Contents
Printer's Apprentice Help

Printer's Apprentice is a professional tool for exploring your type catalog. 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...

Contents...

What does it do for me?

Installation

The Windows

Commands

Release Notes

About Lose Your Mind Software...


Introduction

With the introduction of Windows 3.1, PC users now have access to hundreds (maybe thousands!) of high quality typefaces. TrueType makes using a new font as easy as installing it with the Control Panel and selecting it from your favorite application.

However, keeping track of all these typefaces is not as much fun as using them. You have the fifty faces downloaded from the desktop publishing forum on Compuserve, a new, mega-gigantic font CD-ROM, the Microsoft series of type packages, the new Bitstream Star Trek and Flintstone faces, as well as some commercial offerings from the smaller type houses. What do you do?

Enter Printer's Apprentice. With this program and a good Saturday afternoon, you can have a printed specimen sheet for every font in your library. You can generate keyboard charts and ANSI charts for every dingbat font. If you are a commercial print house, use the inventory capability to generate lists of all your faces. If you need printed reference sheets for your library, this is the program for you.

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.


Installation

To install Printers Apprentice, just run the INSTALL.EXE program. Install will decompress the files, copy them to your hard drive, and create an icon in your Program Manager. The file VBRUN200.DLL is required to run this program. This file should be found in your Windows directory.

To start Printers Apprentice, just double click on the icon in the Program Manager. When Printer's Apprentice is run for the first time, it will show a window like the one above as it sorts through your fonts. The first time you run the program, Printers Apprentice will notify you that you need to select a system font. The system font is used on every specimen sheet to provide titles and other information about the font. The system font should be a simple, sans serif face. TrueType Arial will work the best.

To select your system font...

1. Select OPTIONS.SETUP or click the setup button.. The Printers Apprentice control panel utility will load.

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

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

4. Click the SAVE button.

The separate setup utility (PACONTRL.EXE) allows you to change options for program features, specimen pages, as well as the system font. Choosing OPTIONS.SETUP from the menus will start the program. On the left side of the screen is a list box. Simply click on a setup option on the left. The settings for the option will appear on the right. Make your changes and press the save button. A whole variety of options for the program can be set here including page headers, footers, inventory point size, and viewing defaults.


Windows

Printer's Apprentice is built around one main control panel. 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.


Batch Printing Window

The Batch Printing window allows you to print specimen sheets for groups of fonts. You might want to start out by running an ANSI chart for all of your dingbat fonts

The Batch window contains two lists. On the left is a list of faces available on your system. On the right is the list of faces you want to be printed. Use the following techniques to copy fonts from one list to the other.

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:

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:

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.

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.

The Batch window is also used to build font inventories. Select your fonts and press OK to generate a listing of the faces.


Commands

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

 File Menu

 Edit Menu

 View Menu

 Options 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.

Specimen Sheet I

Best for viewing the alphanumeric characters with some lines of text.

Specimen Sheet II

This design is based on an ad I saw in a publishing magazine. Spec 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.

ANSI Chart

The ANSI chart will print out a reference guide to all characters in the font's character set. This is very handy to have for those dingbat fonts.

Keyboard Guide

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

Character Set

Prints a large print version of the ANSI chart. Contains the complete alphabet, symbols, numbers, and extended characters of a typeface.

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.

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.

VIEW.KERNING PAIRS - Kerning pairs are two characters that have custom spacing between them. Kerning is done to make the space between two characters more pleasing to the eye. Printer's Apprentice can detect what sets of characters in a face are kerned. Note: some public domain or low quality fonts may have no kerning table, or a faulty kerning table..


Options Menu

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

OPTIONS.COLOR - You may view the specimen character in several different colors by using this option. The specimen color is saved to the PA.INI when you use the OPTIONS.SAVE TEXT ATTRIBUTES menu pick.

OPTIONS.SETUP - Opens the setup window.

OPTIONS.SAVE TEXT ATTRIBUTES - This saves the name of the current font, font size, specimen character, and color to the PA.INI. These options will be used by default the next time you start Printer's Apprentice.


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.


Release Notes & Caveats
Release Notes

Postscript - Despite being the best printer language available, it is still a 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 printer's 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 font when you print to a Postsript. If you have 2 megs on the printer, your memory will be full after 8 or so fonts. The inventory will then crash on you. If you use ATM, try sending the fonts as bitmaps rather than Type 1 faces. This way your printer won't hold onto font outlines that it has already printed.

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

Where is the CANCEL button? - I know... I know... we all want a CANCEL button to abort those huge runs. VB has no internal support for halting a print job. I have seen kludge attempts, but they are not very smooth. As I repeat below, don't try to do ridiculously large jobs at once. Printer's Apprentice will probably hang on you. I have helped matters a bit by allowing you to select which fonts you want run in the inventory sheets. I have also added a little disclaimer dialog right before you print an inventory letting you know that Printer's 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 old VB 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, PA will most likely give up. Try doing all your fonts that begin with A through D then E through H or some other systematic approach. I don't know why, but the Visual Basic print engine can only take so much before it chokes! With any luck, Microsoft will improve the engine for release 2.0!

Superprint - Superprint is a set of tweaked drivers claiming to speed up Windows printing. I have not personally 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 Printer's Apprentice. Switch to your original drivers when you use PA.

Norton Desktop - Visual Basic programs have a tendency to move to the back of a stack of open windows when launched from Norton Desktop 1.0. Both companies, Symantec and Microsoft, have acknowledged this. The fix is supposed to be in NDW 2.0.

Bitmapped & Cartridge Fonts - The original HP 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 Printer's Apprentice to print spec sheets for fonts with only one point size.

HUGE Temp 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 Printer's Apprentice fills your drive, it will most likely crash...

Bum Font Files - Many fonts distributed through BBS systems run the risk of being bad. I don't know why, but occasionally they are corrupted. These bad fonts cause utter chaos with Printer's Apprentice. 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 with its fonts. If Printer's Apprentice is acting funny, look at your font list, one or two may be bad...

Exiting Windows - Sometimes exiting Windows while a Visual Basic program is running will cause a UAE. The reason for this is unknown. Windows 3.1 will hopefully fix the problem.

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 Printer's 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.


About Lose Your Mind Development

Lose Your Mind Software 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! Other employees of Lose Your Mind Development include Marilyn Kinkel (technical support, message forwarder, mom, and head cheerleader), Ted Kinkel (educational grants and business guidance), Claire Kinkel (envelope stuffer), and Maggie (killer, miniature dachshund)...

Special Thanks goes out to John Stanko, Rob Wasserman, the folks at Sheriden Software, all my beta testers, and everyone who has taken the time to register early versions of Printer's Apprentice.


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.


VBRUN200.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 VBRUN200.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.


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

Use these radio buttons to change attributes for the selected face.


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!


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.


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.