sheet II was built with an additional feature. It can be printed in all capital letters. This is useful for display fonts that only ship in capital letters. Higher quality display faces from companies such as SoftMaker, Inc., will have both upper and lower case letters.

Footer - The footer is the same one used for the other specimen sheets. It can be changed from the Specimen Sheets tab in the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.

Quotes - The quote is the sample line of text on the font inventory sheet. The sample text will be printed in the typeface so you can see how the font looks. You can change the quote lines in the Quotes section of the Printers Apprentice Options dialog.

Case - Click which case you want to print in. It can print in all capital letters or in both upper and lower case letters.


Release Notes & Caveats
Release Notes

How do I remove Printers Apprentice?

In the directory where Printers Aprentice is installed is a file called install.log.  This contains a listing of all files copied to your hard drive as well as any Program Manager icons created. Use this to delete any files added to your system and icons created in your Program Manager.  You may want to be careful when removing the various VBX and DLL files from your system.  Other software installed on your system may use these files.  The VBRUN300.DLL file, found in your system directory, is used by many public domain and shareware programs.

Postscript

Even though it is (arguably) the best printer language available, Postscript is still troublesome to use with Windows. If you are using an HP III with a Pacific Data, HP, or other Postscript cartridge,  I recommend you use the original, native PCL mode of the HP printers.  Your ATM fonts will still work and TrueType will have no problem with it.  Using ATM and TrueType with the PCL mode is the easiest way to get fantastic output from your HP or compatible printer.

If you do try to use the Postscript driver with ATM, you may have to play with the memory settings in the Control Panel.  The Windows Postscript driver has an option that will clear the printers memory after every page.  If you are having trouble getting an inventory printed,  try enabling this option.  Windows normally sends TrueType fonts as a Type 1 fonts when you print to a Postsript based printer. If you have 2 megabytes of memory on the printer, your memory will be full after eight or so fonts. The inventory function may then crash on you.

If you use ATM, try sending the fonts as bitmaps (Type 3 fonts) rather than Type 1 faces.  This way your printer won't hold onto font outlines that it has already printed.

Some of my users have reported that the Conform to Adobe Document Structuring Convention

TrueType

TrueType is Microsofts answer to Adobe Postscript.  While Postscript is a full programming language for printer,  TrueType is a programming language of sorts for scalable type. Printers Apprentice has been tested with TrueType fonts and will recognize them if you are using Windows 3.1.

Where is the cancel button?

We all want a CANCEL button to abort those huge runs. Visual Basic 3.0, the programming language used for Printers Apprentice,  has no internal support for halting a print job.  We have seen kludge attempts and workarounds,  but they are not very smooth.  As we repeat below, dont try to run ridiculously large print jobs at once.  Printers Apprentice will probably crash.  We have tried to help matters a bit by allowing you to select which fonts you want run on the inventory sheets.  We also added a little disclaimer dialog right before you print an inventory letting you know that Printers Apprentice will most likely take a long time to print... we will see what the future brings.

Huge Runs

Do not try and print batch runs of hundreds of fonts at once!  Go easy on the poor Visual Basic print engine and try to stick to around twenty or so font sheets at once.  If you try to print an inventory for 300 fonts at one time, the software may give up.  Try doing all your fonts that begin with A through D then E through H or some other systematic approach.  We dont know why, but the Visual Basic print engine can only take so much before it chokes!

Superprint

Superprint is a set of tweaked drivers claiming to speed up Windows printing.  We have not used or tested the program,  but other users have mentioned that Superprint does not like printing programs written in Visual Basic.  This is also mentioned in the documentation for other font programs like Printers Apprentice.  Switch to your original drivers when you use Printers Apprentice.

Bitmapped & Cartridge Fonts

The original Hewlett Packard II  printer relied on fixed size, bitmapped fonts that were slow and took up lots of space on your hard drive.  The newer HP III, IV and Postscript printers use scalable technology to render many sizes from a singe outline file.  It is not recommended to ask Printers Apprentice to print specimen sheets for fonts with only one point size.

Large Temporary Files

Windows uses temporary files to hold print files before sending them out to the printer. If you are doing a batch print of 150 fonts, be sure you have about four or five megs free on your hard drive. If Printers Apprentice fills your drive, it may lead to a system halt.

