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FONTEDIT Page 1 Documentation USER'S MANUAL ********************************************************************* * * * FFFFF 000 N N TTTTT EEEEE DDDD IIIII TTTTT * * F O O NN N T E D D I T * * FF O O N N N T EE D D I T * * F O O N NN T E D D I T * * F OOO N N T EEEEE DDDD IIIII T * * * ********************************************************************* A font editing program for Epson and compatable printers. Version 1.01 Written by Claire A. Rinehart April 1986 Copyright (c) 1986 FONTEDIT is distributed as a shareware program. That is, you may use it, copy it and distribute it freely. You may not, however, sell it for more the the cost of the media upon which it is distributed. The author will not be liable for any damages resulting from use or inability to use this program or its associated utilities. The author reserves the right of copyright and this program may not be used commercially without the author's written consent. If you find this program helpful and would like to contribute to more high quality programs feel free to send a contribution up to $10. Feedback and contributions should be addressed to Claire A. Rinehart, 18C University Houses, Madison, WI 53705. Messages may be left on the Madison PC-Users Group board (608) 256-8088. FONTEDIT Page 2 Documentation TABLE OF CONTENTS _________________ Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Overview of program . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . 3 FONTEDIT.LBR contents . . . . . . . . . . 4 What is a user defined character? . . . . . . . 4 Details of functions . . . . . . . . . . 6 Load font . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Save font . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Copy characters from another font . . . . . . 7 Select character . . . . . . . . . . 7 Edit font . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cursor movement . . . . . . . . . 7 Inserting and Deleting dots . . . . . . 7 Shifting characters . . . . . . . . 8 Fill character matrix . . . . . . . 8 Clear character . . . . . . . . . 8 Copy character . . . . . . . . . 8 Print character . . . . . . . . . 8 End Edit . . . . . . . . . 8 Print current font . . . . . . . . . . 9 Clear font . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 End FONTEDIT program . . . . . . . . . 9 Loading fonts into printer RAM . . . . . . . . 10 Uses of FONTEDIT . . . . . . . . . . . 10 FONTEDIT Page 3 Documentation INTRODUCTION ------------ The impetus for writing this program came when I bought my first printer, an Epson JX-80. It is the color version of the early FX-series printers, as far as I can tell, and lacks the built in Greek and line characters that are found on other machines. Since I needed these for scientific report writing I set about to create this program. I admit that it has developed further than I had originally intended but has proven to very functional in a number of printer related matters and above all, educational. C. A. Rinehart April 1986 OVERVIEW -------- This program is designed for Epson JX, FX-series and compatable printers, such as the IBM proprinter, that have the capability to accept downloadable font characters from the attached computer. It allows you to create font characters, edit them, print them, save them to a font file, and send them to the printers RAM area by a separate utility program. Partial sets of characters may be copied from other font files and individual characters may be moved within the font being edited. This allows easy mixing and matching of characters for application specific font files. A number of example font files have been included to get you started and allow you to experiment with user defined characters before you invest much time in pursuing your own devices. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ---------------- I wish to acknowledge the people whose public domain software was drawn upon for this project. Jim Everingham The Window Manager/Editor version 1.0 Bela Lubkin INT24.PAS Chris Maeder DirectoryModule procedure. P.O. Box 2598 Madison, WI 53701 I want to thank these people and all the other authors that contribute code to the public. Shared programs are a great resource to draw upon when developing specific software. I also want to thank the Madison PC User's Group Turbo Pascal Special Interest Group for so effectively collecting and organizing the public domain Turbo programs, routines and utilities. This group has over 40 dsdd diskettes full of public domain Turbo software which they distribute at a very reasonable rate ($2/disk). Contact Chris Maeder for more information on this library. FONTEDIT Page 4 Documentation Files in FONTEDIT library ------------------------- These files should be found in the library distributed as FONTEDIT.LBR: FONTEDIT.COM Compiled version of FONTEDIT. FONTEDIT.PAS Main Turbo Pascal (tm) source code for FONTEDIT. VAR.INC Include file for WindMngr.inc. WINDMNGR.INC Windowing by Jim Everingham. ANSWER.INC Include file to get a selected response. IXTON.INC Include file raised integer to power. FILES.INC File management module. EPSONLDR.COM Program to load font into Epson printer. EPSONLDR.PAS Source code for above. PROLDR.COM Program to load font into IBM Proprinter. PROLDR.PAS Source for above. GRKLN.FNT Font of greek letters and lines. IBM.FNT Font of IBM