Font Designer 2.0 ----------------- Copyright (c) 1990,1991 PCG. Tel: 0229-836957 By Barry Parkinson Distributed in North America and Australia by MEGATYPE (219)288-7468 All of the DEMO fonts on this disk were created in Font Designer. The demo consists of the standard version of Font Designer. The various Adobe Type 1 format fonts on the disk were created using the PLUS version of Font Designer. The files required to create the Type 1 fonts are only available in the PLUS version. The PLUS version also contains a program, TYPE 1 CONVERTER, which converts MAC & PC Type 1 fonts to .ECF format, for editing of conversion to PageStream or Calamus. (Type 1 Converter is also available seperately from MegaType) The Calamus and PageStream fonts on the disk were converted from the .ECF format using FONTVERTER, from MegaType. This progarm converts fonts in the following directions: Calamus to PageStream Calamus to Font Designer PageStream to Calamus PageStream to Font Designer Font Designer to PageStream Font Designer to Calamus The Screen Fonts for PageStream were created using a Beta test version of BITMAKER, also from MegaType. This program creates Screen fonts for PageStream, automatically from the .DMF fonts, in a variety of point sizes. It also allows you to create Adobe .AFB screen fonts to use with Type 1 Fonts in PageSTream 2.0. GDOS 1.1 bitmap fonts for screen AND printer will also be added if the demand is great enough. As of version 2.0, Font Designer is no longer Copy Protected. The Commercial licensing has also been dropped. ------------- This demonstration version of Font Designer is fully functional except it won't save fonts. The save screen option on KERN_PD.PRG will work a limited number of times, so it could be some use! The following files should be supplied here: DESIGNPD.PRG KERN_PD.PRG SETRS232.PRG DESIGNER.TXT - this file! PRINT.PS DESIGNER.RSC KERN_ECF.RSC READ_ME CALAMUS - Demo fonts for Calamus FONTS - Demo fonts for Font Designer PAGESTRM - Demo fonts for PageStream 1.8x & 2.1 PGS_TYP1 - Demo Type 1 fonts for PGS 1.8x only. IMG - .IMG picture samples TYPE_1 - Demo Fonts for PageStream 2.1,Corel Draw, and Windows 3.0 with Type Manager on the PC This demo is not "public domain software", however, you have our permission to copy this software and distribute it freely provided that all the files included here are supplied together and that these files are not altered in any way. Distributing this software without meeting this requirement will constitute a breach of copyright. *********************** Installation *********************** A number of additional files are supplied with Font Designer and should be stored in the same directory: DESIGNER.RSC PRINT.PS (required for printing.) **** Printer Installation If you are using RS232 connection to your printer you should first set up the port by running RS232.PRG. Most PostScript printers use 9600 baud and XON/XOFF protocol. *********************** Fonts *********************** **** ECF Font Designer creates fonts in its own unique format ECF (editable computer font). The ECF font can then be converted into other types of font PostScript Type 3 fonts can be output direct from the program. ECF fonts use a coordinate system of 2000x2000. This means that when you are designing the font you are effectively working with a character 2000pts high. **** PostScript Type 3 Fonts These are programs in the PostScript language. Because the full flexibility of the language is available, its possible to create custom stroked and special effect fonts in this format. These fonts can be used with UltraScript and other PostScript devices and with programs which support downloadable PostScript fonts such as PageStream and FSP3. **** PostScript Type 1 Fonts These contain hints to improve reproduction at small sizes, and are in a special, compressed and encrypted format. They print faster than Type 3 and consume less memory, but have the disadvantage that they can only be used on directly on true Adobe PostScript printers. They will not print on the current version on UltraScript. They do work on PageStream 2.1, Windows 3.0 with Type Manager, and can be used with Corel Draw by converting them with WFNBOSS. There is a special format of Type 1 fonts, ASCII format, that CAN be downloaded to a true Adobe Postscript printer using PageStream 1.8x, the same way that Type 3 fonts are downloaded now. The PLUS version of Font Designer contains a program to create this special format of Type 1 fonts, encoded directly for use with PageStream. Samples of this are on the demo disk in the PGS_TYP1 folder within the PAGESTRM folder. **** PageStream DMF Fonts These can be used by PageStream to output to non-PostScript devices such as dot-matrix printers and the Atari laser-printer. Basically they will work with any printer supported by PageStream. FONTVERTER will convert ECF fonts into this format. The KERN_ECF program supplied with Font Designer will create the FM and PSF files also required by PageStream. **** Calamus CFN Fonts These work similarly to the PageStream fonts, except that the single font file is used to create screen AND printer output. FONTVERTER will also convert .ECF fonts to this format. The following is partial contents of the Designer Manual. Many points are covered below, abut many are left for you to figure out as you work with the demo. *********************** The Path ************************* A character in a font is a construct known as a path. A path is a shape constructed