HPL2VEN A Font Conversion Utility If you use Ventura Publisher you probably love everything about it. But, almost everyone I know wishes that they could add a few fonts to the list. If your in that group you'll be happy to know that most (but not all) fonts that are available for the HP Laserjet can be converted for use with Ventura. All the tools needed for the conversion are found on the utilities disk. The only problem is that the process of conversion is tedious and not very well documented. I played around with the conversion programs until I got reasonably adept at getting what I wanted. But converting more then a couple of fonts at a time was just not something to look forward to. Their had to be a better way. HPL2VEN is, at least for me, less frustrating and a lot faster. A few words of caution before you begin. I wrote this little program for myself and can not guarantee that you will get acceptable results. I will accept no responsibility for any problems that you encounter. All I can say is that it works very well for me and I use it all the time. Because I wrote the program initially only for myself I decided to include very little error checking. If I were to get some favorable response I might be persuaded to polish things up a bit. but for now you will have to be very careful that what you type in at the prompts is what you meant. You will just have to break out of the program, delete the files that the program created and start over. If you make a mistake but don't notice it the bat files that are created will run but may produce files that don't do what you had hoped for. The program makes use of color to keep the different prompts separated so that you can keep track of where you are in the program. If you don't have color this program may not work. The program works by taking your input and creating a .BAT file and a .LST file that utilize the programs from the utilities disk to convert the HP font files, create the font metric files for use in creating the width table and finally to create the width table. Step by step: 1. Create a directory to work from. 2. Copy three files from the Ventura utilities disk. a) HPLTOFNT.EXE b) HPLTOVFM.EXE c) VFMTOWID.EXE 3. Copy the fonts that you wish to convert to the new directory. 4. Copy HPL2VEN.COM to the new directory. 5. Type HPL2VEN and follow the prompts. 6. Run the batch file that HPL2VEN created. Depending on how many and how large the files are that you are converting, the batch file may take quite a while to complete. If all goes well you should end up with one new width file and new font and font metric files for each of the fonts that you converted. You then copy the width table and the font files to the VENTURA directory. The font metric files (VFM) are not needed but you may wish to keep them with your back-ups. The next step is to test the font by outputing something to see if the new fonts work. Be sure to change the width table in the SET PRINTER INFO dialogue box. If everything looks right on the screen and prints out right, then you can merge the new width table with the default table. Sometimes, and I don't know why, a new font will look very strange on the screen but print out fine. If this happens make a back-up of your default OUTPUT.WID table and try merging the new one anyway. Sometimes this solves the screen problem. When the program asks for font type you may have to go to the Ventura manual (k. 15) to look up the code. This seems to have something to do with which screen face is used. Expect to do some experimentation before you get things right. Try converting just one font first. When you are sure that one works the rest will probably go much easier. My personal set up includes the Tall Tree Jlaser Plus board and a Canon LBP-2A laser printer. I don't have access to other printers so I can only assume that this procedure will work with other printers. Remember, always work with back-ups. Keep all your conversion files in a directory to themselves and proceed with caution. Since this is the very first version of this program, I am not going to beg for the usual donations but I would appreciate any comments. If I can be of assistance please call at the number below. Vince Campbell P.O.Box 8313 Atlanta, Georgia 30306 (404) 872-0334