character set. SIDEWAYS.FNT Font of sideways characters. What is a "User Defined Character"?? ------------------------------------ Before jumping into character generation, I feel that it may be helpful to understand a little of how a character is defined for the printer. The character matrix is a 9 by 11 block as shown in figure 1. Each printer has nine pins in the print head. This makes it possible to print dots in any of nine positions per column. There is a limitation to the number of pins that can be fired at once, however, you can only select eight of these pins at one time. Therefore, you must select either the top or the bottom eight pins when printing a character. Selection of either the top or bottom 8 pins is controlled by the attribute byte which will be discussed shortly. Effectively then, you are limited to an 8 by 11 matrix when designing a character. Notice that there are 11 columns in the character matrix. These are numbered as even and odd columns. Each dot when printed will fill the area defined by one box. Therefore, even and odd numbered columns would have overlapping dots if they were printed adjacent to one another. Printing dots in adjacent even and odd columns is not possible, however, since the pins cannot recover fast enough to fire the next stroke. FONTEDIT will not let you place contiguous dots in a character but will beep to indicate you are trying to enter an illegal dot. In figure 1. the Xs in the printing row for pin 8 shows illegally positioned dots. Rows 2 to 6 show legal dot entries. FONTEDIT Page 5 Documentation 1 3 5 7 9 11 Odd Column #s PIN ------------------- 9 | | | | | | | ------------------- 8 | | XX | | | | ------------------- 7 | | | | | | | ------------------- 6 | | X| | X| | | ------------------- FIGURE 1 5 | | X X | | | ------------------- 4 | X | X| X X | ------------------- 3 | | X X | | | ------------------- 2 | | X| | X| | | ------------------- 1 | | | | | | | ------------------- 2 4 6 8 10 Even Column #s Another consideration when designing a font is how much space are you going to reserve between each character. Typically columns 10 and 11 are left unused to provide this space. Of course if you are designing a font which includes line characters that need to be continuous then certainly you would need to use these columns so that the lines drawn by two characters would appear continuous. Each character that is sent to the printer is defined by 12 integers. The first integer to be sent is called the attribute and it tells the printer whether to use the top or the bottom eight pins for the character. The attribute also tells the printer which column to start and end printing when proportionally spaced characters are selected. The bit pattern of the attribute is defined by column 0 in figure 2. The next 11 integers in the character definition define the bit patterns of each column 1 through 11. Figure 2. Each font character 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 is an array of 11 | integers that contain bit 7 1=top 8 pins;0= bottom 8 pins the summation of the pattern 6 \ binary values making up of 5 > starting column for each column. Notice ColNum 0 4 / proportional spacing that ColNum 0 is not 3 \ displayed. This is 2 \ ending column for the attribute integer 1 / proportional spacing and is used as shown 0 / in the figure. Each of the 11 integers is translated by the printer into the bit pattern firing instructions for the eight pins designated by the FONTEDIT Page 6 Documentation attribute. An example of 12 integers sent to the printer and their translation into the printed letter X is shown in figure 3. Notice that the values of the 11 column integers is the summation of the number 2 raised to the BitPower corresponding to a 1. For example column 3 has a column value of 2^2 + 2^6 or 68. Figure 3. BitPower 7 t - 1 - - - - - 1 - - - 6 o - - 1 - - - 1 - - - - printer array 5 p - - - 1 - 1 - - - - - of -s and 1s. 4 - - - - 1 - - - - - - A 1 will be printed 3 p - - - 1 - 1 - - - - - as a dot. 2 i - - 1 - - - 1 - - - - A - as a 1 n - 1 - - - - - 1 - - - blank. 0 s 1 - - - - - - - 1 - - 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ColNum | | | | | | | | | | | | character 128|130| 40| 40|130| 0 | values 1 68 16 68 1 0 FontEdit reverses the process just described for printing. It allows you to place dots in the character matrix and then store these bit patterns as 12 character integers which later can be edited or sent to the printer RAM. Details of functions. --------------------- CHARACTER WINDOW SELECTION The main menu of FONTEDIT provides several choices that are selectable with the function keys. Along with the menu window there is a character window. The character displayed can be changed by using the arrow keys or function keys Fn2 and Fn3. LOAD FONT The function key, Fn5, will load a font from disk into memory. You will be shown a list of files with the extension .FNT that are on the default drive. You may enter one of these or a path and name of another file. NOTE: You do not need to enter the extension; FONTEDIT assumes the extension of .FNT on all font files. SAVE FONT The function key, Fn6, will save a font in memory as a disk file. You will be asked for a file name to which you want to save the font. FONTEDIT will indicate if the file already exists and ask you if you want to overwrite the existing file. If the file name you