from three simple objects: moveto - the starting point for the path. lineto - a straight line from the current point to the new position. curveto - a bezier curve from the current point to the new position. **** Closed & Open Paths If a path is closed, at the end of the path a straight line will be attached which goes back to the start of the path. It is recommended that all paths intended to be filled be closed in this way. **** Path Direction The path MUST ALWAYS travel in an anti-clockwise direction. Any subpaths inside the main path should travel in the reverse direction. See the sample fonts supplied on the disk. **** Painting the path: Stroke & Fill Once you have the path, there are two things you can do to it: Fill - fill all the enclosed parts of the path. Stroke - draw along the path with a pen of a specified thickness. **** Stroke Width This sets the width of the `pen' used to stroke the path. Font Designer allows this to be set in the Font Information dialog. Assume you have a font which at 72pt size you want stroked with a line 12pts thick. The equation is: strokewidth=thickness x 2000/size so our stroke width would be 12x2000/72 -- about 333. **** Miter Limit If you use miter joins, stroked lines which meet at a sharp angle may produce a very long miter. To eliminate this, below a certain angle you can force joins to be bevelled. A typical value is 15 degrees. *********************** Segments *********************** A segment is a pre-defined object consisting of lineto and curveto objects. You can use segments to create regular features throughout the font such as the bottom serif on F, H, I, K, M etc. and the punctuation marks. **** Creating a Segment You can create a segment in exactly the same way as you would a character, only using Store Segment to store it. A segment may contain only one moveto followed by lineto and curveto objects. **** Example An example of the use of segments is the TYPERITE.ECF font supplied with Font Designer. The serifs on all the upper-case characters are segments. Segments are the most powerful weapon you've got for designing fonts with regular features. Used properly, segments will improve the accuracy of your designs and reduce the amount of memory consumed by the font. *********************** Composites *********************** Many of the characters in a font are built from two other characters. With Font Designer you can add a composite character to the character in the edit window. Once in the window, you can: (1) Move the composite by clicking on the position box and dragging it. (2) Scale it by dragging the box handles (3) Delete it by selecting it and pressing DELETE. *********************** Stems *********************** Most characters in a font have distinctive stems; the E has a vertical stem and three horizontal stems, the H has two vertical stems and a horizontal stem. Font Designer allows you to place stem guides in the editing window. **** Stem Widths Many of the characters in a font will have stems of equal width. Font Designer allows you to preset common stem widths for the font. Ideally you should work out the stem widths you will be using before sitting down to design the font! **** Types of Stem You can define horizontal, vertical, rotated and skewed stems. **** Creating a Stem Stems are created in Edit Mode by holding down certain keys while click & dragging in the window: ALT creates a vertical stem CONTROL creates a horizontal stem SHIFT creates a skewed stem ALT + CONTROL creates a rotated stem **** Altering a Stem You can move the whole stem as a unit by click & dragging on the line between the two control points. If you double-click on the line, a dialog will appear allowing you to change the stem type: *********************** The Desktop *********************** The icons on the desktop are (from the top): MODE selector Position indicators OBJECT selector LINK curves indicator CLOSE path indicator **** MODES top left DRAW mode top right EDIT mode bottom left CUT mode bottom right VIEW mode **** Edit Mode In this mode you can: (1) alter the design in the editing window by dragging the control points on the path (2) set the character width by click & dragging on the vertical line shown in the editing window (3) create and manipulate stems (4) convert objects into other objects by clicking on the object selector (5) insert movetos and segments or add composite characters by clicking on the object selector (6) drag a box around a number of objects (or even the whole character) then move or distort this box **** Draw Mode In this mode you can add objects to the current path. Click on the object selector to set the type of object you want to add. **** View Mode In this mode the screen is cleared of dimension lines, stems etc. so you can preview the finished appearance of the character. Clicking in the window will `flood fill' from that point, allowing you to see how the chracter would look when filled or printed reversed. **** Cut Mode In this mode clicking on a point on LINETO object or a CURVE object will cause it to be cut at the point clicked on. This permits objects to be added into an existing path and drastic alterations made. **** The Object Selector These icons function in Draw and Edit modes, allowing you to add objects to the path or convert existing objects. The icons represent (from the top): moveto lineto curveto vertical line segment horizontal line composite angled line(not working on v2.0) vertical to horizontal arc horizontal to vertical