Important note: this manual is provided since the release of VisualFont 2.5, so earlier versions may not match the given information.
This manual will be cut in four main pieces: after an overview of the software and its features, you will be initiated on how to manage input, in order to learn how to instruct VisualFont which fonts you would like to handle, then how to browse among them, and finally, how to manage output, i.e. the several ways of using the fonts that matched your needs.
For your convenience, these four chapters can be accessed directly via the “Table Of Contents” menu which is available with SimpleText 1.4 or greater.
This manual is available in several other formats, accessible on VisualFont's help web site (select Help menu item "Online Help" within VisualFont application).
General Overview
As first approach, an exhaustive description of the user interface will be useful to provide a reference for further chapters. This chapter only presents window and menu elements as graphical entities, the same way as help balloons would do it. Please refer to next chapters for instructions on how to use the software.
Menus
• The Apple Menu
About VisualFont…
Displays information about the application like the author's email address, and the registration information that you provided if you're a registered user.
Register VisualFont…
Launches the “Register VisualFont” application if available in the same folder as VisualFont's.
Register VisualFont Online…
Launches the “Register VisualFont Online” application if available in the same folder as VisualFont's.
Enter Registration Code…
If you paid for VisualFont, this is where you enter the registration information, that is your name and the registration code provided on the message received after payment.
• The File Menu
Open…
This item allows you to specify a file system object as input (folder, file, alias file, etc.). When running Mac OS 8.5 or higher, Navigation Services are used, so you can choose folders, whereas Standard File Dialog only lets you choose files.
Download fonts
Duplicates all selected fonts in a folder. If no folder has been specified before, lets you enter a new folder name, and with Navigation Services also choose an existing folder.
Download fonts as…
Duplicates all selected fonts in a new folder.
Save list
Writes the name of each selected font in a file. If no file has been specified before, lets you enter a new file name.
Save list as…
Writes the name of each selected font in a new file.
Page Setup…
Displays settings for current printer.
Print selected fonts…
Opens a dialog that lets you choose VisualFont's printing options before printing selected fonts.
Close
Closes the main window and quits application after checking saves.
Quit
Closes the main window and quits application after checking saves.
• The Edit Menu
Undo
In future versions of VisualFont, this item will allow the user to cancel last edit within the preferences dialog.
Cut
When a dialog is displayed (preferences, registration, file request, etc.) cuts the selected text.
Copy
When a dialog is displayed (preferences, registration, file request, etc.) copies the selected text.
Paste
When a dialog is displayed (preferences, registration, file request, etc.) pastes the selected text.
Clear
This is a submenu:
Clear Selection
Deselects all fonts.
Clear Cache Files
Asks confirmation for each cache file to be deleted from folder "VisualFont Cache Folder" of folder "Preferences" of folder "System Folder".
Select All Fonts
Marks all fonts as saved.
View selected fonts
Displays the list of selected fonts using SimpleText.
Preferences…
The Preferences dialog allows you to configure the way VisualFont will behave.
• The Navigation Menu
Previous
Decrements the index, thus displaying previous font if you are browsing a valid folder.
Next
Increments the index, thus displaying next font if you are browsing a valid folder.
Open folder in Finder
Double-clicks in the Finder the folder provided as input.
Open subfolder in Finder
Double-clicks current font's containing folder (parent directory).
Open font in Finder
Double-clicks current font.
• The Recent Menu
The Recent menu is filled at launch time with each file contained in "VisualFont Cache Folder" of folder "Preferences" of folder "System Folder". However, the names of the files contained in the cache folder are not the names that appear in this menu. The Alias Manager is used to get the target name associated with a given cache file.
The first ten items can be accessed directly with the keyboard by typing [0-9].
• The Help Menu
VisualFont adds two items in the Help Menu:
- VisualFont Manual
Double-clicks in the Finder the file “VisualFont Manual” if available in the same folder as VisualFont's.
- Online Help
Launches your favorite browser on VisualFont help web site.
