@LinguaFont ?Language Fonts ?and Design Software Raymond Hickey English Linguistics Essen University Contents 1. The aim of LinguaFont 4 2. Programme summary 5 2.1. Printer control 5 2.2. Video control 5 2.3. Keyboard control 5 2.4. Miscellaneous 5 I Description of Programmes 6 0. Preamble 6 0.1. Installing LinguaFont 6 0.2. Remarks on command structure 6 0.2.1. Online help 6 0.3. Typeface conventions 6 1. LaserEd 7 1.0. Main menu 7 1.0.1. Making a DOS call 7 1.1.1. Create a new font 7 1.1.2. Process an existing font 7 1.1.2.1. Font parameters for character set 7 1.1.3. Print test table of font 7 1.1.4. Download a font to printer 7 1.2. Editing commands 7 1.2.0. Preamble: What is a bit map? 7 1.2.1. Editing Commands 7 1.2.1.1. Using a mouse to draw characters 7 1.2.2. Additional commands 8 1.2.2.1. File Information (Shift-F1) 8 1.2.2.2. Check Font Integrity (Alt-F1) 8 1.2.2.3. Move Character (F2) 8 1.2.2.4. Swivel Character (Shift-F2) 8 1.2.2.5. Mark Block (Ctrl-F2) 8 1.2.2.6. Copy From Clipboard (Alt-F2) 8 1.2.2.7. Character Mask (F3) 8 1.2.2.8. Invert Character (Shift-F3) 8 1.2.2.9. Mirror Image (Ctrl-F3) 8 1.2.2.10. View Clipboard Contents (Alt-F3) 8 1.2.2.11. Expand Character (F4) 8 1.2.2.12. Compress Character (Shift-F4) 8 1.2.2.13. Italicise Character (Ctrl-F4) 8 1.2.2.14. Shift Character Mask (Alt-F4) 8 1.2.2.15. Rotate Character (F5) 8 1.2.2.16. Set Character Baseline (Shift-F5) 8 1.2.2.17. View Font Settings (Ctrl-F5) 8 1.2.2.18. Undo Last Change (F6) 8 1.2.2.19. Delete Character (Shift-F6) 8 1.2.2.20. Character Parameters (Shift-F7) 8 1.2.2.21. Switch Colours (Ctrl-F7) 8 1.2.2.22. Copy, Move Character (F8, Shift-F8) 8 1.2.2.23. Zoom Character, 1 (F9) 8 1.2.2.24. Zoom Character, 2 (Shift-F9) 8 1.2.2.25. Save font to disk (F10) 8 1.2.2.26. View Entire Font (Shift-F10) 8 1.2.2.27. Load Second Font (Alt-F10) 8 1.2.2.28. Move up, down and edit character (F11, F12) 8 1.3. Character width tables 9 1.4. Addressing downloaded fonts 9 1.5. Troubleshooting with laser printer fonts 10 1.5.0. General 10 1.5.1. Character grid parameters 10 1.6. The aesthetics of font design 11 1.7. Command activation via menu system 11 1.8. Command Summary 11 2. DotEd 12 2.0. Main Menu 12 2.0.1. Making a DOS call 12 2.1.1. Create a new font 12 2.1.2. Fonts in draft mode 12 2.1.3. Process an existing font 12 2.1.4. Print test table of font 12 2.1.5. Download a font to printer 12 2.1.6. Create new font from existing one 12 2.1.7. Change printer configuration 12 2.1.8. Run printer test programme 12 2.2. Edit Screen 12 2.2.1. Editing Commands 12 2.2.1.1. Using a mouse to draw characters 12 2.2.2. Additional Commands 13 2.2.2.1. File Information (Shift-F1) 13 2.2.2.2. Move Character (F2) 13 2.2.2.3. Swivel Character (Shift-F2) 13 2.2.2.4. Mark Block (Ctrl-F2) 13 2.2.2.5. Copy from Clipboard (Alt-F2) 13 2.2.2.6. Mirror Image (F3) 13 2.2.2.7. Invert Character (Shift-F3) 13 2.2.2.8. View Clipboard Contents (Alt-F3) 13 2.2.2.9. Expand Character (F4) 13 2.2.2.10. Compress Character (Shift-F4) 13 2.2.2.11. Delete Character (F5) 13 2.2.2.12. Undo Last Change (F6) 13 2.2.2.13. Test Print Character (F7) 13 2.2.2.14. Switch Colours (Ctrl-F7) 13 2.2.2.15. Copy Character (F8) 13 2.2.2.16. Move Character (Shift-F8) 13 2.2.2.17. Zoom Character, 1 (F9) 13 2.2.2.18. Zoom Character, 2 (Shift-F9) 13 2.2.2.19. Return to Main Menu (F10) 13 2.2.2.20. View Entire Font (Shift-F10) 13 2.3. Character width tables 13 2.4. Command Summary 14 3. VideoEd 15 3.0. Introduction 15 3.0.1. Making a DOS call 15 3.1. Create a new font 15 3.2. Process an existing font 15 3.3. Convert Hercules font to EGA 15 3.4. Convert EGA font to Hercules 15 3.5. Load font file into memory 15 3.6. View ASCII character set 15 3.7. Editing Commands 15 3.7.1. Using a mouse to draw characters 15 3.7.2. Saving a font to disk 15 3.8. Command Summary 15 4. Additional video programmes 16 4.1. LoadVid 16 4.2. VidPerm 17 4.3. InsWP 18 4.4. VideoSet 19 5. SetKey 20 5.0. Introduction 20 5.1. Creating a new keyboard driver 20 5.2. Managing keyboard drivers 20 5.3. Loading a keyboard driver 20 6. Using character sets with data processing software 21 6.1. Word processors 21 6.1.0. Download activation 21 6.1.1. Character translation 21 6.2. Database managers 21 7. Supplementary programmes 22 7.1.1. LoadDot 23 7.1.2. LoadNec 24 7.1.3. LoadLas 25 7.2.1. NewDot 26 7.2.2. NewLas 27 7.2.2.1. Function key settings 27 7.3.1. TranDot 28 7.3.2. TranLas 29 7.4.1. Upgrade 30 7.4.2. DotScr 31 7.4.3.1. Italic 32 7.4.3.2. Bold 33 7.4.4. Size 34 7.5.1. CtrlDot 35 7.5.2. MemDot 36 7.5.3. TestDot 37 7.6. Intro 38 7.7. Desktop 39 7.8. BatEd 40 7.8.1. Desktop commands 40 7.8.2. Editing commands 40 7.8.2.1. Navigation keys 40 7.8.2.2. Deletion operations 40 7.8.2.3. Find and replace options 40 7.8.2.4. Miscellaneous commands 40 8. The essentials of font management 41 II Screens, Printers, Keyboards 42 1. Screen fonts 42 1.1. Types of video cards 42 1.1.1. Monochrome video card 42 1.1.2. Hercules graphics card 42 1.1.3. Colour Graphics Adapter (CGA) card 42 1.1.4. Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) card 42 1.1.5. Video Graphics Array (VGA) card 42 1.2. Replacing parts of the character set 42 1.3. How screen fonts work 42 1.4. Fonts for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus 42 1.5. Fonts for the EGA adapter 42 1.6. Fonts for the VGA adapter 42 2. Printer Fonts 43 2.0. Preamble: Kinds of printers 43 2.0.1. Daisy wheel (solid font) printers 43 2.0.2. Inkjet (non-impact) printers 43 2.0.3. Dot matrix printers 43 2.0.4. Laser beam printers 43 2.1. Additional printer issues 43 2.1.1. Paper feed 43 2.1.2. Commands relating to paper feed 44 2.1.3. Printer settings 44 2.1.4. Types of paper feed 44 2.1.5. Lines to be printed per page 44 2.2. Internal details: What's inside your printer 45 2.3. Screen and printer fonts 45 2.3.1. Linking screen and printer 45 2.4. What is a download font? 45 2.4.1. Dealing with downloads 45 2.4.2. Using master style commands 45 2.5. Laser beam printers 45 2.5.1. Font descriptor 45 2.5.2. Character descriptor 45 3. Keyboard drivers 46 3.0. Preamble: A word about keyboards 46 3.1. How the keyboard works 46 3.2. Scan codes 46 3.3. Shift state 46 3.4. Entering codes directly 46 3.5. Using special keyboard drivers 46 Appendix A 47 Appendix B 48 Appendix C 49 III Glossary of Terms 50 IV Font Documentation 51 0. Preamble 51 0.1. Comments on individual fonts 51 0.2. List of supplied fonts 51 0.3. Adapting language fonts to one's own needs 51 Foreword to Version 5 of the LinguaFont suite The various programmes of the LinguaFont suite have been greatly expanded since the original version was published by the Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities in Bergen. Especially the laser font editor LaserEd has been transformed to handle large fonts in the so-called protected mode which allows for greater flexibility. In addition there are a large number of extra fonts among which are many of interest to the linguist such as a revised and expanded phonetic font. As always I owe a debt of gratitude to Knut Hofland at the University of Bergen who was ever encouraging and whose patience has led to this new version of the software seeing the light of day at the present. Raymond Hickey Essen December 1998 Foreword The origin of the present package lies in the attempt of the present author several years ago to generate on the personal computer the special symbols needed for foreign languages and for special fonts like the phonetic alphabet. As is so often the case, an originally personal solution grew into a more general project, in this case for linguists processing data on PCs. The goal all along has been to render the task as easy as possible, to design software which would allow the generation of new fonts in as short a time as possible. To achieve this, provision had to be made for copying, altering and updating existing fonts. The character generators had to allow for several kinds of font manipulation which would keep the amount of manual design to a minimum. The result of this endeavour is the present package which allows the design of font software to manage the screen and keyboard of your computer and of course the generation of a whole variety of special character sets for all major types of printer, notably for laser printers. Over the years, the present author has created and adapted a series of fonts which he has either used himself or constructed to satisfy the needs of colleagues in neighbouring language departments. All of these have been included in the LinguaFont package so that one not only has a large suite of software to generate fonts of one's own with but also a basic store of readymade fonts which one can either use directly or adapt to one's needs without too much effort. It is this fact which will hopefully convince fellow linguists of the value of LinguaFont. Indeed the best way to start with the present product is to take a look at some of the supplied fonts and experiment with them. From there one can move on to more ambitious tasks such as deriving one's own fonts and tailoring them to one needs. As with the Lexa package of corpus processing software, I have been fortunate in finding a sympathetic colleague, Knut Hofland, who was willing to publish and distribute both the documentation and the software. To him and to the Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities in general I owe a debt of gratitude for support and encouragement in seeing the LinguaFont project through. Raymond Hickey Munich July 1993 11. The aim of LinguaFont The purpose of LinguaFont is to offer the user of a PC the ability to process data containing non-standard characters for foreign languages or special character sets such as a phonetic font. The package is divided into two parts. The first consists of a group of programmes for processing, i.e. designing and editing, language fonts. The second comprises a large collection of ready-made language fonts for laser and dot matrix printers which linguists can use with their word processors without any difficulty. The set of programmes is divided in its own right into three main sections. The first consists of the programme, VideoEd, which is intended to facilitate the generation of individual fonts for screen display. The exact means by which you come to see the fonts you design with VideoEd depends on the video adapter you have in your PC. The three types supported presently are the VGA (Video Graphics Array) card, the EGA (Enhanced Video Adapter) card and the Hercules Graphics Card Plus. The second part of the programme group is concerned with the task of defining special symbols for the printer. The relevant programmes are as follows: LaserEd which is intended for laser beam printers built according to the Hewlett Packard standard (with particular regard to the management of fonts) and DotEd, which will work with any standard 24 needle dot matrix printer. Both provide a comfortable and easy-to-learn means of generating customised characters. Thirdly, the LinguaFont set contains a customised keyboard driver generator which enables the user to specify the keyboard layout for a previously generated video font. To visualise these components satisfactorily consider the following diagramme. To begin with the three elements of hardware which process characters are listed, namely keyboard, screen and printer; there follows a list of the software which controls these hardware components. Computer Hardware Components Screen Ŀ Ŀ Printer ... Ŀ ... Ŀ Ŀ ÿ Ĵ Ŀ Ŀ < System Unit Ĵ Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ ... Ŀ Keyboard ^^ and Mouse Computer Software Components Keyboard Driver (loaded on the DOS level) [224] [225] Entered from keyboard [231] . [...] Word Processor (data processing software) Printing Function (with possible character translation) [224] -> [224] From [225] -> [225] To Screen [231] -> [231] Printer . [...] -> [...] Printer (Output Device) [224][225][231]... (Characters Printed) It is obvious from the above that characters are entered from the keyboard, processed by an item of application software (here: a word processor, it could just have easily been a database management system, however) and finally outputted on paper by a printer. Bear in mind that at each of these steps the computer deals with ASCII numbers (indicated in the above by the numbers in square brackets). The shapes which appear on the screen and the printer for given ASCII numbers are not unalterable although they are fixed for the so-called lower ASCII area, roughly the English alphabet. LinguaFont builds on the possibility of altering the shapes associated with certain ASCII characters (usually those in the so-called upper ASCII area, again see Appendix A and B below) both for the screen and the printer. With the screen you change the shape of characters you do not momentarily require (with the help of VideoEd) into those of the characters you do need; with the printer you define (with the help of DotEd or LaserEd) characters for your printer which correspond in shape to the redefined symbols of the screen; these are called download symbols, see relevant section in the present book. The screen and the printer are linked together via the printing function of the software you are using (as indicated in the second of the above diagrammes). This linking may furthermore involve the changing of screen ASCII numbers to different printer ASCII numbers via a character translation table (available in word processing and database management software). To facilitate the entry of redefined screen symbols you can specify your own alternative keyboard layout (with the help of SetKey). A number of additional programmes in the LinguaFont set cover remaining areas of printer control not necessarily concerned with character generation. To derive maximum benefit from the LinguaFont set you must be aware of how various elements of the PC work together technically and what the principles are which guide the generation of characters, both for the screen and the printer. Part two of the present book gives an exhaustive account of these principles and it is strongly recommended to the relatively uninitiated PC user that he/she acquaint him/herself with these aspects of the workings of a computer. By this he/she will in future be in a position to grasp at once the operation of font generation programmes and to assess the implications for his/her own data processing which such programmes bear. The necessity to have customised characters or whole fonts at one's disposal arises quite naturally when processing foreign language material. While there is admittedly some provision made for the processing of the major European languages in the upper part of the IBM character set (the so-called extended ASCII set, see Appendix A and B), one nonetheless soon discovers that severe limits are set to the number of extra characters available. The ideal situation is therefore one where you can generate these characters oneself. To begin with, the user of a PC will be concerned with the ability to print out certain customised characters. The typical user of a 24 needle printer will thus probably, before he/she comes to read these lines, have looked at the explanations given on character generation in BASIC in the printer's technical reference manual and ended up in bewilderment, wondering how one gets from these abstract demonstrations of character design to a character set conveniently at one's disposal when using one's usual word processor. Even if the user has essentially grasped the steps involved in this in principle, he/she will no doubt be daunted by the immensity of the task of writing one's own fonts in BASIC, let alone an editor with which one can display, and change them in blown-up form on the screen. Fortunately it is not necessary for the user to concern him/herself with the technicalities of character generation when using LinguaFont. Here one has a group of tools at one's disposal which enables one to create character sets and alter them afterwards in as user-friendly a manner as possible. LinguaFont is a fairly foolproof set of programmes. You can basically use them without reading the present book. To make maximum benefit of the programmes it is, however, necessary to be acquainted with the details of their operation. While there is an on-line help facility in the character generation programmes and informative screens are used, not everything can be conveyed to the user from within the programme. Take the time then to read through the following pages with care and try out the aspects of the programmes described before embarking on any serious work with LinguaFont. 12. Programme summary 22.1. Printer control 1. LaserEd This is the font editor for laser printers. With it the user can design characters for any printer compatible with the Hewlett Packard Laserjet. A unified user interface is offered similar to that in DotEd and VideoEd. 2. DotEd Allows one to design one's own fonts for 24 needle dot matrix printers (e.g. NEC, Epson, etc.). The programme provides flexibility, such as moving characters within a font, as well as expanding, compressing, swivelling, shifting and inverting individual characters. 3. NewLas Allows the user to create a new font from an existing one. A split screen is offered and you copy symbols from a source font to a target one. You can also increase or exchange the symbols in an existing font this way. 4. NewDot The version of the previous programme for dot matrix printers. 5. TestDot A menu-driven programme which allows the user to test a 24 needle dot matrix printer in various typefaces and pitches. Also checks font downloading. Works best with NEC and Epson printers; true compatibles should produce the same results as these. 6. CtrlDot A printer control programme which allows one to setup a 24 needle dot matrix printer. Typefaces and fonts can be set and reset. The programme contains an error detection mechanism for printers. 7. MemDot A memory resident version of the previous programme. 8. LoadLas A programme to send a download font in binary form to a laser printer in the Hewlett Packard format. Via a switch you can also print a test table of the downloaded characters. 9. LoadDot The version of the previous programme for dot matrix printers. 10. LoadNec A version of LoadDot which is intended for use with those dot matrix printers (such as the NEC Pinwriter series) which have a download area for 256 as opposed to 128 characters. A switch allows one to either load a single large font or two small ones into the printer's download memory. 11. TranDot Changes the characteristics of an input font to those of a different (output) font, e.g. from Pica (10 cpi) to Elite (12 cpi). 12. TranLas The version of the previous programme for laser printers. Here you may graft the font descriptor (responsible for point size, for example) from a source onto a target file. 13. Upgrade Takes a dot matrix font file as source and writes it to a target laser font file of 12 point size. By editing the resulting file with LaserEd (the characters need to be enlarged somewhat) you can quickly upgrade all your dot matrix files. 14. Italic Takes a laser font in upright style and italicises it. Note that the forms of letters are not altered; this can be done by editing the particular font with LaserEd. 15. Bold Takes any laser font and converts it to boldface style. It works by thickening the horizontal and vertical strokes of letters; you will need to do the fine tuning by editing the font in question with LaserEd afterwards. 16. Size Allows the user to expand or compress a laser font by a certain vertical and horizontal factor. This is just a mechanical procedure and the altered font must be edited subsequently. 