DP Tool Club 3/CDASC03.ISO/sorties/1819/viet/design.doc

Text File | 1993-04-01 | 7KB | 176 lines

\V
                         FONT DESIGNING

                 SCDESIGN, PRDESIGN and LSDESIGN
              Copyright 1990, 1991 by Ho`a G. Nguye^~n
                     ______________________

I\.  FILE DESCRIPTIONS:

     The font  designing utilities for VIE^'T include the following
files:

     SCDESIGN.COM    (Screen font design program)
     PRDESIGN.COM    (Dot-matrix printer font design program)
     LSDESIGN.COM    (Laser printer font design program)
     SCRFONT         (Screen font used by VIE^'T)
     SCRFONT.1, SCRFONT.2, SCRFONT.3     (Other screen fonts)
     COURIER.PRF, PALATINO\.PRF (Dot-matrix printer fonts)
     COURIER.LSR, PRESTIGE\.LSR, CHANCERY\.LSR, PALATINO\.LSR
                     (Laser printer fonts)
     LAYOUT.CHR      (Table containing VIE^'T's character
                     assignments)
     SCDESIGN.PAR, PRDESIGN.PAR, LSDESIGN.PAR (Environment files)


II\.  CHARACTER ASSIGNMENTS:

     The file  LAYOUT.CHR   contains a table listing the  mapping
between VIE^'T characters and numeric codes.   You should print out
this file\.  You will need to refer  to it often  as you design or
modify VIE^'T's screen or printer fonts.

     Note that the mapping preserves the printable portion of the
normal ASCII codes.  This allows VIE^'T to read in ASCII text files
generated by other programs.


III\.  DESIGNING SCREEN FONT:

     The    program SCDESIGN.COM  allows  you  to  modify  VIE^'T's
existing screen font or to customize your own screen fonts.

     We ask that you do not change SCRFONT.1, 2 and 3 (to prevent
multiple versions with  the  same  name).   To customize your own
font,  select the font    that  is closest  to   what  you   want
(SCRFONT.1, 2, or 3), and do (from DOS):

               COPY SCRFONT.1(2 or 3) yourfilename

then use SCDESIGN on your file\.

     To use SCDESIGN on a  specific file,  type

                    SCDESIGN yourfilename

     Section VI contains a description of the SCDESIGN commands.


IV.  DESIGNING DOT-MATRIX PRINTER FONT:

     PRDESIGN is  the counterpart of SCDESIGN for  printer fonts.
We  again  ask  that you do not change  the two  supplied  fonts,
COURIER.PRF  and PALATINO\.PRF.    Use the DOS  "COPY"  command as
shown above to create your own file before modifying.

     To modify a font named FontName, type:

                         PRDESIGN FontName

     You do not have to type the  extension,  .PRF,  in FontName\.
It is assumed.  If an extension is typed, it will be ignored.

     Note that when designing dot-matrix print fonts,  you should
not have  two adjacent horizontal dots,  or  the second dot would
not be printed.  This is a limitation of the printers themselves.

     Section VI describes the commands for the font design
programs.    In  most  cases,  the commands are  common  for  all
programs.    Where    they   differ,  it will  be brought to your
attention.


V.  DESIGNING LASER PRINTER FONTS:

     LSDESIGN allows you  to  design  HP-Laserjet  printer fonts.
To start up the program, type

                         LSDESIGN FontName

All VIE^'T laser fonts have the extension .LSR,  and you don't have
to enter this extension in FontName\.  It is assumed.

     Due  to the much larger   bit map of laser fonts,  a few new
commands have  been  ad\ded (which are not available in the  other
two  font-\design programs) to facilitate the  designing  process.
Most other commands are similar  to those of PRDESIGN and will be
described in the following section.


VI\.  COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS:

     These   font  designing  programs  allow you to  design  the
characters by moving a cursor (using the arrow keys) over a large
box (representing a character) composed of rectangular tiles, and
turning these tiles ON of OFF.   When a block is  OFF (same color
as the background), the corresponding pixel will not be displayed
on the screen or printed on the paper.

     Tile  "flipping"   is  accomplished   very  conveniently  by
pressing the space bar.   If a tile is currently ON, pressing the
space bar will turn it OFF, and vice versa\.

     The SCDESIGN program also displays the actual-size character
to the right of the  box.   The actual-size character continously
changes as you  change the tiles in the large box.   This enables
you to view directly what the character you  are  designing  will
actually look like when used by VIE^'T.

     The following is a summary of other commands which appear on
the menu of these design programs.   Note that to back out of any
multi-level commands, you can use the ESC or backspace keys.

     C (Copy):   Overwrites the  current  character  with another
character.  This command will ask you for the source character to
copy from.

     O (Overlay):   Similar to Copy,  but will overlay the source
character on top of the current character instead of overwriting.
This  command  is useful for  modifying  a  group    of   similar
characters.   For  example,  you can create  an accent mark  as a
temporary character  (use  one of the blank character codes,  but
make sure you delete it before saving the font),  then overlay it
on top of a group of vowels all needing this accent mark.

     D (Display,  for SCDESIGN only):   displays the entire font,
showing modifications which have been made so far.

     P   (Print,  for PRDESIGN and LSDESIGN):  prints  the entire
modified font  on your printer.   Your printer must be  connected
to the parallel port and is enabled.

     F  (new File):  loads a new font for modification.

     N  (Next  character):   goes to  the  next character.   This
command  will load the character  immediately  after  the current
character  in  the alphabet if  you answer  Y  to  the  question,
"(Y/N/+/-)?"   If you answer N,  then you can type in a character
code\.   You can also use the + and - signs  to move to a  next or
previous character.

     Q  (Quit):  Exits the program.  This command will ask if you
want to save the file if  it detects modifications which have not
been saved.

     S  (Save):  Saves the file and continues.

     F2:    Cycles through the 16 available colors.    You should
modify the screen font under the color which you normally use for
VIE^'T in order to get the  best  idea of how your font  would look
under  VIE^'T.   The color selected is automatically saved in   the
appropriate environment file for future use\.

     U,  D,  L, R (shift, for LSDESIGN only):   Shifts the entire
character up, down, left or right (respectively).

     X (pick up row,  for LSDESIGN  only):   Picks up the current
row and stored it in internal memory\.

     Z (put down row,   for LSDESIGN only):   Replace the current
row with the row which has been picked up earlier.

Note:  Once a row has been picked up,  it remains in memory until
replaced by another row,  no  matter how  many times it  has been
"put down".