WINDOWS
• The main window
1- This tool lets you duplicate the current font's containing file by dragging it from area 7 onto the Finder
2- This tool moves the font's viewing rectangle (area 7)
3- This tool increases the point size by a factor specified in the Rendering Options. If the option key is pressed, a minus sign appears inside the magnifier and clicking decreases the point size.
4- Number of hits that the Search Engine has produced
5- This slider can be dragged to change the index. It features live feedback so that font name, file info and path update continuously.
6- Current index. Typing a number will change the index when this area has keyboard focus (on the screenshot it actually has the focus).
7- Area where the font is displayed. You can drop file system objects on it, and with tool 1 you can drag this area onto the Finder.
8- Font name.
9- Click this button or type if you wish to decrement the index (view previous font).
10- Click this button or type Enter or Return if you wish to mark current font as selected. The button's title changes to “Remove”. If you click again, current font will be removed from selection.
11- Click this button or type if you wish to increment the index (view next font).
12- Click this disclosure triangle to hide bottom parts of the window
13- Clicking this icon simulates a double-click in the Finder of the download folder, if any.
14- Clicking this icon simulated a double-click in the Finder of the font list, if any.
15- The name of the folder where fonts are downloaded. You can drag a folder or folder alias on it.
16- The name of the file in which fonts will be listed. You can drag a text file or text file alias on it.
17- Click to embolden
18- Click to italicize
19- Click to outline
20- The point size at which fonts are displayed. You can type a number to change it if this area has keyboard focus (actually on the screenshot, it has not). Disabled if font is bitmapped and bitmapped fonts are resized (see Rendering Options).
21- Little arrows to increment or decrement the point size, if available.
22- Click this disclosure triangle to hide the very bottom part of the window
23- Clicking this icon simulates a double-click in the Finder of current font's containing folder (parent directory).
24- Clicking this icon simulates a double-click in the Finder of current font's containing file.
25- Path of current font's containing folder, relative to the folder provided as input if font were not moved beneath else absolute.
26- Current font's containing file information. File name, resource used out of number of font resources, font type (see “Get information on the font” for details).
27- Search Engine flags of folder provided as input (see “The Search Engine” for details).
• The Preferences Dialog: General Settings
The left part of the dialog is an editable text field where you can type, cut, copy or paste any text (limited to 255 characters however).
The group of three checkboxes lets you configure the behavior of VisualFont when it changes input folder or quits. If you would like VisualFont to ask you if selected fonts should be saved in a list or downloaded, check the appropriate checkboxes. Because VisualFont uses cache files, the selection marks are saved to disk. Therefore, the fonts that you have selected will remain selected even when you launch VisualFont again. In order to clear selection on folder close, check the third checkbox.
The next checkbox concerns the behavior of VisualFont when a file system object is dropped on it. If checked, VisualFont will come to front before handling drop. This saves a click or sometimes more.
If you press Cancel, all settings that were changed (in any of the three panes) will be discarded, whereas clicking the OK button (or typing O) updates the preferences file.
• The Preferences Dialog: Rendering Options
The first two checkboxes specify which kind of resources VisualFont should use. It is useful if you don't want to display a certain type of fonts. If the option “Remove fonts that produce an error” is set in the “Font Search” pane, the fonts that you have filtered will be removed from cache.
Next checkbox is self-explained.
As you know, bitmapped fonts are available at only few point sizes. If you don't want aliasing (those ugly pixels) to appear, check last checkbox.
When VisualFont launches and when preferences dialog is closed, current point size is set to the default point size.
The zoom factor specifies the increasing or decreasing factor by which the point size will be changed when using the magnifier tool. The exact equation is: newsize=size ± size*factor/100.
• The Preferences Dialog: Search Options
The left-hand checkboxes let you filter file types when searching fonts.
Uncheck the “Search All Resources” if you need a quick search. Refer to section “The Search Engine” for details (this search mode has drawbacks).
Refer to section “The Search Engine” for a description of other settings.
• The Search Engine's dialog
The title indicates the action currently performed.
Then, the folder currently searched.