22.2. Video control 1. VideoEd A menu-driven programme which allows the user to design his/her own fonts for the PC screen. The fonts thus generated can be used with the Hercules Plus or VGA/EGA video adapters. The command structure is very similar to that of LaserEd and DotEd. VideoEd requires _VIDEO.EXE for its operation. 2. LoadVid The programme with which you load a screen font file (created with VideoEd) into the video adapter of your system. Will work with the Hercules Plus adapter as well as with the VGA and EGA video adapters. 3. VidPerm A utility with which one can load a video font into an VGA/EGA adapter. The advantage with VidPerm is that the font will survive a video reset such as is made by many programmes, such as commercial word processors, on starting. 4. VideoSet A screen test utility with which you can check up on your video hardware and set this appropriately. Useful for recognizing genuine VGA cards and loading fonts. 5. InsWp A utility for users of WordPerfect 5.x. It allows you to insert one or more fonts, generated with VideoEd for the Hercules Plus card, into the WordPerfect font resource file and then load your customised screen characters from within Word Perfect. 6. DotScr A font conversion utility which allows you to change screen fonts into dot matrix printer ones and vice versa. The resulting fonts can be read directly into DotEd or VideoEd (whichever is appropriate) and polished off to give characters the necessary proportions for the new environment. 22.3. Keyboard control SetKey Allows the user to design his/her own keyboard layout. On the screen a keyboard template is presented and the user enters the ASCII characters he/she would like on certain keys. The keyboard driver generated by the programme can be loaded like any other. AKeyb This is a keyboard driver which can be edited with the programme SetKey and so be customised to the individual needs of users. There are five planes on which symbols can be assigned to keys, thus allowing users to have access to the entire ASCII set without resorting to entering symbols via the numeric pad. 22.4. Miscellaneous Desktop Here the user is offered a single interface as entrance point for the entire set of programmes in the LinguaFont package. The desktop functions as a launching pad and is arranged in groups which correspond to typical functions realised by the programmes of the set and which offer quick orientation for the user at the outset. BatEd A combined editor and dispatcher for DOS batch files (or other files if you like). From a desktop you can survey the batch files on your disk, edit them with ease and execute them at will. 1I Description of Programmes 10. Preamble You will have noticed that the programmes which comprise the LinguaFont set sometimes have the element "dot" contained in them and sometimes "las". This is deliberate so that the user can immediately recognise which programmes are for what printer type. Those with the element "dot" are intended for 24 needle dot matrix printers (typically NEC or Epson printers with this number of needles) while those with "las" are to be used with laser beam printers which conform to the Hewlett Packard Laserjet standard. Each individual user will probably have either the one type of printer or the other; if you have both you may change your fonts for a dot matrix printer into a laser printer format with UpGrade and adjust their size with Size. Note that a printer does not have to be present to use either of the printer character editors (unless, of course, you wish to print something). A lot of terms are used in the present book which will be new to most users. Please use the glossary to obtain precise definitions of these. During your first faltering steps with LinguaFont it is advisable to consult the section in the appendix entitled "Problems: Causes and remedies". 20.1. Installing LinguaFont The programmes and the auxiliary files on the LinguaFont diskettes should be kept in a directory on your hard disk which is continuously accessible via the DOS path variable. After all you will want to be able to call the programmes of the LinguaFont group from anywhere on your hard disk without the necessity of entering the directory in which they are located. To install the set all that is necessary is that you insert the programme diskette into drive a: (or b:) and type install. You are then led through a series of steps which will do the following for you: (1) Create a directory for the LinguaFont files on your hard disk (2) Copy the files on the programme diskette into this directory (3) Create several directories below this for files which are copied from the font diskette (4) Alter the path entry in the autoexec.bat file in the root directory of drive c: to allow permanent access to the LinguaFont programme directory just created. When the installation procedure is completed remove the (second) distribution diskette from drive a: and store the diskettes in a safe place. For safety's sake you can make a copy of the LinguaFont diskettes; never, never work with the original distribution diskettes but only with copies. 20.2. Remarks on command structure There are three character generators included in the LinguaFont set: LaserEd, DotEd and VideoEd. The first two are for printers and the third is for the screen. All of them are based on similar principles and all have a unified interface to enable the user to orient him/herself quickly in any of them if he/she has already acquainted him/herself with one of them. Not only is screen presentation similar among the three character generators but the key settings are as well. Of all three programmes LaserEd is the most sophisticated and has the most command options. For this reason a system of picklists has been included in this programme with which users can select commands in a quick and easy fashion. 30.2.1. Online help Most programmes have an on-line help facility which is activated by pressing the key. As the operation of LaserEd is somewhat more complicated than that of the remaining programmes, all the help information could not be fitted into one window and so online help is included in a text file which is loaded on pressing . You can navigate in this text like any normal text file (by using the Arrow keys or , to jump a screenful at a time). If the help file is not accessible to the programme, an error message to this effect is issued and processing continues normally. 20.3. Typeface conventions The user should note that the names of programmes are printed in italic, as in LaserEd, for example. Furthermore, capitalisation has been used when citing programme names to suggest how the name arose (e.g. LaserEd comes from "Laser(Printer)" + "Ed(itor)"). The citation form of a name is to be carefully distinguished from the letters typed in at the DOS prompt in order to start a particular programme. To facilitate this distinction, the DOS form of a programme name is set in Letter Gothic type, as in lasered; remember that it is this that you type when you wish to execute a programme. There is no dash included in the DOS form of the name and no capitalisation is used (although the latter would be irrelevant to DOS). To remind the user of this, the call syntax of each programme is to be found at the beginning of the description of the particular programme. Note furthermore that there may be short stretches of text in Letter Gothic type at various points in the present book. In each case they refer to entries which the user makes from the keyboard when using LinguaFont or to DOS names, commands or messages. When describing the commands of programmes, the name of keys are placed in angular brackets, e.g. "Use , to scroll in file" means press the key labelled PgUp or that labelled PgDn on the keyboard to scroll in a file. 11. LaserEd Syntax: 1) lasered [input_file] 2) lasered /file_template This is the character editor for Hewlett Packard-compatible laser printers. With it you can define your own characters, store them in a disk file and load the latter into your printer before you wish to print text in which these characters are to appear. Remember that characters for the screen are defined with VideoEd and that you must link screen characters with printer characters via a printer driver in your word processor. Just how this is done is explained in detail below. Like all the programmes of the LinguaFont package, LaserEd is written in the programming language C++ in which it is often practice to pass information which a programme may require when calling it to start with. This is an option available in LaserEd. Technically it is termed passing command line parameters. Consider how this works. You can start LaserEd by simply typing lasered at the DOS prompt (which will look something like C> on your computer). But you may cause the programme to automatically load a character set file by specifying this immediately after the programme name on the command line, i.e. before pressing to execute the programme as in: lasered phonetic.lpf This assumes that there is a file phonetic.lpf in the directory in which you are in and that (as its name implies) it is a LaserEd character set file (more on this below). If LaserEd does not find the file (you did not type it correctly or it really is not in the current directory) then it issues an error message and after pressing a key you are presented with the main menu as if you had simply entered lasered. 21.0. Main menu LaserEd starts by presenting you with a screen in which four options are listed. A highlight bar rests to begin with on the second option. To activate an option, move the bar with either the or key and press . Depending on the option you choose you will be prompted by the programme to take one or two further steps. The centre of the window offered at the beginning is the main menu and should look like the following: Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > LaserEd <ij Ŀ Create a new font = Process an existing font Print test table of font Download a font to printer ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT --- Use ,  to move bar,  for option When you finish editing a character set you are returned to the main menu from which you can continue with some option or leave the programme (finish a work session). You leave by pressing the key; an on-line text is available by pressing the key. On the second last line of the screen, the current directory is displayed in inverse and on the last a message is displayed prompting the user what to do. 31.0.1. Making a DOS call During a work session with LaserEd you may find at some point that you would like to do something in DOS (like look at a directory or run a programme). This can be achieved very simply by pressing . On doing this, the current screen disappears and you are suddenly in DOS. LaserEd is now in the background and DOS is in the foreground. You know that LaserEd is still there as the prompt in DOS is now Type "exit" to return to LaserEd. This prompt is to remind you that you have called DOS temporarily from within LaserEd (you might conceivably forget this). When you enter exit and press the screen of LaserEd is restored as if nothing had happened. 31.1.1. Create a new font This option exists here as it does with both DotEd and VideoEd. As with the two other programmes, you are recommended to choose an existing font with the following option and alter it to suit your own needs. If, however, you insist on using this possibility then you must enter a valid DOS name for the font which is about to be created. Furthermore you should keep to the naming conventions used by LaserEd. You will have noticed that all the font files supplied with the LinguaFont set for laser printers share the extension .LPF which stands for "laser printer font". You should retain this extension for font files which you create yourself with the present option. Bear in mind that the directory listing offered for the following options will only show those files with end in .LPF. If you wish to load a file with a different extension then you must do so via a command line parameter as is lasered mylaser.fnt. Assuming that the user wishes to keep to the recommended naming conventions, any file then created should look like the following: Font Initial Font Identifier PHON_12U.LPF Font Extension Here the extension is that required. The first four letters of the name form the font initial and are left up to the user to fill. They serve the purpose of indicating what the contents of the font file are; in the example shown, the font is one containing phonetic symbols. The fifth character is an underscore to set off the beginning from the rest of the name. The last two or three characters constitute the font identifier and indicate the point size of the font (here 12 points, i.e. 10 cpi with fixed character spacing); an optional final character indicates whether the font is upright (U) or italic (I) in style. Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > LaserEd <ij Ŀ - Create a new font Process an existing font Print test table of font Download a font to printer ͸ Font Type: Helvetica ; ; ͸ => russ_10 ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT --- Toggle with , to end! Once you have entered a name satisfactorily, you are prompted to choose (i) a typeface and (ii) a point size for the new font. To begin with a toggle bar appears on the left of the screen. By pressing you can toggle through the four options available here. Font name Pitch and spacing 1) Courier (10 cpi non-proportional) 2) Helvetica (varying, proportional) 3) Times Roman (varying, proportional) 4) Letter Gothic (12 cpi non-proportional) While the difference between the second and third typefaces is one of appearence (Helvetica is a non-serifed typeface as opposed to Times Roman) the first, Courier, and the fourth, Letter Gothic, refer to fonts with fixed spacing (i.e. results in non-proportional print). The consequence of this is that the character width parameters for both the font and the individual characters is no longer of any relevance. Instead, the distance travelled by the printer cursor after printing a character is determined by the pitch of the entire font which in its turn is dependent on the point size chosen. To allow the user to set the latter with Helvetica and Times Roman fonts a picklist appears at this stage which looks like the following: Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > LaserEd <ij ͸ Ŀ 6 Point 7 Point -> Create a new font 8 Point Process an existing font 9 Point Print test table of font 10 Point Download a font to printer 11 Point ͸ 12 Point Font Type: Helvetica 14 Point ; 18 Point ; ; ͸ => russ_10 ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT --- Choose a point size and press  As you can see from this list it is possible to create fonts with LaserEd which range from 6 point (condensed print) to 18 point (headline print). Choose the point size which matches the size you indicated with the font size identifier in the file name. Remember, however, that the size specified here is that which is entered into the font descriptor at the beginning of the new file and not what is contained in the name of the file. The font parameters window appears (see below) and by pressing any key you can continue. You are now presented with an empty screen matrix in which you may draw your first character or move to another ASCII number to design the first character of the newly created font. From here on processing is the same as with the following option, for details of which see below. By default LaserEd starts at ASCII $33 which is the first character after space in the ASCII table. You can of course define characters in a new font which are numerically lower than this but it is not recommended as download characters below $32 are used as printer control codes and may not always be interpreted as characters but rather as printer commands not to mention the fact that some software may not send characters under $32 to the printer in the first place. 31.1.2. Process an existing font On pressing here you are presented with a directory listing of all those files in the current directory which share the extension .LPF. The file lister which is activated at this stage has three important function key settings which will help you to access just the files you want. These options are indicated on the top line of the screen when the lister is active. F4 Drive. Allows you to choose a new drive from the list of logical drives on your computer system. Ŀ F4=Drive Shift-F4=File Template F8=Directory ͸ > LaserEd <ij ͵ FileName Ext. Size Date Time ͸ ARABIC_1.LPF 10008 02/05/93 21:10 ARABIC_2.LPF 8443 02/05/93 21:16 BALKAN .LPF 3178 02/01/93 09:43 BALTIC .LPF 2497 02/01/93 09:42 ͸ A: B: C: D: E: F: Select drive with -,- ; ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT\LASER --- Move bar with ,,  for option Sh-F4 File template. Permits the specification of a new file template. After you do this the file listing is refreshed to show just those files which match the template you entered. Note that if no files match then nothing is displayed. Revert the file template to an earlier value or enter a new one by pressing again. Ŀ F4=Drive Shift-F4=File Template F8=Directory ͸ > LaserEd <ij ͵ FileName Ext. Size Date Time ͸ ARABIC_1.LPF 10008 02/05/93 21:10 ARABIC_2.LPF 8443 02/05/93 21:16 BALKAN .LPF 3178 02/01/93 09:43 BALTIC .LPF 2497 02/01/93 09:42 CLASS_GR.LPF 25069 02/01/93 23:52 CZECH .LPF 4460 02/01/93 09:43 EĿ H Enter File Template, Esc=Default ; ; ͸ = *.LPF ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT\LASER --- Move bar with ,,  for option F8 Directory. The directory from which the file listing is gained is that from which you start LaserEd. Ŀ Directories on drive D:\ Number: 71 Menus  ͻ TEXT_ED AKEYB .C DESK_CON.H TE_SMALL AKEYB .DOC DESK_STR.H UPDATE AKEYB .EXE DOTED .C STATPACK AKEYS .C DOTSCR .C DATA ASCII .C DT .BAT DBTXT ASCII .TBL EGA_VGA .ASM SMALL BATED .C EGA_VGA .OBJ TC BAUM ERRORS = AFONTS BIG .VGA FONTSOFT.BAT BOOK BOLD .C FORMAT .HP OLD_LPF CC .BAT FS_D .BAT DOT CL .BAT FS_INS .C DRIVERS CS .BAT GEN_HERC.C WORD CT .BAT GRAPHICS.LIB WPERF CTRLDOT .C HERC_CGA.C LASER DEMO .FNT IBM .VGA COURIER DESKTOP .C INSWP .C GOTHIC DESKTOP .HLP INTRO .C HELV DESKTOP .IND ITALIC .C ID_NOS [Tab = Tree - Files]ͼ   Full path: D:\SRC\TC\AFONTS [Current Dir.] You may well wish to change directory to access different files. This is realised quite easily by pressing . The screen changes and the programme 8d.exe is called with which you can change directory by moving a highlight bar in a tree and pressing . Note. The various options of the programme _dirs.exe are shown in the picklists which you can activate via . This programme must be accessible via the DOS path for the current option to work. Once you have chosen a character set file to edit by moving the highlight bar and pressing again, LaserEd reads in the file chosen (this is indicated by a counter at the end of the screen) and a window then appears which displays the parameters for the entire character set. Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ Font Parameters for Character Set PHON_12U.LPF Pitch 10 Cell Height 63 Cell Width 52 Baseline Distance 44 Stroke Weight 0 Font Typeface 8 Upright(0)/Italic(1) 0 Fixed(0)/Proportional(1) 1 Portrait(0)/Landscape(1) 0 Character Symbol Set 1 Edit: F5; Toggle limiting: F10, otherwise any key... ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT --- Use ,  to move bar,  for option For any laser printer font file a set of parameters exist which apply to the character set as a whole (these are discussed in detail in the second section of the present book). This set forms what is known technically as the font descriptor which is a series of bytes at the beginning of a download font file for laser printers (in the Hewlett Packard format) which specifies some characteristics which apply to the font as a whole. At this point in LaserEd you are given the opportunity of changing these parameters. Be warned, however: unless you know what you are doing, do not alter the parameters for an existing font. The edit option here is intended for users when they are au fait with download font file editing and consciously wish to change a value to attain some effect or other. If you press as hinted at in the bottom of the window, you may edit the font descriptors values. Note that the prompt line now changes to the following: Edit: F5; Toggle limiting: F10, otherwise any key... A word of explanation is required here. You can make changes to the font parameters by pressing . Furthermore you can remove the automatically imposed limits on bit map size which apply to the subsequent editing of the current font by pressing . The limiting enforced applies to the parameters Cell Height and Cell Width: when now editing characters from the current font you can only set (and delete) blocks within the limits set by these two parameters. You will notice that the maximum size of the bit map matrix (see below) is 80 x 80 dots. With enforced limiting, the size is Cell Width x Cell Height. The cursor in the bit map matrix will now refuse to move further right than the column which corresponds to Cell Width and further down than the row which corresponds to Cell Height. The advantage to this limiting is that the user cannot inadvertently create a character which is greater than the output size of the font would lead one to expect. Only disable bit map size limiting if you are aware that characters you create (or edit) may then be numerically out of the range of the font as specified in the font descriptor (see printout of screen "Font Parameters for Character Set" above). There follows now a brief discussion of all the parameters of a font file descriptor as listed in the relevant window in LaserEd. Note. You can check on whether parameters are out of range or not by pressing Check Font Integrity (see description below). 41.1.2.1. Font parameters for character set Pitch This is the width of a single character from the font assuming that it is not proportional. Note that if the font is proportional then this parameter is of no practical relevance except that it gives the user an approximate idea of how large the spacing is. Pitch is always counted in dots per character and characters per inch. If you are editing (or have created) a Courier font then the pitch value is determined by the distance covered when printing any character from the resulting font (as spacing has a fixed value). The pitches for various fonts in dots per character and character per inch and their correspondence to point size are as follows: 6 Point: 15 dots per character 20.0 characters per inch 7 Point: 17 dots per character 17.6 characters per inch 8 Point: 20 dots per character 15.0 characters per inch 9 Point: 22 dots per character 13.6 characters per inch 10 Point: 25 dots per character 12.0 characters per inch 11 Point: 27 dots per character 11.1 characters per inch 12 Point: 30 dots per character 10.0 characters per inch 14 Point: 40 dots per character 7.5 characters per inch 18 Point: 50 dots per character 6.0 characters per inch The characters per inch are calculated by taking the number of dots per character and using this to divide into 300 which is the total number of dots per inch on a laser printer. This gives the approximate values in the right-hand column above. Do not confuse pitch with point size: pitch is a unit of horizontal measure while point size refers to the height of the letters in a font, one point being 1/72 of an inch. Cell Height This is the maximum height of a character cell for the whole font. Check the cell height for the fonts supplied with LaserEd and use them as guidelines when customizing a font or creating a new one. Cell Width This is the maximum width of a character cell for the entire font. Again check the cell width for the fonts supplied with LaserEd and use them as guidelines when customizing a font or creating a new one. Baseline Distance The baseline is the imaginary line on which a letter without a so-called descender rests, e.g. "a" but not "y". By baseline distance is meant the number of dots from the top of a cell to the baseline. Again this is a value which refers to the entire font. Do not alter unless you really know what you are doing. Stroke Weight Laser printers are distinguished, among other things, by their ability to vary the darkness of print much more precisely than dot matrix printers. The stroke, or relative intensity of print, normally has a value of 0, +3 is then bold and -3 is light; other values are conceivable, e.g. -1 for slightly lighter stroke weight, 5 for very dark print, etc. Note furthermore that with laser printers one must distinguish between stroke weight (light, medium or bold print) and boldface type, the latter being realised via a special font which has thicker letter stems. Font Typeface This parameter refers to the overall general shape of the letters and symbols of a font. The values correspond to common typefaces according to the following table: 0 Line Printer 1 Pica 2 Elite 3 Courier 4 Helvetica 5 Times Roman 6 Gothic 7 Script 8 Prestige 9 Caslon 10 Orator With user-defined fonts this parameter is of no practical relevance as the shape of the lettering is determined solely by the user. Changing this parameter will not alter the form of your font characters either. The only exceptions to this are Courier, Letter Gothic and Line Printer which involve fixed spacing, see remarks on pitch above. Upright(0)/Italic(1) What this parameter refers to should be self-evident. As with the previous parameter it serves a purely documentary purpose as the user can decide what slant factor (if any) to give the characters of his/her font. Setting this parameter to 1 will not italicise an upright font. Fixed(0)/Proportional(1) Practically all fonts for laser printers are proportional with the exception of Courier, Letter Gothic and Line Printer which are normal "typewriter"-like typefaces used for special purposes (such as quoting DOS names or indicating keyboard entries as in the present book). The value chosen here applies of course to the entire font. Portrait(0)/Landscape(1) As you know, laser printers do not come in normal and wide versions like dot matrix printers to accomodate for sideways printing if required. You can achieve this nonetheless as you have the option of specifying whether printing it to be done parallel to the top edge of the sheet of paper (the so-called portrait mode, the normal direction of printing) or parallel to the side of the sheet of paper (the so-called landscape mode, sideways printing). With this parameter you specify the direction of printing. If you specify a font as landscape then the character width (see above) is what is normally the height of a character and the character height is what is usually the width of a character as indicated by the following diagramme: Ŀ ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ Character Height ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ ۳ Character Width Ĵ Baseline 31.1.3. Print test table of font Testing characters which one has defined with LaserEd can only be done by printing an entire table. Use this option after you have finished editing a character set to see what it looks like on paper. As the option of test printing a single character is not included in LaserEd (for technical reasons, concerning the laser printer) another feature is offered, namely that of viewing a single character in the graphics mode on screen with the key combination , see below. 31.1.4. Download a font to printer This is basically the same option as the last except that the downloaded font is not printed as well. Here you must, in contradistinction to the previous option, specify the ID which the font file is to carry when loaded into the printer, more on this below. 21.2. Editing commands After you have chosen a font (or taken the necessary steps towards creating a new one) and either changed the font descriptor parameters or left them unaltered you are presented with the edit screen which is functionally similar to that in DotEd although it looks somewhat different. The first point to note is that the bit map matrix is much larger than with DotEd. Furthermore only a section of the matrix can be displayed on the screen at any one time as the latter simply is not large enough (in the text mode) to show many laser printer characters. Ŀ ͸ Sh-Tab Menus F7 = Quit ij Row: Col: ij Char. Ascii 146 Hex. 92 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567 Consider the example of a 14 point font. Here the capital letters only about two thirds fit on the visible part of the bit map matrix (although there is no upper and left-hand margin used for the bit map) as in the printout on the preceding page. The rest of a partially displayed character can be seen when one enters the editing mode as described below. At the present stage the user can choose to page in the file by using <[Ctrl-]PageUp> and <[Ctrl-]PageDown>. The number counter on the bottom right-hand side of the screen indicates the ASCII number associated with the bit map matrix being currently displayed. Bear in mind that you only see as much of a character as fits on the visible portion of the bit map. In every case, however, this is enough to recognise a character. If you wish to view it entirely you have two options. Either press to zoom the character down by a factor one. The screen changes and the character is displayed temporarily in this format as in the following example. As prompted, pressing any key returns you to the edit screen. Ŀ Move: [Ctrl-] PgUp, PgDn; Exit: Space; Outset: Escape [Char.: 146] Using the key combination leads to the screen entering the graphics mode (with the characterstic "twitching" associated with this change in mode) and the character is displayed in a very much zoomed down format which has the advantage that one can more readily imagine what the characters looks like when printed. To see several characters at once, press the key combination . However, as the characters of a laser printer font file are very much larger (i.e. consist of more dots) than those for a dot matrix printer, only a maximum of 128 characters can be viewed at a time. The option works by starting at the current character and displaying the next 128 characters from the character font as long as the end of the font file has been not reached. This means that if you are presently located at ASCII $240 in a font file then only a maximum of 15 characters will be displayed with the option whereas using this combined keystroke at the beginning of a font will lead to an entire screenful of characters being displayed (assuming the font file contains a full set of characters). Another point to note in this connection is that the characters one sees may be truncated on the left and bottom edges. This is due to the algorithm used to display the characters which only allows a matrix of 40 x 40 to be used when showing a font graphically (otherwise even fewer characters would be shown on the screen). Despite this the present option still serves the purpose of allowing the user to recognise at a glance what the next 128 characters contained in the set are. The key is used to leave the scroll mode and enter the edit mode just as with DotEd. The margins of the matrix are displayed in high video and a cursor appears in the center of the screen which can be moved in the expected directions with the arrow keys or , , , (see the command summary at the end of the present section for a detailed description of cursor movements). 31.2.0. Preamble: What is a bit map? You can see from the above edit screen that the current character is displayed in a matrix in the left half of the screen. This is what is called a bit map of the character. A bit map is an area of memory which is also displayed on the screen and which contains the pattern of a character (for a screen or printer font) in a one to one relationship, i.e. one pixel of the character matrix corresponds to one block character in the bit map, one free pixel dot to a dot in the bit map. For the purpose of visual recognition a dot of the bit map is shown as a shaded block (ASCII $178) and an empty pixel dot as a simple dot (ASCII $250 = small period). The pattern in a bit map is arrived at by reading an input file (screen or printer font file) which is a binary DOS file. The programme which generates the bit map (within the LinguaFont set it could be LaserEd, DotEd or VideoEd) is able to read the input file and translate the information it contains into the correct pattern for the bit map. Intuitively you recognise the characters on the screen as the correct forms of those in the file. The user of a character editor only edits the bit map. For this a series of functions are made available to the user internally by the programme (see the editing commands below). When the user finishes a work session the character editor translates the current pattern of each bit map (one for each character in a font file) back into the binary form required by the device for which the file is intended (screen or printer). This output file is different from the input file by the amount by which the user has altered the characters during the work session. So much for the theory. In practice the user is only interested in the commands for editing the bit map. These are now explained below. 31.2.1. Editing Commands Paging in a character set. When the edit screen appears first you cannot edit a character. Instead you can scroll in the file by using the and keys. By default, the first character shown on entering the edit screen is the first character of the file you have loaded (or an empty screen if you have just created a new file). Try using the and keys. You will notice in the bottom right of the screen that ASCII numbers are counted upwards or downwards depending on what direction you scroll in. Furthermore, not every ASCII value in the bottom righthand corner corresponds to a character on the screen. For some values there is no character in the screen matrix. This simply means that there is no character defined for that ASCII value in the input font file. Note. You should not be upset if there is so much empty space in the font file as presented within LaserEd. The empty characters are filtered out when saving the file (the DOS binary file is quite compact). Editing a character To edit a character simply press . You will notice two things at once. First of all a cursor appears in the middle of the screen and secondly the margins of the character box are displayed in high video so that you immediately recognise that you are in the edit mode. The cursor can be moved up and down with the Arrow keys or you can jump to the edge of the matrix with , , or which move the cursor up, down, left or right respectively. The cursor position in the matrix is the position where a block can be inserted or deleted. When you are finished editing the current character and wish to move to another, press again. You will notice that the cursor disappears, and the border of the screen matrix is no longer displayed brightly. Use or to move to the new location and to edit this character. Ins, Del Set, Delete Block. There are a variety of ways of entering or removing blocks in the edit screen. The simplest of all is the press the key to insert a block at the current cursor position, and to remove a block. This can be used when making minor corrections to a character. Shift+ArrowKey Repeat Set. A far speedier way of inserting blocks is to press the key (left or right) and use one of the Arrow keys simultaneously. The cursor moves in the direction of the Arrow key pressed and keeps moving until the edge of matrix is reached. Ctrl+ArrowKey Repeat Delete. The corresponding means of removing blocks is to press the key and use one of the Arrow keys. Unfortunately due to a quirk of the operating system, it is not possible to use the key with a vertical Arrow key. To achieve this function I have had to use the key combinations (with "U" for up) and (with "D" for down). These combinations delete a column of blocks in upward or downward direction respectively. If a block is not present at a particular location, the cursor continues through it and deletes the next location which is occupied. Return Save Changes. When you finish editing a character and wish to move to the next you press (cursor disappears and you can page to another character). Escape Reject Changes. It you wish to abandon the changes which you made to a character, press . The original shape of the character is restored and you can page to a new character. 41.2.1.1. Using a mouse to draw characters If a mouse is present in your system and if the necessary mouse driver has been loaded beforehand, then you can move the cursor in the grid of the current character via the mouse. The advantage of the mouse is that you can move in any direction, and not just in straight lines at ninety degrees to each other as with the cursor keys alone. Both buttons of the mouse are programmed for use in LaserEd. The left button serves the simple function of setting a dot in the grid; the right button removes one if the cursor is moved to a point which is already occupied by a dot. The mouse cursor and the normal cursor are linked to allow you to switch between keyboard and mouse at ease. Note that you can in theory move the mouse cursor to any position on the screen but that it can only be used when within the character grid. There is one exception to the last statement: if you move the mouse cursor to the arrow at the top or the bottom of the slide bar column on the left of the screen and press the left mouse button then the current character is shifted up or down to render a previously hidden section of the character grid visible. 31.2.2. Additional commands 41.2.2.1. File Information (Shift-F1) In order to keep you informed of what file you are editing, its name, how many characters it has, your current directory, etc. a window appears on pressing which displays various items of information about the status of the font file and the environment in which the LaserEd is running. Press any key to return to the edit screen. Ŀ ͸ Sh-Tab Menus F7 = Quit ͸ij File Name RUSS_TMS.LPF Font Type 12 Point Times Roman Row: File Size 95 Chars. [15,314 Bytes] Archived 03/15/93 ; 11:30 Col: Current Path D:\TC\LINGFONT\LASER Disk Space 7,991,296 ij Memory Left 243,216 Char. Current Time 13:07:40 y Current Date 6/8/1993 Ascii 121 Press any Key ; Hex. 79 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567 41.2.2.2. Check Font Integrity (Alt-F1) The programme LaserEd does not as a rule check if the characters you design conform to the type of font which you have specified for the current set. For instance you can, if you have disabled box size limiting on entering the character editing level, create characters which are greater that the box size which is taken as correct going on the values for parameters in the font header (to be seen immediately after selecting a font on the desktop). Equally you can use a baseline distance which is greater than that specified in the font header. The consequences of such flouting of font specifications are not apparent in LaserEd but are when you attempt to print characters from such a defective font. The result is simply that any character which disagrees with font specifications is not printed. In order to avoid the dismay of not having your characters printed, the present option has been included in LaserEd. It functions as follows. From the current character onwards it checks that the four essential parameters in the font header are not flouted by any character in the font you are designing. 