Bad Font Files

Many fonts distributed through online services or processed through conversion software run a risk of being corrupted.  Symptoms typically include dropped characters and partial printouts.  These bad fonts pretty much cause utter chaos with Printer's Apprentice. If they dont work with Printers Apprentice, they will most likely be unreliable in other Windows software.  When Adobe Type Manager came to the Windows world, many people converted Macintosh format Type 1 faces to PC format using a program called WFMBoss (Corel Systems).  An early version of this program had a bug that caused an occasional UAE/GPF with its fonts. If Printers Apprentice is acting funny, look at your font list, one or two may be bad.

Font Limits

Depending on who you speak with,  the practical limit on fonts ranges from 150 to 400. Microsoft used to say 150 during the days of Windows 3.0,  Adobe says 400 with ATM. Who knows... Having over 200 fonts in your system may cause Printers Apprentice to be unreliable.  The Windows 3.1 function reference, direct from Microsoft, says 1170 is the limit for TrueType fonts.  Try trimming your font list down a bit if things go haywire.

A4 Sized Paper, etc...

European and Australian users rejoice! As of version 5.8, Printers Apprentice will automatically detect what paper size you have loaded in the the main printer cartridge. Printers Apprentice will then adjust the specimen sheets, keyboard charts, inventories, etc., to fit on the page correctly. Earlier versions of Printers Apprentice produced questionable looking specimen sheets and inventories when A4 sized paper was used. Several of my international users were kind enough to send me the ugly results so I could recode the print routines.

Printers Apprentice will only work with A4 and 8½ x 11 letter sized paper. If any other size is loaded, the software will alert you and give you the option of changing paper.

Norton Desktop & PC Tools for Windows

I have heard a few users say that Printers Apprentice does not work very well with PC Tools for Windows. Printers Apprentice will apparently startup fine, but on shutdown it will hang the system. Central Point contacted me about this bug and said they were working on a fix. I do not use these programs so I cannot verify what is going on. I advocate a slim Windows installation where only Program Manager is loaded. I feel large shells such as NDW & PCTW hog memory and slow things down...

Resource Usage

Because this program is written with Visual Basic 3.0, it has a tendency to be selfish when it comes to system resources. Printers Apprentice will run on just about any system with four megabytes of physical memory. I have even heard of someone running it on a 286. But the more resources you have, the better. Remember, installed fonts use valuable resources. You may want to reduce the number of fonts you have installed. I hope Windows 4.0 fixes the resource issue once and for all.


About Lose Your Mind Development

Lose Your Mind Development is dedicated to bringing you the finest in low cost utilities for the Windows platform. We are run by Bryan T. Kinkel, a 1992 graduate of the University of Richmond. While Printer's Apprentice is our first project, you can be sure to find new, innovative programs that really make your work more enjoyable!  This software was developed while listening to a lot of Grateful Dead...


Registration Form

Please select Print Topic from the File menu above!

Printers Apprentice 5.9

Name:	________________________________________________________

Company:	________________________________________________________

Address:	________________________________________________________

Address:	________________________________________________________

City:	___________________	State/Prov.:______Zip/PC:______

Phone (optional):	_____________	Fax:	_________________________

Email Address:	_____________

PC Brand & Model:	_____________	Screen Resolution: ______________

Printer Model:	_____________	PostScript?:	Yes	No	(circle)

What font software do you use?:	_________________________________

How did you receive this copy of Printers Apprentice? (circle one)

BBS:	_____________________	Catalog:	_____________________

CD-ROM:____________________	Book:	_____________________

Vendor:____________________	Friend	Work	User Group

Please indicate quantity for each product:

_____	$20 Printers Apprentice, domestic USA address

_____	$25 Printers Apprentice & manual, domestic USA address

_____	$25 Printers Apprentice, overseas & Canada

_____	$30 Printers Apprentice & manual, overseas & Canada

Please enclose personal or corporate check payable to:

Lose Your Mind Development

c/o Bryan T. Kinkel

453 Haverford Avenue

Second Floor

Haverford, PA 19041

Please no purchase orders, VISA, MasterCard, or American Express orders!

Please list additional comments, gripes, horror stories, etc on back! We are always looking for new features and specimen sheets to add to this software. Do you want a particular specimen sheet printed by Printers Apprentice? Layout your page in your desktop publishing or word processing package and send it to us!


Technical Support
Technical Support & Upgrades

Technical Support is available for registered users via email, phone, or United States mail. Please make every effort to use email! Email is ussually much cheaper than the phone!

email	70564,2372 on Compuserve, DEADHEAD01 on America Online

phone	(215) 275-7034  	7-9PM E.S.T., Monday - Friday (only!!)