The search's number of hits is displayed at bottom.
Click button or press Escape or . to stop search (can be resumed later).
See “The Search Engine” for details.
Managing Input
Most font utilities only handle fonts that are installed in the “Fonts” folder of the system folder, where all fonts are already activated, i.e. available for all applications, and where only 128 fonts can be stored. VisualFont never uses activated fonts, its aim is to access fonts that are not in your system, like libraries of fonts which may reside on a CD-ROM for example. This way of handling fonts is very useful if you make an intensive use of them. After browsing among the numerous fonts, after having printed a sample of all of them, then you may decide which fonts match your needs, and then activate them for use in your favorite word processor or graphics application.
Chronologically, you may first want to tell VisualFont which fonts you would like to handle. VisualFont always works with folders, so you may input folders. However, if you provide a file, the Search Engine will consider its parent directory as input, so only folders will be discussed.
There are two ways of providing input. Either you drag a folder from the Finder and you drop it onto VisualFont, or you select menu item “Open” from the “File” menu. Note that volumes (CD-ROM, hard disk) are handled like any folder.
• Providing input using Drag and Drop
Any file system object dragged from the Finder onto VisualFont will be handled. If the object is an alias file, VisualFont will resolve it to find the original. There are several areas in the main window on which you can drag file system objects (areas 7, 15, 16 on the screenshot of main window), but the area on which you provide input is area 7, the large upper part of the window where fonts are displayed. When dragging, entering this area draws a blue frame around it, indicating that you can drop the object.
• Providing input using the File menu
You can also provide input by selecting the "Open" item, the first item of the "File" menu. This is an alternative to drag and drop which you are free to prefer. If you are using Mac OS 8.5 or higher, Navigation Services are used to select files or folders. Else, you get the standard file dialog, which allows you to select only files, so instead of selecting a folder, just select the first file inside that folder, and you will get the same result.
Just after providing input to VisualFont, the Search Engine will enter into action.
• The Search Engine
From the user's point of view, it consists of a dialog that displays the progress of the search, the folder currently searched, and the number of matches. The match criteria define how the Search Engine will behave, and is configured in the Preferences dialog (see Preferences dialog: Font Search Options in chapter General Overview). The search process scans the specified folder sequentially and analyzes each file system object within this folder to match criteria. For example, if a given object is a folder, a recursive search can be achieved in order to find all fonts contained in the initial folder provided as input and all its subfolders. If you provide a whole disk as input (which is also a folder) and the search engine preferences are set to search recursively, the whole disk will be searched, every single file contained on this disk will be analyzed and confronted to match criteria. However, the average user will not do this, because searching a whole disk is a lengthy operation. But here is the interesting point.
At any time during the search process, clicking the stop button will (of course) stop the search. But the next time you will provide the same folder as input, the search will exactly begin where you left it. This has been made possible by caching the search results to disk, by storing them as individual files in the "VisualFont Cache Folder" which is automatically created the first time you launch VisualFont. This folder as well as VisualFont preferences are placed in the "Preferences" folder of the system folder. It is not recommended to erase manually the cache folder, except if you don't use VisualFont anymore. A dedicated menu item is provided for this purpose (see "Edit" menu in chapter General Overview).
Let's examine precisely the several search options provided (see Preferences dialog: Font Search Options in chapter General Overview).
• File Type Filter
You can tell VisualFont not to use certain file types. The first file type (see icon 1 on the screenshot of the Search Options) is a font suitcase that may contain both TrueType (outlined) and bitmapped fonts, whereas the second file type (icon 2) contains only TrueType fonts, and the last one (icon 3) only bitmapped fonts, in theory.
• Search All Resources
As you know, on the Mac OS platform fonts are stored in the resource fork of a file as independent resources. A given file may contain several fonts, TrueType, bitmapped or both. If the option of searching all resources is not set, VisualFont will only look at the file type, which indicates whether the file is a font suit (icon 1), a TrueType font (icon 2) or a bitmapped font (icon 3). However, the file type does not reflect the number of font resources contained inside that file, and therefore VisualFont supposes there is only one font inside that file. The only reason why you would use this option is search speed. If the option is set, VisualFont must open each file's resource fork and examine the content of the file, which is rather slow compared to the first method, but has the advantage of finding all fonts, and detect corrupt or empty files. Moreover, this approach is much more reliable, if you need a clean font library, sorted and with no duplicates.