1) Font cell width 2) Font cell height 3) Baseline distance 4) Font descender Ŀ ͸ Sh-Tab Menus F7 = Quit ij Row: | 1 | Col: | 1 Parameters do not match font header! Ŀ  Font Cell Width : 30 This Char.: 31 ij Font Cell Height : 50 This Char.: 29 Char. Font Baseline : 42 This Char.: 30 S Font Descender : 8 This Char.: 0 Ascii 83 Edit: , Next char.: Space; Abort: Esc Hex. 53 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567 Should this be the case then the programme halts and displays a window with the values for the font in general and the current character. You will immediately notice that in at least one of these parameters, the current character exceeds a value from the font header as in the following example where the character is one unit too wide (31 as opposed to 30 for the font in general). If you downloaded the font with this character and tried to print it then nothing would appear on paper as the character definition is unacceptable to the laser printer going on the font header specifications. 41.2.2.3. Move Character (F2) While function key is used to move characters to different locations within a font file (see below), the concern here is with moving a character around within the bit map matrix itself. Press and use one of the Arrow keys to move in one of the four cardinal directions. Note. If you move a character so far to the edge that part of it disappears off the screen then this is lost, i.e. moving the character back will not retrieve the section moved off the edge. However, you can retrieve the entire character (at the position it was in at the outset of the present operation) by pressing for undo. 41.2.2.4. Swivel Character (Shift-F2) In many cases a new character which one requires is an old character upside down or back to front (this is often the case with phonetic symbols, for example). To avoid the chore of drawing a new character in its entirety, copy the old character from its original location into the current one and use the present function - swivel character - to turn the character to the required extent. Note that the character is swivelled in increments of 90 degrees. Conclude the operation by pressing . 41.2.2.5. Mark Block (Ctrl-F2) You can not only move entire characters within LaserEd, you can also operate on a section of a character. To do this you must first mark the appropriate part of the character. Press ; you can now block mark (shown in inverse video) a section of the current character by using the cursor keys in combination with the key to move in any particular direction. The initial row and column of the cursor after pressing is the starting point for the block marking process. You can move the cursor either above or below, to the left or the right of this initial position. When the desired amount is marked you have three options: 1) Press to shift the block within the current character grid 2) Press to store block in the clipboard. 3) Press to delete marked section of the current character. The first option allows you to shift a section of a character to a new location (the original section is deleted at its old location). To move the marked section use the cursor keys (without holding the key down!) and press to confirm the shift to the new location. The second option causes the marked section of the current character to be stored in a reserved section of memory called a clipboard from where it can be retrieved by the user later on. When you copy a section of a character to the clipboard it is not deleted at its original position (contrast this with shifting a section within the current character grid). The contents of the clipboard can be retrieved more than once if you wish. In fact, the contents are only altered when you re-fill the clipboard with fresh contents. The third option does not require commenting. Pressing aborts the present operation. 41.2.2.6. Copy From Clipboard (Alt-F2) Obviously you will want to retrieve the contents of the clipboard at some point when you are processing another character. This is done with the present key combination. Bear in mind that the current cursor position in the character grid represents the top left-hand corner for the clipboard contents which are about to be inserted. Ensure that there is enough space between the present cursor position and the right and bottom margins of the grid to accomodate the clipboard contents otherwise the overspill will be lost. 41.2.2.7. Character Mask (F3) When creating or altering a symbol it is frequently helpful to access a further symbol which can act as a template in designing the new one. This step is realised in LaserEd with the present feature. On pressing you are requested to enter the name of a symbol which is to be displayed as a mask. Assuming that you enter the number of a symbol which is actually defined in the present font, its shape is displayed with asterisks. This mask remains displayed until you exit the editing mode via or . You may overwrite the asterisks of a character mask with the blocks used for character design. Indeed this is the intention as one normally wishes to copy the shape of the mask (or parts of it) into the present symbol. Ŀ ********͸ ******** Sh-Tab ********* Menus ******* F7 = ********* Quit *********ij ********* ******* **** Row: ***** ******** Col: ******* ******* ******** ********ij ********* ******** Char. ********* ^ ********* Ascii ********* 94 ************ Hex. *************** 5E ******************* ***************; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567 41.2.2.8. Invert Character (Shift-F3) This is a simple function which turns every filled space (block character) in the bit map into an empty space (small full stop). 41.2.2.9. Mirror Image (Ctrl-F3) With the current command it is possible to duplicate a section of the current character in the form of a mirror image. The feature works as follows. You move the cursor to the row or column to the right of or below which you wish the mirror image to be realised. By pressing one of the four arrow keys the section of the present character which is located in the opposite direction to the arrow key pressed is copied in mirror image form in the direction of the arrow. The procedure can be illustrated neatly with the following printout which shows on the left half a symbol drawn by the author. The cursor was then moved to the first column after the last one on the right with dots in it; then came the keystrokes and . The latter arrow key caused the portion in the left of the character box to be duplicated in mirror image form on the right resulting in a character consisting of two symmetrical halves along a vertical axis represented by the current cursor column.   -   123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 41.2.2.10. View Clipboard Contents (Alt-F3) The present command permits you to take a look at what is in the clipboard at the moment. If it is empty, an appropriate message is issued. The screen changes are the section of the stored character is displayed. 41.2.2.11. Expand Character (F4) You might find when creating a new character that this is like an existing one but slightly broader or longer. Copy the existing character into the current matrix using and expand the character by the desired amount using the present command. Note that the expansion consists of duplicating the current column or row at the current cursor position and inserting it into the character. To duplicate a column use either the or key; to duplicate a row, use the or key. Conclude the operation by pressing . 41.2.2.12. Compress Character (Shift-F4) This is the reverse of the above command. It removes the current column from a character if the or key is used; it removes the current row if the or key is used. 41.2.2.13. Italicise Character (Ctrl-F4) With the LinguaFont package you can italicise an entire laser font by means of the programme Italic. It is equally possible to italicise a single character with the current key combination within LaserEd. Should the degree of italicisation not be sufficient you can repeat the keystroke thus increasing the slant of the character.   -   123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 Notes 1) Some editing may be necessary after automatic italicisation as upright letters differ from italic ones not just in the slant factor but also in their general shape. 2) The present function is not included in DotEd. It is not necessary with the character editor for dot matrix printers as the latter can italicise any character by simply sending the necessary printer control sequence (ESC 4 for "italics on" and ESC 5 for "italics off"). 41.2.2.14. Shift Character Mask (Alt-F4) Once you have chosen a character to act as mask you can move it around the character box with the present key combination. This is frequently necessary as LaserEd displays a mask in the upper lefthand side of the box to begin with. Move the mask with one of the four arrow keys and press to terminate. 41.2.2.15. Rotate Character (F5) Essentially this feature converts a portrait display into a landscape display. You may continue the rotation beyond 90 degrees, indeed any character can be rotated full circle, i.e. 360 degrees. This feature can be useful when creating special fonts, e.g. when generating a schwa for a phonetic font from a normal e by rotation as in the following printout.   -   123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 41.2.2.16. Set Character Baseline (Shift-F5) You will have noticed that characters are displayed in LaserEd pressed up against the upper left corner of the character matrix. This is quite deliberate as pointed out above. However, the user will be wondering how LaserEd knows where each character is positioned vertically. This is determined by the baseline which can be set by the user him/herself. The baseline may be altered by pressing when editing a character. With the and keys you move the baseline bar to the row in the current character where you want it to be and press . The movable baseline bar halts at the current row and from then on is displayed under the character being edited. If you press to check on the individual character parameters then you will notice that the top offset now has a value corresponding to the row to which you moved the baseline bar (actually less 1 as the top offset value starts at 0 whereas counting of rows and columns in the bit map starts at 1 to correspond to the intuitions of non-programmer users). The default baseline value is the same as the height of the character (less 1). If you do not determine the baseline with , LaserEd will cause the current character to "sit" on the baseline. Note The baseline is drawn with the current character when you press to view the latter in the graphics mode. 41.2.2.17. View Font Settings (Ctrl-F5) Displays the information from the header of the current font. You cannot change any values here; to do this you should exit to the desktop and reload the font, availing of the opportunity to edit the header which is offered before transferring to the character editing level. 41.2.2.18. Undo Last Change (F6) Restores the character matrix before the last major change. 41.2.2.19. Delete Character (Shift-F6) Simplies empties the character box of any contents. 41.2.2.20. Character Parameters (Shift-F7) In addition to a font descriptor at the beginning of a font file in the Hewlett Packard format there is also a character descriptor, a series of 16 bytes, at the beginning of the definition of each character contained in the font file. This character descriptor contains information on parameters which apply only to the character being currently defined. Within LaserEd the user has the possibility of viewing and possibly editing these. To do so, press ; a window opens in the middle of the screen which looks like the following. A total of five parameters are listed here. There is in fact a sixth, orientation, which is included in the character descriptor. If you wish to change the orientation of a single character, i.e. rotate it, then you should press when editing the current character, see description of this command above. Ŀ ͸ Sh-Tab Menus F7 = Quit ͸ij Parameters for Individual Character ow: Left Margin 1 ol: Character Width 49 Character Height 35 Top Offset (Baseline - 1) 34 ij Delta-X 204 har. Edit: F5; Toggle limiting: F10, otherwise any key... scii ;146 Hex. 92 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 You may only change the first and fourth values listed here. The remaining three are listed for your information and are calculated by LaserEd on the basis of the character as you define it within the bit map matrix (character box). Furthermore, note that the terms "offset" and "margin" are used synonymously in the present book. You may view the font parameters in the edit or scroll mode by pressing . This does not allow you to change any values but to check on them, e.g. to see what the cell width and height are or what value the baseline has. Left Margin. You will have noted that characters from a laser printer font file are displayed without any margins (either at the top or the left) within LaserEd (contrast this with the situation within DotEd below). This is perfectly normal. Any margins are calculated using information contained as values for parameters either in the font descriptor at the beginning of the font file or here as values within the character descriptor. The left margin for a character can be specified at this point. Typical values for this parameter are 0 or 1, a negative value may also be entered but be careful with this as it might lead to the left edge of the current character overlapping with the previous character when printed. Trial and error is the best way to find out if the spacing between characters is to your taste. Right Margin. In the Hewlett Packard printer command language for laser printers there is no parameter "right margin". Strictly speaking it is not necessary. If every character has a left offset then there will always be space between adjacent characters when printed. Within LaserEd a slight right margin is provided for by duplicating the left margin and adding this to the character width to obtain the Delta-X value for the current character. Character Width. Disregarding the left and right margins, one is left with a value for the number of columns occupied by a character which actually contain dots (blocks of video representation on the screen). This is the character width or sometimes called "ink width" to emphasise that one is referring to the total number columns which are partially or totally filled by dots. Character Height. This is the number of rows a character is high plus one (which is the baseline). If the character has a descender, i.e. if it extends downwards below the baseline (as with "y", "j", etc.), then these rows are also included in the character height value. Top Offset. The distance between the topmost row of a character and the baseline (but not including the latter, compare the previous parameter in this respect) is termed the top offset. It is used to calculate the height of a descender as the latter is then the character height minus the top offset. Delta-X. This value represents the total distance travelled by the printer cursor after it has printed a character. In practice this is the left margin, the ink width of a character and a right margin which in LaserEd is a duplicate of the left margin. 41.2.2.21. Switch Colours (Ctrl-F7) This command activates a toggle which moves through the seven colour options of LaserEd. Keep pressing until you reach the combination you want. The initial option has light blue lettering on a blue background with pink for high video (i.e. the equivalent of bright lettering on a monochrome system). 41.2.2.22. Copy, Move Character (F8, Shift-F8) Copying and moving characters is achieved with the same combination of keys here ( and respectively) as in DotEd (see below). One essential difference is that the laser printer editor allows you to copy characters to a value which is determined by the video character set. Alt-V Video character set. After pressing (Copy) or (Move) you can step from character to character with or , jump to the beginning or end of the font with or or you can go to a character with . In addition you can press and the current video set is displayed. You will notice that there is a highlight bar which can be moved in each direction with the arrow keys. The idea here is that you move the highlighting to the ASCII value to which you wish to copy the current character and press or . Once you do this the video character set disappears and you are left with the box of the character whose value you just selected. There are two legal keystrokes for terminating the copy operation: and . The former copies (or moves) the character and leaves you at the new character. The latter copies (or moves) in the same manner but returns you to the address of the source character. The advantage of this option is that it allows you to coordinate printer and video fonts. By loading a customed video font (with LoadVideo or VideoPermanent) before starting LaserEd you can then match the numbers of the laser printer font with those of the video font by copying characters via . If you choose to load a customised font with LoadVideo then you will lose this font if you press or within LaserEd, i.e. if you switch to a graphics mode. This is behavaiour of LoadVideo is intentional and not a bug. To load a customised font which will survive switching to the graphics mode use VideoPermanent instead which as the name implies is not effected by the action of any software. 41.2.2.23. Zoom Character, 1 (F9) In order to gain a better impression of the proportions of a character an additional option has been included here which shows the current character on a separate screen. The character is zoomed down somewhat; each block here is square whereas the blocks of which a character is composed in the normal bit map are rectangular with the vertical sides longer than the horizontal ones. Alternative keystroke: . Ŀ Move: [Ctrl-] PgUp, PgDn; Exit: Space; Outset: Escape [Char.: \ 92 ] 41.2.2.24. Zoom Character, 2 (Shift-F9) This option provides a further reduction in the size of the matrix used to display the current character. In fact the video mode is changed to graphics (which you notice by the twitching of the screen). The current character is now displayed on its own in the middle of the screen in a much-reduced size. Press any key to continue with LaserEd. Note When a character is zoomed down, by whatever factor, you can navigate using the normal keys <[Ctrl-]PgUp>, <[Ctrl-]PgDn>. To exit and remain at the new character position, press or . To return to the outset character, press . 41.2.2.25. Save font to disk (F10) With the current command it is possible to store the character set file currently in system memory to disk. You are strongly advised to do this at periodic intervals to ensure that should anything untoward happen you will still have an uptodate version of the present character set on disk. Ŀ ͸ Sh-Tab Menus F7 = Quit ij = Change Ŀ Row: D:\TC\LINGFONT\LASER Col: Directory for File ij Ŀ Enter File Name, = No Save Char. x Ascii 120 ͸ Hex. = MOD_GREK.LPF 78 ;  ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567 Notes. You can change the directory to be used to store the file in by pressing . This command is functionally equivalent to the similar option in the file lister of the main menu (see above for details). When saving a file enter the bare name. The character set file is always saved to the current DOS directory which is indicated in the top window shown with this command. 