US Mail	Lose Your Mind Development

Bryan Kinkel

506 Wilder Square

Norristown, PA 19401

When contacting us for technical support, please tell us about your system! What kind of printer do you have? Is it a Postscript? How much memory on your computer? your printer? Are you using Adobe Type Manager? TrueType? or both? Placing the answers to these questions in your email will save a lot of time!!

The latest version of Printers Apprentice is always available in the Desktop Publishing Forum on CompuServe. You can ussually find it if you search the file libraries on the keyword Apprentice. Consult your CompuServe access software (NavCIS, WinCIM, etc) for information on searching and downloading from the file libraries.

Major upgrades will be announced via United States mail to all registered users. New diskettes will ussually be offered at a nominal charge (US$5 or US$10).


Typography
    Typography is the art of designing letterforms for the printed page.


     Clipboard

The clipboard is a section of memory Windows sets aside to store data shared between programs. The Clipboard viewer (CLIPBRD.EXE) is a separate program that allows you to examine the contents and format of the clipboard.


     Copy

Copy will place a copy of the selected text or object into the clipboard. To copy a selection, click EDIT.COPY or use the CTRL-C key combination. In some Printer's Apprentice windows, you can use the copy button .


     Cut

Cut deletes the currently selected object or text from the active document and places it into the clipboard. Use CTRL-X or EDIT.CUT.  In some Printer's Apprentice windows, you can use the copy button.


     Paste

Paste will insert data from the clipboard into the current application or document. EDIT.PASTE or CTRL-V will paste an object from the clipboard. In some Printer's Apprentice windows, you can use the paste button.


    Font

A font is a single size and weight of a typeface family. A family would be Goudy Old Style, for example, while an individual font would be Goudy Old Style Italic 14.


Scalable
    Scalable or vector typefaces use a set of mathematical formulas to represent its character outline. The formulas form the curves and lines that make the family look the way it does. Scalable technology allows users to generate a particular face at virtually any point size. Adobe's Postscript printer language was one of the first technologies to use scalable type. TrueType is Microsoft's own scalable technology and is built into both Windows 3.1 and the Macintosh System 7 operating systems. Scalable fonts are sometimes referred to as stroke or vector based fonts.


Vector
    Scalable or vector typefaces use a set of mathematical formulas to represent its character outline. The formulas form the curves and lines that make the family look the way it does. Scalable technology allows users to generate a particular face at virtually any point size. Adobe's Postscript printer language was one of the first technologies to use scalable type. TrueType is Microsoft's own scalable technology and is built into both Windows 3.1 and the Macintosh System 7 operating systems. Scalable fonts are sometimes referred to as stroke or vector based fonts.


Raster

A bitmap or raster image is a picture based on a fixed grid. Individual grid cells may be "on" or "off" to make the figure look like something. Some printers, such as the LaserJet II, use bitmaps to generate fonts. Because of the bitmap, fonts for these printers are of fixed sizes. A new bitmap must be generated for each size to avoid distortion. Scalable fonts, on the other hand, use a series of vector calculations to create a perfect outline at a particular point size. The outline is then laid on the grid and the appropriate bits are colored in to create the character.


Character Set
    A character set is the range of letters, numerals, and symbols available in a particular face. Windows 3.x uses the set defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). This set has 255 available spaces for each typeface. MS--DOS uses a derivative set called ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Exchange). ASCII is a 7-bit set which does not provide for any other letterforms not included in the English language. This is a serious limitation and has led to international meetings intent on defining a new standard. Another character set, EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Exchange Code) is used by the old IBM mainframes.


Point
    A point is 1/72 of an inch.


ANSI
    American National Standards Institute


Font Manager
    Early versions (pre 3.1) of Microsoft Windows had very little support for fonts from different vendors. While a good number of printers and vendors were supported, the internal Windows support was very poor. Windows was supposed to be a WYSIWYG world, but screen fonts tended to look like small piles of bricks. So.... enter in font managers. These programs hooked into Windows and provided true screen fonts among other features. Adobe's Type Manager also allowed printing of Postscript faces on non-Postscript devices. Other vendors such as Bitstream, Atech, and Morefonts provided other features such as font customization and support for different font technologies.


Sans Serif

A sans serif font does not have strokes drawn at right angles to the arms, stems, or tails of letters. Helvetica and TrueType Arial are san serif typefaces.