• Sort Fonts
Even if the search has been suspended, fonts can be sorted, by font name or by file name. If the first option (Search All Resources) is not set, you will be unable to use sorting by font name, because in this case files are not opened and thus VisualFont simply cannot know the name of the fonts contained in it. You will still be able to use sorting by file name in either case, even if this kind of sorting is much slower than sorting by font name. Why? Because the file name is not handled the same way as the font name. File information is stored as an independent resource as an alias, which has the great advantage to remain valid even if the disk is unmounted or the file is renamed.
• Recursive Search
The specified folder and also all its subfolders are searched. Even the subfolders of its subfolders are searched, and so on.
• Remove Duplicates
This option is only valid when sorting has been requested. If sorting has been made by font name, fonts with the same name are removed, else if sorting has been made by file name only one copy of several files with identical names is kept.
• Remove fonts that produce an error
This option needs a little explanation. After searching fonts, you will browse among them to view some of them or print the ones you selected. In some cases however (not so often), the font cannot be rendered either because the file it belongs to is empty or corrupt. In such a case, VisualFont marks the font as producing an error, and the next time you provide its containing folder, it will be automatically removed. You should use this option with moderation, because sometimes the error is only due to memory insufficiency, which can be easily fixed by increasing the application's memory allocation.
However, there is a very useful case when you can use this option: if you don't want VisualFont to handle certain type of fonts (TrueType or bitmapped), you may have unchecked the appropriate checkbox in the Rendering Options pane of the preferences. Then, when encountering a font that doesn't match your request, an error is produced. Next time, it will be automatically removed from cache file.
Now that you have given some food to VisualFont, it is able to bring you what you're awaiting.
Browsing Fonts
Once the Search Engine has produced results and stored them in an individual cache file, fonts are accessible individually. At a given index corresponds one font, the minimum index is 1 and the maximum is the number of fonts found. Browsing fonts is then equivalent to modifying this index which is displayed in the right upper corner of the main window (area 6). There are several ways to change the index, either by typing digits when the index has keyboard focus (framed blue), or by dragging the slider. It is also possible to increment or decrement the index with the corresponding buttons: typing increments the index and brings you to the next font, whereas decrements the index, thus bringing you to the previous font. Clicking these buttons instead of using the keyboard leads to the same result.
If you use the technique of directly typing a number to set the index, you may notice that the typed digits are not immediately displayed on screen. In fact, the digits are memorized until a certain amount of time is reached, thus allowing the user to differentiate numbers which have same leading digits, e.g. 12 and 123, and directly view the desired font.
Once able to browse all your fonts, you would like to accomplish more advanced tasks.
• Change the text displayed
The sample text used for rendering can be changed in the preferences (see “General Settings”).
• Change the point size or style
In order to change the style used for displaying fonts, simply click on the corresponding style buttons (see Main Window in chapter General Overview). The first button emboldens, the second one italicizes, and the last outlines.
In order to change the point size at which fonts are displayed, two main possibilities are offered. You can use the zoom tool (see Main Window in chapter General Overview) which either increases the point size by a factor specified in the preferences (see General Settings in chapter General Overview) or decreases it if the option key is down. The second option is to set it using the keyboard. The point size is displayed in area 20, under the viewing rectangle's right hand corner. If this area has the keyboard focus (hilited blue) you can type digits the same way as you typed the index. If it has not, just type the tab key or click in the area and it will immediately get the focus. Rightmost, little arrows (item 21) let you easily increment or decrement the point size.
After launching VisualFont, the point size defaults to the value set in the preferences (see Rendering Options in chapter General Overview).