41.2.2.26. View Entire Font (Shift-F10) To see what characters are included in the entire font you do not have to page through the whole file. Simply press and the screen changes to display (in a graphics mode) the entire font as defined. If characters are not defined at contiguous locations there may be blanks in the display. To return to the edit screen press any key. Note Do not be upset by the screen "twitching" when you press and when you return again. This is due to the screen mode changing from text to graphics (and back again) and is perfectly normal. 41.2.2.27. Load Second Font (Alt-F10) At any point when editing a font with LaserEd it is possible to import a character from a second external font. This is realised via the present option. What happens here is that you are requested to choose a font from a directory listing, this then being loaded and displayed as on the following screen. You can page in the font with the normal navigation keystrokes <[Ctrl-]PgUp> and <[Ctrl-] PgDn>. When you have reached the character you want you can terminate with one of four keys. F5 Copy the character from the second font into current box, deleting any previous contents in the process. F6 Superimpose the character from the second font on the character from the first font. F7 Import the character from the second font as a character mask. Esc Abort the operation entirely. Note Once you have terminated the present option (irrespective of the keys used to do this) you are asked whether the font is to be unloaded. If you wish to import more characters then answer in the negative. Should you require the system memory used by the second font, then unload it and the memory is released for renewed use by LaserEd. Ŀ ͵ F5: Copy; F6: Impose; F7: Mask ͸ ij Size: 99 Chars. [11,177 Bytes] ------------------- File: PHONETIC.LPF Char.: " 34 22 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456; 41.2.2.28. Move up, down and edit character (F11, F12) When editing a font you may wish to move up and down and edit it as you do so, in fact move from one character to the next and enter the edit mode automatically. Normally this would involve pressing , (or ) and again. To reduce the number of keystrokes necessary, the keys and realise the same steps (in either direction) when you are already editing a character. Note For the and keys to respond you must use the supplied keyboard driver AKeyb (see below) instead of the DOS keyboard. 21.3. Character width tables When you process a download character set which has a proportional pitch and then save this when you finish a work session with LaserEd an additional file is saved alongside the actual character set definition file (with the extension .dl3). This file always has the extension .tbl; the part of the file name before the extension is identical with the name of the font from which the table of character widths is created. It contains the relative widths of the characters which are contained in the proportional file you have just processed. Note that this file is created each time you process a proportionally pitched download font file and the previous version of the file, if there is one, is overwritten. The purpose of the file is to offer the user a list of character widths which can then be entered into the character width table of the word processor from within which he/she wishes to print a customised screen font which corresponds to the proportionally pitched printer download font. The question naturally arises at this point, how does LaserEd calculate the width of a character? Quite simply: it takes the left offset of a character (the number of columns which the user has left free between the left edge of the bitmap matrix and the first column occupied, wholy or partially, by blocks) adds the so-called ink width of the character (the number of columns with blocks in them) and duplicates the left offset to obtain a value for the right offset. The sum of these three values, left offset, ink width and right offset (=left offset) equals the width of the character as entered into the file of character widths. Care needs to be taken when defining character widths. The first point to remember is that you do not enter the width of a download symbol at the same ASCII value in the screen font but at the address in the screen font at which the same symbol is to be found. Say you have defined, for the screen, an "i" without a dot on it (as is needed for Turkish) and assigned the ASCII value $139 to it (an "i" with a diaeresis over it in the normal IBM character set). The ASCII address you have chosen in the printer download font file is, say, $105 (this is the value of lowercase "i" in the lower ASCII area). The dotless "i" in the download will be quite slender and so you must convey this to the word processor via a character width table. The symbol which obtains the width of the dotless "i" as specified in the character width file will be ASCII $139 (and not ASCII $105 of the screen font as this is normal "i"). You will then, via a character translation table, ensure that $139 on the screen is converted to $105 for printing (see 6.1.1. below). If you go to the trouble of entering all the relative character widths as determined by LaserEd for a proportional font into a corresponding character width table in your word processor, then you can obtain full right justification even with customised printer fonts which are proportionally pitched. 21.4. Addressing downloaded fonts When you load a font file into a laser printer you must assign it a number because a laser printer can accomodate a series of downloaded fonts. This number is a value from 0 through 32767 and a maximum of 32 fonts can be loaded into the printer at any one time (and 16 be used per page). Having loaded a series of fonts into your printer they are then at your disposal and can be addressed in one of two ways. 1) By specifying the characteristics of a font in the form of an escape sequence as in the following example: ESC(8UESC(s1p10h12v0s0b5T This escape sequence refers to a (primary) font with (i) Roman 8 symbol set [ESC(8U], (ii) proportional spacing [ESC(s 1p], (ii) 10 characters per inch pitch [10h], (iii) 12 point size [12v], (iv) upright style [0s], (v) medium stroke weight [0b], (vi) Times Roman typeface [5T]. The laser printer now searches its memory for a downloaded font which matches these characteristics. If it finds one, this is then chosen as the active font; if not, it activates the font which matches the specified characteristics most closely (with an order of priority which is determined by the font parameters as they are listed from left to right). This method is not advisable with download fonts which contain customised fonts. The reason why is as follows. Say you print a text with a Times Roman 12 point font as base (this may well have to be present in the printer's memory as a downloaded soft font as it is not necessarily included as firmware in the printer to start with). You have in addition a user-defined font with phonetic symbols, for argument's sake. These symbols have been defined to look like a Times Roman font to ensure consistency of appearence between your standard Times Roman 12 point font and your customised phonetic font. You now load both files into the printer with different font IDs (more on this in a moment). To activate the phonetic font you specify the font's characteristics with a sequence like that quoted above. What happens now? The printer searches its memory for a matching font and finds one. Which one is it? Both the normal Times Roman font and the phonetic font have the same characteristics (the shape of the characters is irrelevant here), so that the printer chooses the font with the lower ID. This is problematic, however, as you now cannot address the second font because its font characteristics are identical with the first font with the lower font number and so you can never use it when printing. The solution to this dilemma lies in the second method of addressing and activating downloaded fonts. 2) A downloaded font file can be activated by using the ID number associated with it. This now allows you to address and activate two fonts which may have identical font characteristics (as in the case sketched above). The escape sequence for this is the following. ESC(#X (where # stands for the ID number) In your data processing software (e.g. word processor) you need only specify the font ID as the escape sequence to be sent to the laser printer when you change fonts within a text from normal to user-defined. You can now appreciate why it is necessary to specify a font ID with the LoadLas programme. Furthermore you should be careful to use a number which is not used by another font (or the font first loaded will be overwritten by the second) and which corresponds to the font ID entered in the printer driver of your word processor as the escape sequence to activate your user-defined font. It would be sensible to choose a high value (like "99") for your special font; you can then rest assured that any normal fonts loaded into the laser printer (either by the user or via font loading software such as that which is commercially available for laser printers) neither overwrite your font nor are in turn overwritten. If you are au fait with batch files you may find them easier to use than loading fonts separately with individual copy commands; it is certainly a more efficient method of executing commands. A batch file can then be constructed which contains the ID specification sequence for your customised font immediately before the command to load the file. The sequence used to specify the ID number a font is to obtain in the printer is different from that used to activate a particular font, as you might expect. ESC*c#D (where # stands for the ID number) To achieve this do the following. Write a six byte long file with the following contents (enter the first byte, indicated by an ASCII number, via the key and the numeric keypad on the right of the keyboard): "$27*c99D". Use no spaces and no newline at the end of the sequence. Store the file as an ASCII text (no formatting information!) with the name myfont.id. Now generate a new text file with the following contents: copy myfont.id lpt1: /b copy phon_12u.lpf lpt1: /b Again store this as an ASCII text file with the name loadfont.bat. Now enter loadfont at the DOS prompt and the font ID will be loaded into the printer followed by the download font file specified in the batch file. The above example is intended as an illustration. You can call the files you generate what you like. However the batch file (the second one) must have the extension .bat for DOS to recognise it as a batch file. The contents of the batch file can be varied in a number of ways. It may contain the name of a different download font file than the example quoted (phon_12u.lpf) and it might contain several copy commands to load a whole set of files at once (say several normal font files and one or more user-defined fonts). The end of the copy command (lpt1: /b) is necessary to ensure that the files are copied to the printer at the first parallel port and that DOS knows they are binary (and not text) files. Needless to say the files referred to in the batch file must be accessible and your printer must be on-line. When the batch file is run you will see the "data" light on the control panel of the laser printer blinking while the downloading is taking place. A last word on font IDs. If you fail to specify an ID for a download file then it automatically obtains the identification number 0. This means it will overwrite any font with this number. If you now download another font without an ID it overwrites the first one and so on for any fonts without IDs. Note For more technical details concerning font addressing via escape sequences which describe font characteristics, consult the technical reference manual of your laser printer. 21.5. Troubleshooting with laser printer fonts 31.5.0. General As laser printers are more complicated than dot matrix printers the likelihood that a font you design does not work as you intended is obviously greater. The most disconcerting thing with a laser printer is to discover that it does not print your font at all although you have loaded it correctly into the printer with LoadLas (i.e. the printer did not "hang" on loading the font). The reaction of a laser printer to an incorrect command or a font in an incorrect format is simply to ignore it. This means that with a font you design and then load, a series of blanks appear where you expect your customised symbols. There are basically two possible causes of this: Font is (i) incorrectly defined or (ii) incorrectly activated (i) can arise from misuse of options in LaserEd. When you load a supplied font (or create one of your own for that matter), LaserEd assumes a set of default values for 8 essential parameters concerning the whole font (this is part of the font descriptor, see above). These are the following: 1) Pitch 2) Spacing (fixed or proportional) 2) Cell Height 3) Cell Width 4) Baseline 5) Symbol set 6) Typeface (Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier) 7) Style (upright or Italic) 8) Stroke weight You are strongly advised not to change these parameters unless you really know what you are doing. Altering these values can lead to incorrect information being stored in the font descriptor (header of the font). When you later try to activate a particular font from within your software the laser printer checks to see if there is a match between the escape sequence (printer command) which it has received from the software (e.g. word processor) and the fonts currently present in its RAM. It does this by examining the font descriptor of each font. If this has been changed so as to contain incorrect or even internally conflicting values the printer will ignore the entire font. The net result of this is that characters from this particular font will not be printed and you are left wondering why. In this connection you should exercise extreme caution when combining fonts with NewLas. There is nothing to stop you from joining characters from two fonts with each other which do not match. But when you load such an adulterated font into the printer the latter will ignore it if called to print characters from it. When shifting characters from one font to another (A to B in NewLas) make sure that both are of the same type, e.g. both Times Roman 12 Point, Helvetica 8 Point or whatever. Incorrect font activation is a matter for your software. As indicated above the easiest way of all to activate soft fonts in your laser printer is to allocate a font identification number to each of them on loading and then to address each font with the ID address sequence provided for in the Hewlett Packard laser printer control language (see details above). 31.5.1. Character grid parameters Font descriptor parameters 1)Cell Height. The maximum height of a character cell as defined in the font descriptor. View and/or alter in "Font Parameters" window. 2)Cell Width. The maximum width of a character cell as defined in the font descriptor. View and/or alter in "Font Parameters" window. 3)Baseline Distance. This is the distance between the upper edge of a cell (as determined by the cell height) and the imaginary line on which all letters without descenders (e.g. all uppercase and many lowercase letters) rest. It is fixed for the whole font in the font descriptor, see Top Offset below as well. Cell Width Ĵ Top Baseline Character Offset Distance Height Cell Height ܳ (Baseline) Character Width Left Ĵ Ĵ Offset Ĵ Delta-X Legend. The parameters which are doubly underlined are defined in the font descriptor at the head of the font file and to be edited on loading a font within LaserEd. The other parameters (marked in boldface) are specified for each character individually and to be edited by pressing when editing a character within LaserEd or are determined automatically by the programme when you finish processing a particular character. Individual character parameters 1)Character Height. The height of the individual character being defined; may not exceed the cell height, this is normally prevented by LaserEd. Automatically determined by LaserEd on finishing character editing. 2)Character Width. The width of the individual character being defined; may not exceed the cell width, this is normally prevented by LaserEd. Automatically determined by LaserEd on finishing character editing. 3)Top Offset. One of the parameters of an individual character which the user must determine him/herself. To do this, press and move the horizontal line to the point in the current character where you wish the baseline for that character to be. The resulting value, the number of rows between the upper edge of the character and the row where the horizontal line is moved to by the user represent the number of rows by which the current character will extend above the baseline (determined for the entire font via the value in the font descriptor) when printed. If you do not specify a top offset value via during editing and press to conclude, LaserEd will display the current value (that specified during a previous edit or the default value, used for new characters, of the cell height less 1) when you press to check / edit the parameters for the current character. 4)Left Offset. This parameter has a default value of 1; to alter it press , i.e. edit the parameters for an individual character (the current one). The left offset ist rarely greater than 6. 5)Delta-X. As noted above there is no parameter "Right Offset" for characters in Hewlett Packard soft fonts. Instead there is one called Delta-X which refers to the distance covered by the printer's cursor after printing a character. This consists of (i) the left offset, the ink width, and a number of columns which the user can regard as the right offset. The latter is always a duplicate of the left offset. The Delta-X value is calculated every time you edit a character and leave it again to continue scrolling in your font. You can view its value for any particular character by pressing . A note on the size of fonts When defining fonts you should keep to ASCII values between $33 and $126. It is true that you can define any of the 256 ASCII codes from within LaserEd. The real question is whether your software and the laser printer itself will go along with this. Characters below $32 are so-called printer control codes and may not be accepted by the printer or even released by your software (e.g. word processor) on printing. Character codes above $126 (i.e. in the upper ASCII area) suffer from similar drawbacks. Depending on how your software treats upper ASCII characters (and whether it translates these in an unexpected manner, you may experience difficulties here. If you find that you have not enough space for your special characters in one font (while staying within the safe limits just mentioned) then you can simply create a second font to complement the first. Note. With more recent versions of both data processing software and laser printers you should not experience difficulties with characters in the upper ASCII area so that you can use these without too many reservations. 