enter is not found then the file is created with the extension of .FNT. NOTE: When entering the file name you do not need to enter the extension. If you enter an extersion, FONTEDIT will change it to .FNT. FONTEDIT Page 7 Documentation COPY CHARACTERS FROM ANOTHER FONT FONTEDIT allows you to copy a partial font from disk into a designated area of the font in memory by pressing Fn7. For example, if you have a font of greek letters in memory (characters 49-80) and want to also include a line drawing font in characters 81-121 then you would press Fn7. You would then be shown a list of font files and asked to enter the name of the file from which the new characters will be derived (LINE). You will then be asked to enter the beginning character of the font on disk that you wish to copy (41). Next, you will be asked for the last character to copy from the disk file (81). This assums that you know the locations of the characters in the disk font file. This information is readily available if you print out all of the fonts you create using Fn9 and keep them as a hard copy. You will then be asked to enter the character number of the font in memory to which the characters will begin to be transferred (81). Transfer will then begin. Using the above example characters 41 to 81 from the font file LINE would be transferred into characters 81 to 121 in the memory resident font. This function allows you to move blocks of characters around between fonts and within a font to create application specific fonts. Characters may be moved around within a font by saving the font to disk and then copying selected blocks into a blank font using Fn7. SELECT CHARACTER You may move to any character in the memory resident font by using Fn4. After selecting this function enter a character number in the range 0 to 255. That character will then be displayed in the character window. This function saves moving through the font one character at a time with the cursor keys. EDIT FONT A font character can be created or edited by pressing Fn1. This moves the cursor to the character window. The even and odd columns are displayed in different colored dots. Dots on the same row must be separated by at least one blank column. That means that the closest dots on the same row will have the same color. CURSOR MOVEMENT The cursor is moved around the character with the cursor keys. When the cursor reaches one of the edges of the character it is wrapped around to the opposite side of the character. The HOME and END keys move the cursor to the top right and lower left parts of the character respectively. The PgUp and PgDn keys move the cursor to the top and bottom of the character respectively while remaining in the same column. INSERTING AND DELETING DOTS Dots may be entered into the character field by pressing the INS key. If the CAPSLOCK key is off the INS key will display a dot and remain at those coordinates. If the CAPSLOCK key is on then the INS key will display a dot and move the cursor FONTEDIT Page 8 Documentation horizontally two spaces to the next valid dot position. The DEL key removes a dot from the character. If the CAPSLOCK key is on, the dot under the cursor is deleted and the cursor moves to the left two spaces otherwise the cursor remains at the deleted position. When using INS and DEL with the CAPSLOCK on the cursor not only wraps to the opposite side but also move to the next line. SHIFTING CHARACTERS All the dots within the character field can be moved in each of four directions with the function keys Fn1, Fn2, Fn3 and Fn4. Fn1 moves the character to the left. Fn2 moves the character up while Fn3 moves the character down. Fn4 moves the character to the right. These keys move the character one column or row in their respective direction and any dots moved out of the character field are lost. So, for example, if you pressed Fn1 and then Fn4 then all dots in column 1 would have been deleted. FILL CHARACTER You may fill a character field with dots and then edit it using the DEL function. You have a choice of filling either the odd or even columns. Fn5 will fill the even columns and Fn6 will fill the odd columns. CLEAR CHARACTER If you wish to start creation of a character over again, you may delete all the dots in the current character field with the Fn7 key. COPY CHARACTER When in the edit mode you may copy a character from the font resident in memory into the character being edited using the Fn8 key. When queried, enter a character number between 0 and 255. PRINT CHARACTER When you have completed editing a character and would like to see how it looks printed out, press the Fn9 key. This function will exit the edit mode and print the character on the printer. The character will be printed in single-strike, double-strike, emphasized and double-strike emphasized printing weights. The three type styles used are pica, elite and compressed. This will allow you to see the character printed under several different conditions and aid in your editing process. NOTE: Not all printing weights are supported for each of the three type styles so don't get upset if your printer doesn't print the compressed type style in double-strike emphasized. END EDIT When you have finished editing a character use the Fn10 key to return to the main menu. Before FONTEDIT will return to the main menu it will display the current state of the attribute. It will show whether