• Handle selection
In order to produce output (see next chapter), you first need to tell VisualFont which fonts will be processed, because only selected fonts are processed, e.g. when printed. The selection is an intern structure maintaining a list of all fonts that have been marked as selected. In order to mark a font as selected, click the "Save" button, which then renames to "Remove" or type Return or Enter. In order to select all fonts, select Edit menu item "Select All" or type A. In order to remove all selected fonts from the selection (deselect all), click on the Edit menu, then click submenu "Clear" and select item "Selection".
When a font is marked selected, it remains selected until you explicitly ask to deselect it, even among sessions, just because this mark is immediately written to disk. That allows you to begin choosing your fonts and continue later if you quit or close the folder in between.
However, an option is available in the General Settings (see chapter General Overview) which, if set, removes all fonts from selection just before quitting or closing folder.
• Get information on the font
As you know, fonts are possibly stored in multiple folders, as the search is optionally recursive. When viewing a font, you may want to know which folder it belongs to. Just take a glimpse at the very bottom part of the window, the third panel, which can be displayed or hidden using the disclosure triangle. The first line is what you want: the path of current font. This is not an absolute path, it is relative to the folder provided as input. However, if the file corresponding to the current font has been moved beneath the level of the folder provided as input, VisualFont, after finding it thanks to the Alias Manager, displays its absolute path.
The second line is the font's containing file with indication of which resource is used out of the total number of font resources and the type of the font (TrueType or bitmapped).
Managing Output
Once your favorite fonts are selected, you would like to print a sample text of each of them, or you would like to produce a list or a copy of them.
• Save selected fonts
Your fonts can be listed in a text file, displaying their name and their index after a header providing the folder name. The file can be specified by two ways: either drop a text file or text file alias on area 16 or select File menu item “Save” or “Save As…”.
Saving selected fonts is a quick way to keep a list of selected fonts.
However, if you only want to know which fonts you have selected, without actually saving a file, simply select Edit menu item “View selected fonts”.
• Download selected fonts
Selected fonts can have their containing files duplicated in another folder. VisualFont is not yet capable of differentiating the several fonts that can sometimes be included within a single file, but files that only contain one font (most common case) are duplicated perfectly. To specify the folder, either drop a folder or an alias to a folder on area 15 or select File menu item “Download Fonts” or “Download Fonts As…”.
• Print selected fonts
VisualFont provides a powerful printing engine that processes fonts following two possible modes. A single font can be printed at multiple point size (9,10,12,14,18,24,36,48,60,72 not configurable unless you write a message to me asking for it :-) thus occupying a whole page, never more, never less, this is the first possible mode. The second mode occupies less paper space, as each font is printed at a fixed point size so that multiple fonts fit on page.
As opposed to most of VisualFont's settings, printing settings are made directly on the printing job dialog, the dialog that appears just after requesting printing.
However, they are memorized like any other settings.
Let's describe a little closer the printing options.
First, where are the options located on the job dialog?
That depends on the printer you use.
When using a StyleWriter, VisualFont's printing options appear directly under the printer's general printing options, whereas the LaserWriter's dialog lets the user access VisualFont's printing options within a pop-up menu.
Once found, these options let you configure the way fonts will be printed.
Printing mode
Lets you choose the printing mode as discussed in last paragraph. Note that the second mode (multiple fonts per page at a fixed point size) offers the possibility to set the point size to the value you find appropriate.
Resolution
If I provide this popup menu for setting resolution, it is because fonts are not drawn using high level commands such as “print this text using that font”, but printed as a picture made of pixels. Why? Remember that VisualFont never uses activated fonts, so the fonts printed are not activated, and thus must be drawn explicitly.
The higher the resolution is set, the slower printing will be processed and the more memory will be consumed. A reasonable value is the lowest that does not cause aliasing according to your eyes.
Use Activated fonts
If set, you must be sure that all selected fonts are activated (i.e. either installed in the “Fonts” folder of the system folder or handled by a dedicated control panel like for example ATM Deluxe), and then printing will be very quick (VisualFont will instruct the printer to “draw this text using that font”).