Bitmaps

A bitmap or raster image is a picture based on a fixed grid. Individual grid cells may be "on" or "off" to make the figure look like something. Some printers, such as the LaserJet II, use bitmaps to generate fonts. Because of the bitmap, fonts for these printers are of fixed sizes. A new bitmap must be generated for each size to avoid distortion. Scalable fonts, on the other hand, use a series of vector calculations to create a perfect outline at a particular point size. The outline is then laid on the grid and the appropriate bits are colored in to create the character.


Specimen Sheets
    A specimen sheet is a sample printout or press designed to show the printer the characteristics and qualities of a particular face. The Printer's Apprentice provides the user with a wide variety of spec sheets for general use.


VBRUN300.DLL

This is the Visual Basic run time dynamic link library. This file should be in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. This file was installed by the setup program if you obtained Printer's Apprentice from the author. If you downloaded Printer's Apprentice from a BBS service or Compuserve, you need to download VBRUN300.DLL separately.


Specimen Character

This is a sample character from the typeface you selected.


Font List Box

This list box displays all the fonts available on your printer. Soft fonts, such as TrueType and ATM fonts, are displayed as well as device fonts. TrueType fonts are signaled with a small TT, Adobe Type 1 format fonts with a small, cursive a, and device fonts with a little printer.


Font Size

Select the size you want to display the typeface in. Use the dropdown list or pick any number from 8 points to 120 points.


Attribute

Each font on your system may or may not have bold, italic, and bolditalic versions. With TrueType and Adobe Type Manager, attributes are kept in separate font files. The Windows GDI can synthesize italic and bold variations for those fonts that do not have true separate bold and italic files. Printer's Apprentice shows only the attributes actually available for a font. It does not show the "fake" windows styles. They are ussually very ugly!


Font Manager Button

Click on this button to start up your font manager software. Printers Apprentice defaults to the Windows Control Panel (TrueType), but you can change it with the Printers Apprentice setup program.


Setup

Click here to start the Printers Apprentice setup program. This allows you to change program options, page headers, and quotes to print on the specimen pages.


Exit Button

Exit Printers Apprentice!


File Names

These are the filenames associated with the selected font. Both the ouline file (TTF or PFB) and resourece file (FOT or PFM) are listed.


ANSI Number

This displays the current ANSI code for the character in the specimen window. You can jump to any letter in the character set by entering a number from 0 to 255.


Status Buttons

These "status buttons" will copy the specimen character to the Windows clipboard, start the print options, display the help window, and put up the About... box.


Size Scroller

Use this scroll bar to change the size of the specimen character.


ANSI Scroller

Use this scroll bar to move through the 255 character Windows ANSI set.


Status Bar

Help text will display on this status line as the mouse is moved.


Specimen Sheet I

This button will print Specimen Sheet I for the current font.


Specimen Sheet II

This tool will print Specimen Sheet II for the current font.


Specimen Sheet III

This button will print Specimen Sheet III for the current font.


Specimen Sheet IV

This tool will print Specimen Sheet IV for the current font.


Character Set Printout

Prints a large style ANSI chart


Character Chart

Prints the current character in the main windows in a variety of sizes.


Keyboard

Useful for Windings & Dingbat faces, prints a complete keyboard layout and extended ANSI chart for the current font.


ANSI Chart

Prints a traditional style ANSI chart.


Font Inventory

Allows you to select the fonts to print in a laundry list style font inventory.


Batch Printing

Similar to the Font Inventory option, allows you to print multiple specimen sheets for a single font.


Print

Opens the generic printing dialog box.


On-Screen Keyboard

Shows or hides the screen keyboard.


Paragraph Window

Shows or hides the paragraph window.


Character Grid

Shows or hides the onscreen character chart.


Help

Brings up the help window.


Options

Starts the Printer's Apprentice setup program


Erase Button

Clears out the keyboard textbox


Copy Button

Copies selected text to the Windows clipboard.


Text Box

Sample text appears here as you type on the keyboard


Keyboard

Shows the keyboard location of dingbats, symbols, and picture fonts


Desktop Publishing Forum

This forum on Compuserve is an excellent source for public domain and shareware typefaces. From any Compuserve prompt, type GO DTPFORUM to join.


Shareware

Shareware is a marketing strategy, not a type of software. You are entitled to try this software before you purchase it. After an evaluation period of 30 days, you are entitled to either purchase the software or remove it from your computer. Shareware is typically distributed by commercial online services, computer vendors, and BBS systems. It is often better quality than what you can find in a store, on a shelf, in a box...


ASP

Lose Your Mind Development is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 USA, FAX 616-788-2765 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.