arc vertical to vertical arc horizontal to horizontal arc vertical to angle arc horizontal to angle arc angle to horizontal arc angle to vertical arc In Draw mode: (1) composite does nothing (2) the other icons select the type of object to be drawn In Edit mode: (1) moveto will insert a moveto after the current object, thus breaking the path (2) segment will insert a segment after the current object (3) composite will add a composite character (4) the other icons allow curveto and lineto objects to be converted **** Link This icon displays and sets the link status of a curve. It is possible to link a curve to the next and last objects, thus ensuring a smooth transition from one object to another. **** Position Indicators These show the position of a point being moved, and the angle from this point to the preceding point on the path. **** Close This icon displays and sets whether the current path is closed or open. *********************** The File Menu *********************** **** Load IMG or DEGAS Allows you to load a picture file as a background to manually trace. **** Status Displays the Status dialog: Font units: Controls the level of accuracy to which control points are set. Initially this is set to 1000, making points snap to the nearest even pixel. Since PageStream and Postscript expect 1000 points, this guarentees that there will be no roundinf errors when fonts are converted to these formats. Stem snap: Controls how `sticky' stems are. You will notice that when editing shapes that the control point being moved tends to snap to the nearest stem. This setting lets you determine how many pixels away from a stem this snap takes effect. Set it to 0 to switch this feature off. ******************* The Font Menu *********************** **** Info Information about the font. The meaning of some of these entries is explained in the section on The Path. (1) Full Name: the full name of this font, eg. Times Bold Italic (2) Family: name of family to which the font belongs, eg. Times (3) PS Name: the name by which PostScript recognizes the font. This must start with a "/" character and must not contain any spaces, eg. /TimesBold-Italic (4) Notice: the designer's copyright notice. (5) Unique ID No.: A unique number between 0 and 16777216 (6) Italic angle: information entry. The setting in degrees clockwise from vertical for the angle of the italic. If this is not an italic font, this should be 0. (7) Encoding: information entry. Custom means that this is a `symbol' or non-ASCII type font with unique characters. Custom should be used ONLY ON SPECIAL SYMBOL or DINGBAT fonts (8) Weight: information entry. (9) Paint: The way this font should be painted. See the section on The Path for more information on this and the other entries from here on. (10) Stroke width: the stroke width to be used for a stroked font. (11) Mitre limit: the angle where mitred joins will be converted to bevels. (12) Caps: sets the type of line caps for a stroked font. (13) Joins: sets the type of line joins for a stroked font. **** Dimensions Set critical dimension for the font. Font Designer uses a coordinate system based on a 2000pt character. The typical capital height for a font using this system will be between 1400-1500 points, with all the other dimensions in proportion to this. **** Stem Widths This presets the dominant stem widths for the font. **** Alter Font This dialog alters the character shapes for the entire font. It is probably best to perform one operation at a time when using this. **** Print Font This allows the user to print characters from the font to a PostScript printer or to a disk file as an Encapsulated PostScript graphic (extension EPS). An EPS file generated by this method can be printed via UltraScript or imported into PageStream, Proxima or Fleet Street Publisher as a page element. Skew: Allows you to print the font with an artificial skew measured in degrees clockwise from vertical -- useful for seeing how the font would look when italicised. Gray Level: Sets the gray level for printing from 0% (black) to 100% (white). Effects: There are six different effects available; outline, stroke and inline use the Font Information settings to determine how the character shapes will be stroked. The outline effect prints a filled character in the current gray level then strokes it in black -- set a light gray level to see the effect of this. Test String: Normal characters (from ! to ~) may be entered from the keyboard. Characters above this range should be entered as a "\" followed by the hex character code: | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F ---|------------------------------------------------ 0 | ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 1 | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? 