21.6. The aesthetics of font design When you either upgrade a dot matrix font to the laser printer format or create a laser print font file yourself you will choose one of the following typefaces as a guide for the characters of your customised font. 1) Courier 2) Helvetica 3) Times Roman 4) Letter Gothic If you wish to take the path of least resistance then declare your font to be Courier or Letter Gothic. For one thing the forms of letters in such fonts are quite simple and resemble those of a traditional typewriter quite closely, for another these fonts have fixed spacing between characters so that you do not have to worry about entering the relative widths of each customised character in a proportional table in your data processing software to ensure flush right margins on printing. The second typeface, Helvetica, is deliberately simple in its design but is proportional. You will have to create a table of relative widths for the characters you design, but the actual designing is relatively unproblematic. The easiest way to try out a Helvetica font is to upgrade one of the supplied dot matrix fonts and with the help of Size expand the characters somewhat, say with a horizontal factor of 1 and a vertical factor of 4. This results in a 12 point font (approximately). The curves of some letters need to be finely adjusted somewhat (they look a little jagged). For all intents and purposes the result is then a Helvetica laser font. The third typeface, Times Roman, is by far the most demanding but also the most professional looking. The present book is set in Times Roman and printed on a laser printer, the results being the same as a typeset book. Consider for a moment some general facts about typefaces. There are two characteristics of all printed text no matter what the typeface used. The first concerns serifs: a typeface is either serifed or it is not (so-called sans-serif). Courier and Times Roman are serifed fonts while Helvetica is not. The second refers to the relative thickness of the lines and curves which letters consists of. Courier and Helvetica evince a uniform thickness while Times Roman varies thickness according to the relationship between a line or section of a curve to an imaginary vertical axis. Other typefaces used by printers such as Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni Roman have varying thickness of lines and curves. Fonts with varying thickness are always serifed. To create an aesthetically pleasing Times Roman font certain guidelines must be adhered to. These have to do with the lines, curves and serifs out of which the characters of a Times Roman font are composed. Lines. These are straight vertical, horizontal or diagonal strokes out of which a letter may be composed, e.g. uppercase "H" consists of two vertical and a horizontal line. The following rules apply to the relative thickness of lines (compare the various letters in the present book). 1) If a letter has only one vertical line then this is always thick (cf. "I"). 2) If a letter consists of two or more vertical lines then note that two thick or two thin lines cannot abut on each other (cf. "V", "W"). 3) Left-slanting diagonal lines are always thick (cf. "X", "V"). 4) Right-slanting diagonal lines are always thin (cf. "W", "A"). 5) Horizontal lines are always thin (cf. "H", "E"). 6) Vertical lines are always thick (cf. "F", "L") unless abutting on a diagonal which is thick, i.e. left-slanting (cf. "M", "N"). Curves. These vary in thickness along the length of the curve according to the following rule: 1)The maximum thickness of a curve is reached in the vertical plane (cf. "C", "o", "p", "q"). Conversely the minimum is reached on the horizontal plane. Compare rules 5) and 6) for lines. Serifs. These are tiny strokes placed at the ends of letters and which taper off away from the stem to the left and possibly to the right as well. They are intended to improve the quick recognition of letters and thus render text more readable. Note the following points concerning serifs: 1) Serifs are almost always parallel to the direction of print. There are only a few exceptions to this, e.g. "E", "F", "S" which have vertical serifs. 2) With lowercase letters the serifs at the top of letters (top of normal letters or those with ascenders) are usually only single-sided (cf. "u", "i", "d", "l"). There are a few exceptions to this such as "v" and "w". 3) Single-sided serifs always point to the left. 4) If a serif appears at the end of a curve with a lowercase letter then it adopts the form of a slight bulge as in "a", "f". Uppercase letters and lowercase "s" have a vertical serifs instead, cf. "C", "G", "s". 21.7. Command activation via menu system There are two basic means of activating commands within LaserEd. The first is that which has been discussed so far: the user presses a function key or combination of keys to start a command. The advantage of this method is one of speed, the disadvantage should be equally obvious: it is necessary to learn a large number of key combinations by heart. Keystroke for activation of menus: Shift-Tab Ŀ Font Manipulation Char. Editing 1 Char. Editing 2 Miscellaneous Ŀ Sh-Tab F2 Move character Menus Shift-F2 Swivel character F7 = ij Quit F3 Show char. mask ij Alt-F4 Shift char. mask ij Shift-F3 Invert character Ctrl-F3 Mirror image ij Row: F4 Expand character Shift-F4 Compress character Col: Ctrl-F4 Italicise char. ij F5 Rotate character Shift_F5 Set char. baseline ij Ctrl_F5 View font settings ij Char. F6 Undo last change Shift-F6 Delete character Ascii 227 Hex. E3 ------------------------------; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 What the beginner needs is a means of activating commands without knowing what keys are required. The solution to this dilemma is provided by a set of inbuilt picklists which are activated by a single keystroke. The user does not even have to remember what this is as it is continually prompted in the top righthand corner of the screen. Indeed any of a series of keystrokes will do here. Once a correct key combination has been pressed, a window will appear; this is one of four which can be selected by using the and keys. To move within a window use the or keys (or , ) for the beginning or end of a list. 21.8. Command Summary Function keys and combinations with Shift, Ctrl and Alt F1 = On-line help (requires lasered.hlp) SHIFT_F1 = File information CTRL_F1 = DOS call ALT_F1 = Check font integrity F2 = Move character SHIFT_F2 = Swivel character CTRL_F2 = Mark block ALT_F2 = Retrieve clipboard contents F3 = Character mask SHIFT_F3 = Invert character CTRL_F3 = Mirror image ALT_F3 = View clipboard contents F4 = Expand character SHIFT_F4 = Compress character CTRL_F4 = Italicise character ALT_F4 = Shift character mask F5 = Rotate character (portrait to landscape) SHIFT_F5 = Set baseline CTRL_F5 = Check font parameters F6 = Undo major change SHIFT_F6 = Delete character F7 = Return to main menu SHIFT_F7 = Character parameters CTRL_F7 = Switch colours F8 = Copy character SHIFT_F8 = Move character F9 (SPACE) = Zoom character (i) SHIFT_F9 = Zoom character (ii) F10 = Save font to disk SHIFT_F10 = View entire font ALT_F10 = Load second font F11 = Move up and edit character F12 = Move down and edit character Additional key settings (all apply to editing characters) ESCAPE = Reject changes to character (editing) ARROW KEYS = Move cursor within matrix (editing) SHIFT + ARROWS = Repeat set a dot in matrix (editing) CTRL + ARROWS = Repeat delete a dot in matrix (editing) CTRL_U / CTRL_D = Repeat delete (for up and down directions) INS / DEL = Set / delete a single dot in matrix END = Rightmost column in bit map matrix HOME = Leftmost column in bit map matrix CTRL_END = Delete character from cursor to right CTRL_HOME = Delete character from cursor to left CTRL_PG_UP (i) Delete character from cursor to top (editing) (ii) First character of font (scrolling) CTRL_PG_DN (i) Delete character from cursor to bottom (editing) (ii) Last character of font (scrolling) PAGE_UP (i) Top row of bit map matrix (editing) (ii) Scroll forwards in download font file PAGE_DOWN (i) Bottom row of bit map matrix (editing) (ii) Scroll backwards in download font file ALT_G Goto a certain character (edit & copy/move) ALT_V View video character set Note The key serves the main function of accepting an option or confirming an entry (mostly main menu). In addition it is used to conclude a temporary operation while editing a character, such as copying a character to a new position, shifting a character around in the character grid, etc. In the latter case you are always prompted to this effect via a message on the right of the screen. 12. DotEd Syntax: 1) doted [input_file] 2) doted /file_template This is the corresponding editor for character sets intended for a laser printer. In its command structure and screen layout it is similar to DotEd. Because of differences between dot matrix printers and laser printers, there are several details in which the two programmes differ, however. This is the character editor for 24 needle dot matrix printers. With it you can define your own characters, store them in a disk file and load the latter into your printer before you wish to print text in which these characters are to appear. Remember that characters for the screen are defined with VideoEd and that you must link screen characters with printer characters via a printer driver in your word processor. Just how this is done is explained in detail below. Like all the programmes of the LinguaFont package, DotEd is written in the programming language C++ in which it is often practice to pass any information required by a programme when calling it to start with. This is an option available in DotEd. Technically it is termed passing command line parameters. Consider how this works. You can start DotEd by simply typing doted at the DOS prompt (which will look something like C:> on your computer). But you may cause the programme to automatically load a character set file by specifying this immediately after the programme name on the command line, i.e. before pressing to execute the programme as in: doted russian.dl1 This assumes that there is a file 8russian.dl1 in the directory in which you are in and that (as its name implies) it is an DotEd character set file (more on this below). If DotEd does not find the file (you did not type it correctly or it really is not in the current directory) then it issues an error message and after pressing a key you are presented with the main menu as if you had simply entered doted. 22.0. Main Menu DotEd starts by presenting you with a screen in which seven options are listed. A highlight bar rests to begin with on the second option. To activate an option, move the bar with either the or key and press . Depending on the option you choose you will be prompted by the programme to take one or two further steps. The centre of the window offered at the beginning is the main menu and should look like the following: Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > DotEd <ij Ŀ Create a new font = Process an existing font Print test table of font Download a font to printer Create new font from existing one Change printer configuration Run printer test programme ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT --- Use , to move bar,  for option When you finish editing a character set you are returned to the main menu from which you can continue with some option or leave the programme (finish a work session). You leave by pressing the key; an on-line text is available by pressing the key. On the second last line of the screen, the current directory is displayed in inverse and on the last a message is displayed prompting the user what to do. 32.0.1. Making a DOS call During a work session with DotEd you may find at some point that you would like to do something in DOS (like look at a directory or run a programme). This can be achieved very simply by pressing . On doing this, the current screen disappears and you are suddenly in DOS. DotEd is now in the background and DOS is in the foreground. You know that DotEd is still there as the prompt in DOS is now Type "exit" to return to DotEd. This prompt is to remind you that you have called DOS temporarily from within DotEd (you might conceivably forget this). When you enter exit and press the screen of DotEd is restored as if nothing had happened. 32.1.1. Create a new font This is the first option but one which you should not need that often as predefined fonts are supplied with LinguaFont anyway. It is easier for you to take an existing font and alter it (with the next option) than to create one from scratch. Furthermore, you can create a new font by importing symbols from an existing font with the utility NewDot. However, if you choose the present method you must bear a few points in mind. Firstly you must specify a name for the new font. Up to eight characters are possible. Use names which suggest what characters will be contained in the font so that you can recognise a font's contents by its name afterwards. Note. Do not type an extension at the input prompt. Secondly you must indicate what type of download font you intend to construct. For this purpose a window opens in which you can choose what pitch you wish the new font to be in. There are four possibilities here: 1) Pica (10 characters per inch) 2) Elite (12 characters per inch) 3) Proportional (variable pitch) 4) Draft (lower character resolution) You will have noted that there are different extensions for download fonts. The extension indicates what pitch holds for the download font according to the following key. .DL1 = Pica .DL2 = Elite .DL3 = Proportional .DL4 = Draft Never change the extension of a file as this will disturb the operation of DotEd. If you wish to convert one pitch type into another, use the programme TranDot which has been specifically designed for this purpose. Once you have specified the pitch for a font, the screen changes and you are presented with the editing screen which will of course be empty. With the and keys you can move to the ASCII number which you wish to use as the address for the first symbol you define; a number counter can be seen at the bottom left corner of the screen which changes its value in ascending or descending order depending on whether you press or . Press to start editing a character at the current ASCII number (what you can do at this stage is explained below). Continue this procedure until you have created as many new characters as you wish (or wish to create in a work session - you can process this file again later, of course). 32.1.2. Fonts in draft mode Fonts for use in draft mode can be processed with DotEd. These fonts need far less information for the representation of a single character (as fewer dots are use per symbol during printing). The net result is faster printing which often compensates for the poorer quality of such fonts vis vis letter quality fonts. If you wish to create a draft mode font then choose a normal (letter quality) font on the desktop level of DotEd and convert it to a draft font via after you have transferred to the editing level. You will notice immediately that each symbol now only occupies one fourth of the space it did previously. It may happen that the conversion does not result in symbols which are aesthetically satisfying so that it will probably necessary to do some editing with them. Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 Shift-F1 = File Information 7 ų (Shift)F2 = Move (Swivel) 8 Ctrl/Alt-F2 = Block/Clipboard 9 F3/Alt-F3 = Char.Mask / Clip 10 Shift-F3 = Invert Character 11 Ctrl-F3 = Mirror Image 12 (Shift-)F4 = Expand (Compress) 13 Shift-F5 = Convert to Draft 14 (Shift-)F6 = (Delete Char.)Undo 15 F7 = Test Print Char. 16 (Shift-)F8 = (Move) Copy Char. 17 (Shift-)F9 = Zoom Character 18 F10 = Return to Main Menu 19 ų Shift-F10 = Display Entire Font 20 Return/Esc = Save/Reject changes 21 ij 22 File: RUSSIAN.DL4 23 Character: s ASCII: 115 Hex: 73 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] Always store a draft mode font with the extension .dl4. Such a font can be sent to the printer either from the desktop of DotEd or with the utility LoadDot. A draft mode font is always 9 dots wide (the height of characters is 24 for all types of fonts). During printing a gap of 3 points is left between any two symbols. You may utilise the full width of 9 dots when designing a draft mode font. 32.1.3. Process an existing font With this option you are presented with a list of the download files in the current directory from which you can choose one for processing. Bear in mind that the directory listing here only shows those files which have an extension in dl followed by a digit, i.e. .dl1, .dl2, .dl3 or .dl4, unless you change the template as discussed below. Note the special keystrokes which are available in the file lister and which are prompted on the top line of the screen. F4 Drive Allows you to choose a new drive from the list of logical drives on your computer system. Sh-F4 File template Permits the specification of a new file template. After you do this the file listing is refreshed to show just those files which match the template you entered. Note that if no files match then nothing is displayed. Revert the file template to an earlier value or enter a new one by pressing again. F8 Directory The directory from which the file listing is gained is that from which you start DotEd. You may well wish to change directory to access different files. This is realised quite easily by pressing . The screen changes and the programme 8d.exe is called with which you can change directory by moving a highlight bar in a tree and pressing . Note The various options of the programme _dirs.exe are shown in the picklists which you can activate via . This programme must be accessible via the DOS path for the current option to work. Ŀ F4=Drive Shift-F4=File Template F8=Directory ͸ > DotEd <ij ͵ FileName Ext. Size Date Time ͸ CZECH .DL4 1008 02/17/91 22:20 DRAFT .DL4 16723 11/17/90 07:38 EXT_CYR .DL1 3964 04/26/89 21:36 EXT_CYR .DL4 1540 02/16/91 11:27 GER_MED .DL1 7270 05/01/92 15:55 HEBREW .DL1 5029 04/26/89 14:03 HIST_ENG.DL1 7022 04/26/89 14:07 HUNGARIA.DL1 774 04/26/89 14:08 ͵ Files: 35, Size: 191202 Bytes ; ; --- D:\TC\LINGFONT\DOT --- Use , to move bar,  for option Once you have chosen the drive, directory and file template you want, move the highlight bar to the file you wish. If there are more files than fit in a window you can move downwards with the key and back up again with . and move the highlight bar to the first and last file in the listing respectively. The maximum number of download files which can be displayed in a window is 128. 32.1.4. Print test table of font With this option it is possible to print a page on which the symbols of a download font are listed with the ASCII values they are assigned in the download RAM area. To use this option successfully the LinguaFont utility LoadDot must be accessible (either be in the current directory or reachable via the DOS path command, usually specified in the start-up batch file 8autoexec.bat). You are prompted to choose a download file for printing. If your printer is offline, if there is no printer port in the computer, or if there is more that one parallel port present, a relevant message is issued and you are prompted to take a course of action before printing actually begins. 32.1.5. Download a font to printer This is the equivalent to the above option except that the download font is not printed but just loaded into the printer. It requires the LinguaFont utility LoadDot which must be accessible in the same manner as described for the previous option. 32.1.6. Create new font from existing one In order to offer the user an integrated environment for processing fonts this option has been included which allows the user to take an existing font and create a new one which can then be processed with DotEd. The second font specified can in fact itself already exist; in this case one simply adds symbols from the first font to the second as opposed to creating the second from scratch. The LinguaFont utility NewDot (see detailed description below) must be accessible to DotEd. 