the top or the bottom 8 pins of the print head are to be used. It will also show the beginning and ending columns of the character to be used in proportional printing. If FONTEDIT Page 9 Documentation these parts of the attribute are acceptable then enter NO to the question "Do you want to change these values?" otherwise enter YES. If you enter YES then you will be asked to enter values for each part of the attribute. You can choose between the TOP and BOTTOM 8 pins in the print head. Next you will be asked to enter the beginning and ending columns for defining a proportionally spaced character. For most characters that use column 1, the beginning should be entered as 0. The ending column should take into account that a space should be left between each character. As a general rule, the ending should be at least two columns greater than the last column used by the character. For example, if a character used columns 1 through 8 then the beginning and ending columns would be 0 and 10 respectively. The beginning and ending information will ONLY be used by the printer when it is in the proportional mode. It will not affect the characters otherwise. PRINT CURRENT FONT Whenever you want to see what characters are in your current font you can use Fn10 from the main menu. This will print all the characters currently residing in memory with the exception of a few characters whose numbers are used as control codes. Characters 7-15, 17-20, 24, 27, 127, 135 and 255 are considered by the printer to be control codes. Therefore, when the font is printed these characters will be blank. You can however create font characters with these numbers and upload them to your printer's RAM. These characters can subsequently be printed using special control codes not included in this program. The user is referred to the printer manual for further discussion on this subject. If you create a character in one of these controll character regions and want to see what it looks like on your printer then use the print character function when you are in the edit mode for that character. This uses the printer RAM for character 33 to store and print the character, therefore any character printed in the edit mode will be displayed on the printer. NOTE: Printing a font on the printer destroys any characters previously stored in the printer RAM. A reset code is sent to the printer before and after printing the font currently in memory. This means that a fonts will no longer reside in the printer memory after printing the font. To load a font into the printer for access by other applications see "Loading fonts into printer RAM" below. CLEAR FONT You may clear a font by using the Fn8 key. This is useful after you have created a font and want to rearrange the characters. You must first save the font and then use Fn8 to clear memory. You would then use Fn7 to read characters from your original font file into the appropriate character locations in memory. END FONTEDIT PROGRAM The function key Fn10 in the main menu will allow you to exit the FONTEDIT program. You will be asked if you have saved the current font in memory. If you have already saved it or do not wish to save it then enter YES, otherwise NO will return you to the main menu of FONTEDIT Page 10 Documentation FONTEDIT. LOADING FONTS INTO PRINTER RAM ------------------------------ Once a font has been created you will want to load it into the RAM of your printer. Two utility programs are provided with FONTEDIT to load fonts into printer memory. These programs are EPSONLDR and PROLDR and are for the Epson JX, FX-series and IBM Proprinter respectively. The IBM Proprinter uses slightly different commands to load fonts into memory. The proprinter also does not support proportional spacing, therefore the attribute integer is modified to the proper format during transfer to the printer. Each program displays the font files found in the active directory and requests you to enter a file name. File names may be selected from the list shown and entered as part of a path:filename. USES OF FONTEDIT ---------------- There are three fonts included with FONTEDIT. These fonts are: GrkLn.fnt, IBM.fnt and Sideways.fnt. GrkLn.fnt is a collection of Greek and line characters that I use with my word processor. IBM.fnt is the IBM character font. Sideways.fnt is a font for printing sideways on a dot matrix printer without using graphics mode. There are other possibilities for using FONTEDIT, for instance you might want to create large characters or a particular logo without switching into graphics mode. The parts can be easily designed by FONTEDIT and assigned to the characters of you choice. There is also the option of creating your own graphics characters that will be printed at character instead of graphics speed. I created some special thick line characters to draw a figure in the middle of some text on my word processor. It worked out nicely! I have used the line characters to interface my printer with the maze creating program MAZE1LVL.PAS. I wrote a batch file that loaded the line characters into the printer and set it to use the RAM area for printing. I then called MAZE1LVL which I had modified to pause and ask if a printout was wanted. My children loved it. Now they can not only create mazes but they can print them out and challenge their friends. BE CREATIVE AND ENJOY FONTEDIT !!! Claire A. Rinehart 1986