2 | @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O 3 | P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _ So to print the "?" you could type in "\1F", the "V" is "\36" etc. This table continues down to the hex digit "E" on the left hand side, so to print the bottom left character shown in the character selector you would type in "\EF". To print the "\" itself, type in "\3C". PRINT.PS: Font Designer must be able to access the file PRINT.PS when printing, so if you are printing to an EPS file and using a single drive system either put a copy of PRINT.PS on your destination disk or select drive B as the destination disk when the file selector appears you will then be prompted to swap disks as required. *********************** The Character Menu *********************** **** Get Get a character from the font into the editing window. **** Store Store the character in the editing window in the font. **** Exchange Exchange the character in the editing window with one from the font. **** Undo Last Store Whenever you store a character, the old character in the font is replaced. If you accidentally store a character in the wrong position, this function will retrieve it and restore the accidentally stored character to the editing window. **** Get Segment Select a segment to edit. **** Store Segment Store the contents of the editing window as a segment. **** Clear Character Clear the character in the editing window. **** Alter Character The same options are available as with Alter Font. Note that when you scale or skew an individual character, any segments within that character are unaffected. This may produce undesirable results! You can avoid this by first using the Remove All Segments option described below. **** Clear Stems Clear all the stems in the editing window **** Alter Stems Alter the position and type of selected stems for the character. See the Stems section for more details. **** Load and Save Character Allows you to load or save a single character in the .FDC format. The character in the editing window is saved, and a character loaded is put into the editing window, and can be stored in a character position from there *********************** The Path Menu *********************** **** Reverse Path Reverses the direction of the current path. You can use this in Draw Mode to add objects to either end of the path. If the path contains a segment, the path cannot be reversed. **** Delete Path Deletes the current sub-path. **** Remove a Cpmposite Replaces the selected composite in a character with the constituent parts that make up the composite, so they can be edited. This is very useful to create characters such as AE or oe, since once the two composites are removed, you can select remove overlaps, and a correctly formed character will result **** Remove A Segment If the current object is a segment, it will be replaced by its constituent parts so they can be individually altered. **** Remove All Segments Does the same as above, but for all the segment objects in the character. *********************** The Section Menu *********************** A section of a sub-path can be marked and various operations performed upon it. The section is shown using a dotted line. You can mark the section by using the menu options or by holding down the ALT or SHIFT key and clicking on an object. **** Copy to Buffer Copies the section to a buffer from which it can be retrieved later. This is particularly useful when creating segments. **** Copy from Buffer Copies a section from the buffer to the current position in the path. **** Horizontal Flip Flip the section horizontally. **** Vertical Flip Flip the section vertically **** Reverse Reverses the direction of each individual object in the section and also reverses the order of the objects. When used in combination with the Flip options, this can be used to make a top left serif from a bottom right serif. If the section contains a segment, the section cannot be reversed. *********************** The Keyboard *********************** **** X Switches on and off the cross-lines shown in the edit window when dragging an object, drawing etc. **** N Makes the NEXT object in the path the current object. In Draw mode this will select the next sub-path. **** M Makes the LAST object in the path the current object. **** Undo. Undo the last alteration made to the character. **** Delete Deletes the current object. If a section is marked this will be deleted. **** BackSpace Deletes the currently selected composite. **** Zoom Normally, when you change the zoom level, the window jumps back to where it was last time at that particular level. This is slightly unusual behaviour but very useful for jumping around the character. If you hold down the ALTERNATE key while selecting a zoom, the window will behave normally (zooming in or out from the current position). *********************** The Mouse *********************** **** Stems See the Stems section for details. **** Dragging Objects You can select an object that is underneath another object by holding down the CONTROL key while clicking. ******************* KERN_ECF.PRG *********************** This program loads an ECF font and allows you to set the kerning between pairs of characters (using the video-recorder type controls on the menu bar). **** Installation KERN_PD requires the file KERN_ECF.RSCto be present in the same directory when the program is run. To kern characters, simply type the characters you wish to kern. Place the mouse cursor between them and use the controls at the top of the screen. Backspace over characters to remove them from the screen to make room for others. **** Save Screen This option allows you to save the screen in Degas hi-res PI3 format. **** Base Character Brings up a character selector showing all the characters with kerning pairs. **** Kern Character Brings up a character selector showing all the kern characters for the current base character (the character to the left of the cursor). **** View Options Allows you to alter the size of the displayed characters (up to a maximum of 300pt) and the units in which the kerning distance is displayed. -------------------- Copyright (c) 1990,1991 PCG Software Distributed by MEGATYPE Software