32.1.7. Change printer configuration In case you wish to change the settings for your printer during a work session with DotEd this option has been provided. It calls the programme CtrlDot described below and allows you to issue direct printer commands comfortably and easily and returns you to the main menu of DotEd on pressing . CtrlDot must be accessible for this to work. 32.1.8. Run printer test programme It is conceivable that some function of your printer appears not to be working properly. Usually it works all right but the settings of the DIP switches (see glossary for definition) are not appropriate to your needs. With this option you can test the printer. The utility TestDot is called for this function and must of course be accessible for DotEd. 22.2. Edit Screen When you either create a new font or process an existing one the screen changes and you are presented with the edit screen. It is here that the main work with DotEd is done. the screen has a certain layout which can be best illustrated by considering a screen print out like the following: Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 Shift-F1 = File Information 7 ų (Shift)F2 = Move (Swivel) 8 Ctrl/Alt-F2 = Block/Clipboard 9 F3/Alt-F3 = Char.Mask / Clip 10 Shift-F3 = Invert Character 11 Ctrl-F3 = Mirror Image 12 (Shift-)F4 = Expand (Compress) 13 Shift-F5 = Convert to Draft 14 (Shift-)F6 = (Delete Char.)Undo 15 F7 = Test Print Char. 16 (Shift-)F8 = (Move) Copy Char. 17 (Shift-)F9 = Zoom Character 18 F10 = Return to Main Menu 19 ų Shift-F10 = Display Entire Font 20 Return/Esc = Save/Reject changes 21 ij 22 File: MOD_GR.DL1 23 Character: c ASCII: 99 Hex: 63 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 32.2.1. Editing Commands Paging in a character set When the edit screen appears first you cannot edit a character. Instead you can scroll in the file by using the and keys. By default, the first character shown on entering the edit screen is the first character of the file you have loaded (or an empty screen if you have just created a new file). Try using the and keys. You will notice in the bottom right of the screen that ASCII numbers are counted upwards or downwards depending on what direction you scroll in. Furthermore, not every ASCII value in the bottom righthand corner corresponds to a character on the screen. For some values there is no character in the screen matrix. This simply means that there is no character defined for that ASCII value in the input font file. In most files the entire upper ASCII area will also be empty as there are very few printers which have a download memory which covers the entire ASCII area (lower and upper). If your printer does however (e.g. if you have one of the NEC Pinwriter series) then you can define characters in this area (or duplicate characters into this area) and afterwards use this font file with your printer (see supplementary programme LoadNec below). Should your printer only allow the lower ASCII area to be filled for downloading then do not use the upper area when working with DotEd. The effect of doing this is apparent when you try to load such a download file into your printer: it does not work (your printer will probably start printing the characters it receives above $127 rather than storing them as download symbols). Note You should not be upset if there is so much empty space in the font file as presented within DotEd. The empty characters are filtered out when saving the file (the DOS binary file is quite compact). Editing a character To edit a character simply press . You will notice two things at once. First of all a cursor appears in the middle of the screen and secondly the margins of the characters are displayed in high video so that you immediately recognise that you are in the edit mode. The cursor can be moved up and down with the Arrow keys or you can jump to the edge of the matrix with , , or which move the cursor up, down, left or right respectively. The cursor position in the matrix is the position where a block can be inserted or deleted. When you are finished editing the current character and wish to move to another, press again. You will notice that the cursor disappears, and the border of the screen matrix is no longer displayed brightly. Use or to move to the new location and to edit this character. Insert, Delete Set, Delete Block. There are a variety of ways of entering or removing blocks in the edit screen. The simplest of all is the press the key to insert a block at the current cursor position, and to remove a block. This can be used when making minor corrections to a character. Shift+ArrowKey Repeat Set. A far speedier way of inserting blocks is to press the key (left or right) and use one of the Arrow keys simultaneously. The cursor moves in the direction of the Arrow key pressed and keeps moving until the edge of matrix is reached. Ctrl+ArrowKey Repeat Delete. The corresponding means of removing blocks is to press the key and use one of the Arrow keys. Unfortunately due to a quirk of the operating system, it is not possible to use the key with a vertical Arrow key. To achieve this function I have had to use the key combinations (with "U" for up) and (with "D" for down). These combinations delete a column of blocks in an upward or downward direction respectively. If a block is not present at a particular location, the cursor continues through it and deletes the next location which is occupied. Return Save Changes. When you finish editing a character and wish to move to the next you press (cursor disappears and you can page to another character). Escape Reject Changes. It you wish to abandon the changes which you made to a character, press . The original shape of the character is restored and you can page to a new character. 42.2.1.1. Using a mouse to draw characters If a mouse is physically present in your system and if the necessary mouse driver has been loaded beforehand, then you can move the cursor in the grid of the current character via the mouse. The advantage of the mouse is that you can move in any direction, and not just in straight lines at ninety degrees to each other as with the cursor keys alone. Both buttons of the mouse are programmed for use in DotEd. The left button serves the simple function of setting a dot in the grid; the right button removes one if the cursor is moved to a point which is already occupied by a dot. The mouse cursor and the normal cursor are linked to allow you to switch between keyboard and mouse at ease. Note that you can in theory move the mouse cursor to any position on the screen but that it can only be used when within the grid of the current character. 32.2.2. Additional Commands 42.2.2.1. File Information (Shift-F1) In order to keep you informed of what file you are editing, its name, how many characters it has, your current directory, etc. a window appears on pressing which displays various items of information about the status of the font file and the environment in which DotEd is running. Press any key to return to the edit screen. Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 ͸ormation 7 vel) 8 File Name MOD_GR.DL1 pboard 9 Font Type Pica [10 CPI] / Clip 10 File Size 98 Characters [7,449 Bytes] aracter 11 Archived 04/26/89 ; 14:04 age 12 ompress) 13 Current Path D:\TC\LINGFONT\DOT o Draft 14 har.)Undo 15 Disk Space 16,119,808 t Char. 16 Memory Left 390,640 py Char. 17 acter 18 Current Time 22:19:53 Main Menu 19 Current Date 12/29/1992 ntire Font 20 ct changes 21 Press any key! ; ij 22 23 Character: l ASCII: 108 Hex: 6C 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 42.2.2.2. Move Character (F2) While function key is used to move characters to different locations within a font file (see below), the concern here is with moving a character around within the bit map matrix itself. Press and use one of the Arrow keys to move in one of the four cardinal directions. Note If you move a character so far to the edge that part of it disappears off the screen then this is lost, i.e. moving the character back will not retrieve the section moved off the edge. However, you can retrieve the entire character (at the position it was in at the outset of the present operation) by pressing for undo. 42.2.2.3. Swivel Character (Shift-F2) In many cases a new character which one requires is an old character upside down or back to front (this is often the case with phonetic symbols, for example). To avoid the chore of drawing a new character in its entirety, copy the old character from its original location into the current one and use the present function - swivel character - to turn the character to the required extent. Note that the character is swivelled in increments of 90 degrees. Conclude the operation by pressing . 42.2.2.4. Mark Block (Ctrl-F2) You can not only move entire characters within DotEd, you can also operate on a section of a character. To do this you must first mark the appropriate part of the character. Press ; you can now block mark (shown in inverse video) a section of the current character by using the cursor keys in combination with the key to move in any particular direction. The initial row and column of the cursor after pressing is the starting point for the block marking process. You can move the cursor either above or below, to the left or the right of this initial position. When the desired amount is marked you have three options: 1) Press to shift the block within the current character grid 2) Press to store block in the clipboard. 3) Press to delete marked section of the current character. The first option allows you to shift a section of a character to a new location (the original section is deleted at its old location). To move the marked section use the cursor keys (without holding the key down!) and press to confirm the shift to the new location. The second option causes the marked section of the current character to be stored in a reserved section of memory called a clipboard from where it can be retrieved by the user later on. When you copy a section of a character to the clipboard it is not deleted at its original position (contrast this with shifting a section within the current character grid). The contents of the clipboard can be retrieved more than once if you wish. In fact, the contents are only altered when you re-fill the clipboard with fresh contents. The third option does not require commenting. Pressing aborts the present operation. 42.2.2.5. Copy from Clipboard (Alt-F2) Obviously you will want to retrieve the contents of the clipboard at some point when you are processing another character. This is done with the present key combination. Bear in mind that the current cursor position in the character grid represents the top left-hand corner for the clipboard contents which are about to be inserted. Ensure that there is enough space between the present cursor position and the right and bottom margins of the grid to accomodate the clipboard contents otherwise the overspill will be lost. 42.2.2.6. Mirror Image (F3) Here the current character is turned such that a mirror image of the character results. Useful with some foreign language fonts, e.g. the Russian ja letter is a mirror image of uppercase Latin R. Conclude by pressing . 42.2.2.7. Invert Character (Shift-F3) This is a simple function which turns every filled space (block character) in the bit map into an empty space (small full stop) and vice versa. 42.2.2.8. View Clipboard Contents (Alt-F3) This just allows you to take a look at what is in the clipboard at present. If it is empty, an appropriate message is issued. The window which appears shows the contents zoomed down by 50%. Press any key to continue editing. Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ĵ Contents of Clipboard Ŀ Repeat Delete 6 le Information 7 ve (Swivel) 8 ock/Clipboard 9 ar.Mask / Clip 10 vert Character 11 rror Image 12 pand (Compress) 13 nvert to Draft 14 elete Char.)Undo 15 st Print Char. 16 ove) Copy Char. 17 om Character 18 turn to Main Menu 19 splay Entire Font 20 Ĵ Press any key to continue! ve/Reject changes 21 ij 22 File: MOD_GR.DL1 23 Character: c ASCII: 99 Hex: 63 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 42.2.2.9. Expand Character (F4) You might find when creating a new character that this is like an existing one but slightly broader or longer. Copy the existing character into the current matrix using and expand the character by the desired amount using the present command. Note that the expansion consists of duplicating the current column or row at the current cursor position and inserting it into the character. To duplicate a column use either the or key; to duplicate a row, use the or key. Conclude the operation by pressing . 42.2.2.10. Compress Character (Shift-F4) This is the reverse of the above command. It removes the current column from a character if the or key is used; it removes the current row if the or key is used. This command can be of considerable help if you wish to generate an Elite pitch font from a Pica pitch file which requires that each character be reduced by about 20% in width. Conclude the operation by pressing . 42.2.2.11. Delete Character (F5) Simply deletes the present character; it can be retrieved by pressing . 42.2.2.12. Undo Last Change (F6) At some stage during character generation you are liable to regret a move. The purpose of the present command is to enable you to undo a change. Here's how this works internally. Before any major operation (like swivelling or expanding a character) is started the entire bit map for the current character is saved in an extra matrix. You then edit the bit map and if you want to reject the changes you made, then you press which copies this extra matrix back into the bit map, thereby restoring the character to its original shape. 42.2.2.13. Test Print Character (F7) It is not always possible to imagine exactly from the screen matrix just what a character looks like. Because of this, the present function allows the user to test print a character while still processing a download file. It is obvious that with this command you need a printer attached to your computer. When you activate this command you are prompted by DotEd to enter a string which is to be printed. Note the following conventions in this respect. ^C = Current character ^O = Overprint character ^R = Repeat last test line Any other characters entered are printed as normal. You might like to see the current download character beside some ordinary character. Type the normal characters you require, type (appears as a clover leaf symbol) to indicate the position in the string where the current download character is to be inserted. Use if you wish to overprint a character with the current download character (this could be useful if the current character is a diacritic). Press to conclude the string. It is now printed. If there is more than one parallel port in your computer or if the printer is off-line a message is issued and you are prompted to remedy the obstacle to printing ( can be used to abort the entire command). Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Row: 13 Col: 16 --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 Shift-F1 = File Information 7 ͸Move (Swivel) 8 Use these Characters for Test: lock/Clipboard 9 ^C = Current Character har.Mask / Clip 10 ^O = Overprint character nvert Character 11 ^R = Repeat last test line irror Image 12 Press Return to Finish String! xpand (Compress) 13 ; onvert to Draft 14 Delete Char.)Undo 15 F7 = Test Print Char. 16 Ŀ(Move) Copy Char. 17 Enter a Test String to be Printed oom Character 18 eturn to Main Menu 19 isplay Entire Font 20 Return/Esc = Save/Reject changes 21 ͸ij 22 = L1 23 ; CII: 99 Hex: 63 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] If you are test printing a character for a second time you might like simply to repeat the first line. This is achieved by pressing which retrieves the last test line. The test string which you enter can be up to 24 characters long. 42.2.2.14. Switch Colours (Ctrl-F7) This command activates a toggle which moves through the seven colour options of DotEd. Keep pressing until you reach the combination you want. The initial option has light blue lettering on a blue background with pink for high video (i.e. the equivalent of bright lettering on a monochrome system). 42.2.2.15. Copy Character (F8) If a character is not at the address you want or if you wish to create a new character which is similar to one already defined, it is sensible to shift a character to a new location. There are two possibilities here. You can either move a character (which deletes it at the original position) or you can copy it (which does not delete the original). When you press a message appears on the right of the screen prompting you to use or to move to the location you want the character moved or copied to. Press and the character is inserted at the location. To determine where you are, look at the counter at the bottom righthand corner of the screen. Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 Shift-F1 = File Information 7 ų (Shift)F2 = Move (Swivel) 8 Ĵ 9 10 Use PageUp/PageDown to move 11 to target position, press 12 Return to copy character. 13 14 Mode: Move Character 15 16 Ĵ 17 (Shift-)F9 = Zoom Character 18 F10 = Return to Main Menu 19 ų Shift-F10 = Display Entire Font 20 Return/Esc = Save/Reject changes 21 ij 22 File: MOD_GR.DL1 23 Character: f ASCII: 102 Hex: 66 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 42.2.2.16. Move Character (Shift-F8) This is basically the same command as the previous one with the sole difference that here the character moved is deleted at its original position. 42.2.2.17. Zoom Character, 1 (F9) In order to gain a better impression of the proportions of a character an additional option has been included here which shows the current character in a special window in the centre of the screen. The character is zoomed down somewhat; each block here is square whereas the blocks of which a character is composed in the normal bit map are rectangular with the vertical sides longer than the horizontal ones. Alternative keystroke: . Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ŀ Repeat Delete 6 le Information 7 ve (Swivel) 8 ock/Clipboard 9 ar.Mask / Clip 10 vert Character 11 rror Image 12 pand (Compress) 13 nvert to Draft 14 elete Char.)Undo 15 st Print Char. 16 ove) Copy Char. 17 om Character 18 turn to Main Menu 19 splay Entire Font 20 Ĵ Press any key to continue! ve/Reject changes 21 ij 22 File: MOD_GR.DL1 23 Character: c ASCII: 99 Hex: 63 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 42.2.2.18. Zoom Character, 2 (Shift-F9) This option provides a further reduction in the size of the matrix used to display the current character. In fact the video mode is changed to graphics (which you notice by the twitching of the screen). The current character is now displayed on its own in the middle of the screen in a much-reduced size. Press any key to continue with DotEd. 42.2.2.19. Return to Main Menu (F10) To return to the main menu, i.e. end the processing of the current download character set, press . A small window prompt appears with the name of the current file in it. You can either press to have the character set saved under that name, edit the prompt to give the character a new name before saving (if you wanted it saved separately from the input file) or press to reject all changes made to the file. It is advisable, particularly if you have made extensive changes, to edit the file name to a new name and save the character set. You never know, you might regret rejecting the changes after all. When rejecting a processed font you must confirm pressing the key by explicitly pressing the key as well. Ŀ 1 ͸ 2 --- Editing Commands --- 3 ųij 4 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 5 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 6 Shift-F1 = File Information 7 ų (Shift)F2 = Move (Swivel) 8 Ctrl/Alt-F2 = Block/Clipboard 9 = Change ĿMask / Clip 10 Character 11 D:\TC\LINGFONT\DOT Image 12 (Compress) 13 Directory for File t to Draft 14 e Char.)Undo 15 F7 = Test Print Char. 16 Ŀ(Move) Copy Char. 17 Enter File Name, = No Save oom Character 18 eturn to Main Menu 19 isplay Entire Font 20 Return/Esc = Save/Reject changes 21 ͸ij 22 = PHONETIC.DL1 .DL1 23 ; CII: 56 Hex: 38 24 ; 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456 [ Use , to move in file ] 42.2.2.20. View Entire Font (Shift-F10) To see what characters are included in the entire font you do not have to page through the whole file. Simply press and the screen changes to display (in a graphics mode) the entire font as defined. If characters are not defined at contiguous locations there may be blanks in the display. To return to the edit screen press any key. Note Do not be upset by the screen "twitching" when you press and when you return again. This is due to the screen mode changing from text to graphics (and back again) and is perfectly normal. 22.3. Character width tables When you process a download character set which has a proportional pitch and then save this when you finish a work session with DotEd an additional file is saved alongside the actual character set definition file (with the extension .dl3). This file always has the extension .tbl; the part of the file name before the extension is identical with the name of the font from which the table of character widths is created. It contains the relative widths of the characters which are contained in the proportional file you have just processed. Note that this file is created each time you process a proportionally pitched download font file and the previous version of the file, if there is one, is overwritten. The purpose of the file is to offer the user a list of character widths which can then be entered into the character width table of the word processor from within which he/she wishes to print a customised screen font which corresponds to the proportionally pitched printer download font. The question naturally arises at this point, how does DotEd calculate the width of a character? Quite simply: it takes the left offset of a character (the number of columns which the user has left free between the left edge of the bitmap matrix and the first column occupied, wholy or partially, by blocks) adds the so-called ink width of the character (the number of columns with blocks in them) and duplicates the left offset to obtain a value for the right offset. The sum of these three values, left offset, ink width and right offset (=left offset) equals the width of the character as entered into the file of character widths. Care needs to be taken when defining character widths. The first point to remember is that you do not enter the width of a download symbol at the same ASCII value in the screen font but at the address in the screen font at which the same symbol is to be found. Say you have defined, for the screen, an "i" without a dot on it (as is needed for Turkish) and assigned the ASCII value $139 to it (an "i" with a diaeresis over it in the normal IBM character set). The ASCII address you have chosen in the printer download font file is, say, $105 (this is the value of lowercase "i" in the lower ASCII area). The dotless "i" in the download will be quite slender and so you must convey this to the word processor via a character width table. The symbol which obtains the width of the dotless "i" as specified in the character width file will be ASCII $139 (and not ASCII $105 of the screen font as this is normal "i"). You will then, via a character translation table, ensure that $139 on the screen is converted to $105 for printing (see 6.1.1. below). If you go to the trouble of entering all the relative character widths as determined by DotEd for a proportional font into a corresponding character width table in your word processor, then you can obtain full right justification even with customised printer fonts which are proportionally pitched. Note The same procedure applies to laser printer fonts. Here it is obligatory to fill in the character width table of your word processor as practically all laser printer fonts are proportionally pitched. 22.4. Command Summary Function keys and combinations with Shift, Ctrl and Alt F1 = On-line help SHIFT_F1 = File information CTRL_F1 = DOS call F2 = Move character SHIFT_F2 = Swivel character CTRL_F2 = Mark block ALT_F2 = Retrieve clipboard contents F3 = Character mask SHIFT_F3 = Invert character ALT_F3 = View clipboard contents F4 = Expand character SHIFT_F4 = Compress character F5 = Delete character SHIFT_F5 = Convert font to draft F6 = Undo major change F7 = Test print character CTRL_F7 = Switch colours F8 = Copy character SHIFT_F8 = Move character F9 (SPACE) = Zoom character (i) SHIFT_F9 = Zoom character (ii) F10 = Return to main menu SHIFT_F10 = View entire font Additional key settings (all apply to editing characters) ESCAPE = Reject changes to character ARROW KEYS = Move cursor within matrix SHIFT + ARROWS = Repeat set a dot in matrix CTRL + ARROWS = Repeat delete a dot in matrix CTRL_U / CTRL_D = Repeat delete (for up and down directions) INS / DEL = Set / delete a single dot in matrix END = Rightmost column in bit map matrix HOME = Leftmost column in bit map matrix CTRL_END = Delete character from cursor to right CTRL_HOME = Delete character from cursor to left CTRL_PG_UP (i) Delete character from cursor to top (ii) Move to the first character of font CTRL_PG_DN (i) Delete character from cursor to bottom (ii) Move to the last character of font PAGE_UP (i) Top row of bit map matrix (editing character) (ii) Scroll forwards in download font file PAGE_DOWN (i) Bottom row of bit map matrix (editing character) (ii) Scroll backwards in download font file ALT_G Goto a certain character (edit & copy/move) Note The key serves the main function of accepting an option or confirming an entry (mostly main menu). In addition it is used to conclude a temporary operation while editing a character, such as copying a character to a new position, shifting a character around in the bit map matrix, etc. In the latter case you are always prompted to this effect via a message in the right of the screen. 13. VideoEd Syntax: 1) videoed [input_file] 2) videoed /-file_template 23.0. Introduction This is the character editor for the PC screen. Character sets are available for the screen much as they are for the printer. They are smaller as the matrix of the screen - usually 8 x 16 the so-called text mode - is considerably smaller than that for dot matrix printers let alone for laser printers. Characters which one designs for the screen should be easily recognisable, nothing more and nothing less. When one loads VideoEd a by now familiar screen appears from which one may choose from a number of options. The highlight bar, as with the other programmes, rests on option two with which one can choose an existing font to process. The screen should look this: Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > VideoEd <ij Ŀ Create a new font = Process an existing font Convert Hercules font to EGA Convert EGA font to Hercules Load font file into memory View ASCII character set ; --- D:\LINGFONT --- Use ,  to move bar,  for option 33.0.1. Making a DOS call During a work session with VideoEd you may find at some point that you would like to do something in DOS (like look at a directory or run a programme). This can be achieved very simply by pressing . On doing this, the current screen disappears and you are suddenly in DOS. VideoEd is now in the background and DOS is in the foreground. You know that VideoEd is still there as the prompt in DOS is now Type "exit" to return to VideoEd. This prompt is to remind you that you have called DOS temporarily from within VideoEd (you might conceivably forget this). When you enter exit and press the screen of VideoEd is restored as if nothing had happened. 23.1. Create a new font If for some reason you choose to create a font from scratch with VideoEd then you must not only supply the new font with a name but also say whether it is to be a Hercules, a VGA or an EGA font. The reason for this is that VideoEd must know what size matrix to store in the resulting file and what extension to give it (.fnt, .vga or .ega). The remaining options of the main menu in VideoEd are discussed briefly below, the remainder of the description being then devoted to a discussion of character editing. 23.2. Process an existing font Even more than with the printer character editors, it is advisable with VideoEd simply to edit one of the fonts supplied with LinguaFont. There is one main reason for this: when you design a new screen font you will wish to leave the entire lower ASCII area unchanged and only redefine symbols in the upper area which you do not normally require. Taking an existing font, one can simply alter those characters one wishes to redefine and one's font is complete, ready to be loaded. The only possible exception to this is where you wish to redefine the shape of all characters of a set much as has already been done by the present author for the thin font slender.fnt which is supplied with LinguaFont. Every user of VideoEd will either be intending to use the fonts he/she creates with the programme for a VGA, Hercules Graphics Card Plus or for an EGA card. Bear in mind that fonts for these cards are different in size (4096 bytes versus 3584 bytes) and that the former have the extension .vga, .fnt and the latter the extension .ega. For more technical details on the differences between the video adapter cards, see the second section of this book. The directory listing which appears on choosing the present option contains by default files which have one of the three above extensions. You can, however, have different files displayed if you enter a new template for the directory listing. Note in this connection the three special commands which you have at your disposal on this level of the programme. F4 Drive. Allows you to choose a new drive from the list of logical drives on your computer system. Sh-F4 File template. Permits the specification of a new file template. After you do this the file listing is refreshed to show just those files which match the template you entered. Note that if no files match then nothing is displayed. Revert the file template to an earlier value or enter a new one by pressing again. F8 Directory. The directory from which the file listing is gained is that from which you start DotEd. You may well wish to change directory to access different files. This is realised quite easily by pressing . The screen changes and the programme 8d.exe is called with which you can change directory by moving a highlight bar in a tree and pressing . Note. The various options of the programme _dirs.exe are shown in the picklists which you can activate via . This programme must be accessible via the DOS path for the current option to work. Ŀ F4= Drive Shift-F4=New Template F8=Directory ͸ > VideoEd <ij ͵ FileName Ext. Size Date Time ͸ MOD_GR .EGA 3584 11/14/88 13:34 MOD_GR .FNT 4096 11/05/87 01:25 NONAME .FNT 4096 03/07/89 20:51 OE_ME .EGA 3584 03/07/89 20:50 OE_ME .FNT 4096 03/15/87 10:36 RUSSIAN .EGA 3584 11/03/88 22:11 RUSSIAN .FNT 4096 06/13/88 15:50 THIN .EGA 3584 11/14/88 13:35 ͵ Files: 9, Size: 34816 Bytes ; ; --- D:\LINGFONT --- Use ,  to move bar,  for option 23.3. Convert Hercules font to EGA This a conversion facility to allow you to convert a character set which you have designed in Hercules format into EGA format. You can also convert a supplied font in this manner. The new font receives the extension .ega and is 512 bytes smaller than the original. You are requested to confirm overwriting if a file with the new file name already exists in the current directory of the disk. 23.4. Convert EGA font to Hercules The opposite to the above facility: .ega files are converted to .fnt files for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus. The resulting files are 512 bytes larger. The reason for this is given in the technical discussion of both kinds of video adapter card in section two of the present book. 23.5. Load font file into memory Here you are prompted to choose a font from a directory listing (see above) which is to loaded into the RAM of your VGA or EGA card or Hercules Graphics Card Plus. Before selecting a font from the file listing offered you must specify what kind of font is to be loaded. Ŀ --- F1 Help, F7 Exit to DOS --- ͸ > VideoEd <ij Ŀ Create a new font Process an existing font Ŀ Convert Hercules font to EGA EGA Convert Hercules font to 8x8 VGA Convert EGA font to Hercules Hercules = Load font file into memory 8x8 Font View ASCII character set ; --- D:\LINGFONT --- Use ,  to move bar,  for option Load EGA font into memory Assuming that you are running the programme on a computer with an EGA card you can load a file from this point in VideoEd into the video adapter and all character representation on the screen from now on will be achieved using the character here loaded. Don't worry about the screen "twitching" when the character is loaded. This is perfectly normal and is not a portent of immanent system crash as many users feel. Note. For this option to function correctly the LinguaFont programme LoadVid must either be in the current directory or be accessible via the entry for the DOS path command (e.g. in the 8autoexec.bat startup file). Load VGA font into memory In order to load a font you generated or edited with VideoEd into a VGA video adapter you choose the present option. Again LoadVid is the programme which is called by VideoEd with the font which you choose from the directory listing you are offered first as a command line parameter. VGA fonts bear the extension .vga. Load Hercules font into memory Here you are prompted to choose a font which is then loaded into the RAM of your Hercules Graphics Card Plus. Bear in mind that Hercules fonts carry the extension .fnt. 23.6. View ASCII character set If you want to check a font which you have loaded with one of the above options and which is identical with the normal font in the lower ASCII area and in the block graphics section of the upper area (special characters from such a font would not be evident from any screen in VideoEd) you can use this option to view the entire ASCII set from the video adapter card, i.e. not from a file which you may load. 23.7. Editing Commands The screen you are presented with when you load VideoEd bears a close resemblance to that of DotEd. The first and major difference is that there are two matrices to be seen on the screen. Consider the following screen print out. Ŀ ͸ ͸ Font 1 Font 2 --- Editing Commands --- Ŀ Ŀ ij 1 1 Insert/Delete = Set/Del.Point 2 2 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 3 3 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 4 4 ij 5 5 F2 = Move Character 6 6 Shift-F2 = Swivel Character 7 7 F3 = Character Mask 8 8 Shift-F3 = Invert Character 9 9 F4 = Expand Character 10 10 Shift-F4 = Compress Character 11 11 Shift-F6 = Delete Character 12 12 F6 = Undo Major Change 13 13 ij 14 14 Return/Esc = Save/Reject Char. (Shift-)F8 = (Move)Copy Char. 12345678 12345678 Tab = Font 2 (F5 = New Font 2) ; F10 = Back to Main Menu ͸ ij Sh-F1 = File Info; F9,Sh-F9 = Zoom Char. File: RUSSIAN.EGA Sh-F10 = Display Font; Alt-V = Video Set Charac. ASCII: 167 Hex: A7 ; ; [ Use , to scroll in file, press to edit character ] The matrix to the left labelled "Font 1" will contain the first character of the character set which you chose from the directory listing in the main menu and which enabled you to get this far in the first place. The second matrix will initially be empty. You can load a second font file if you wish with and this is then displayed in the right-hand box labelled "Font 2" (the case with the above screen print-out). Indeed if you attempt switching to the second font with when none has been loaded you automatically activate the directory listing from which you can choose a font for display in the right-hand box. The purpose of loading a second font is to enable you to import characters easily from one font file into another. Ŀ ͸ ͸ Font 1 Font 2 --- Editing Commands --- Ŀ Ŀ ij 1 1 Insert/Delete = Set/Del.Point 2 2 Ŀ 3 3 Use PageUp/PageDown to move 4 4 to desired character, press 5 5 Return to copy into Font 1. 6 6 7 7 Current Character: $ 234 8 8 9 9 Alt-V : Video char. select 10 10 Alt-N : No.of chars.to copy 11 11 12 12 Sh-F10: View graphically 13 13 Sh-F9 : Just one character 14 14 15 15 Alt-G : Goto character no. 16 16 Alt-C : Character set ٳ 12345678 12345678 ij Sh-F1 = File Info; F9,Sh-F9 = Zoom Char. File: PHONETIC.VGA Sh-F10 = Display Font; Alt-V = Video Set Charac. ASCII: 230 Hex: E6 ; ; [ Use , to scroll in file, press to edit character ] To copy a character from Font 2 into Font 1 move first of all with or to the character in Font 1 which is to be replaced by one from Font 2. Then press or simply . You can now page in Font 2 until you find the character you wish to copy into Font 1 and have the following keystrokes at your disposal: Alt-V Display Font 2 in tabular form and select a character to copy into Font 1. Alt-N Specify the number of characters you wish to copy into Font 1. Sh-F10 View Font 2 graphically. Sh-F9 View the current character of Font 2 graphically. Alt-G Goto character whose number you specify. Alt-C Display current character set (without selection, cf. Alt-V). By pressing you cause the copy operation to be carried out. Note that you cannot reverse this, so look before you leap (you could of course reject all changes to the current font when leaving with , but this would only be a last resort). Bear in mind also that you cannot edit characters in Font 2; it is simply loaded as a source for characters you wish to copy into Font 1. You can edit a character in Font 1 in exactly the same manner as with the character editors for printers. Press to activate the edit mode (cursor appears and the bordering of the matrix box is displayed in high video). The editing commands indicated on the right of the screen are similar to those in LaserEd and DotEd, for instance the Zoom Character command which is activated by pressing and produces a screen like the following one. Ŀ ͸ ͸ Font 1 Font 2 --- Editing Commands --- Ŀ Ŀ ij 1 1 Insert/Delete = Set/Del.Point 2 2 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 3 3 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 4 4 ij 5 5 F2 = Move Character 6 Ŀift-F2 = Swivel Character 7 = Character Mask 8 ift-F3 = Invert Character 9 = Expand Character 10 ift-F4 = Compress Character 11 ift-F6 = Delete Character 12 = Undo Major Change 13 ij 14 turn/Esc = Save/Reject Char. ij hift-)F8 = (Move)Copy Char. 12345678 1234b = Font 2 (F5 = New Font 2) ; F10 = Back to Main Menu ͸ ij Sh-F1 = File Info; F9,Sh-F9 = Zoom Char. File: RUSSIAN.EGA Sh-F10 = Display Font; Alt-V = Video Set Charac. ASCII: 137 Hex: 89 ; ; [ Use , to scroll in file, press to edit character ] You can further zoom a character by pressing . The screen now changes and the current character is displayed on its own as a normal-sized letter of your video adapter character set. Press any key to continue with VideoEd. Apart from this case, the same tips and warnings for processing character sets apply here, so consult the relevant sections of the description of DotEd for details. 33.7.1. Using a mouse to draw characters If a mouse is physically present in your system and if the necessary mouse driver has been loaded beforehand, then you can move the cursor in the grid of the current character via the mouse (this is obviously only possible in Font 1 as only this is used for character editing). The advantage of the mouse is that you can move in any direction, and not just in straight lines at ninety degrees to each other as with the cursor keys alone. Both buttons of the mouse are programmed for use in VideoEd. The left button serves the simple function of setting a dot in the grid; the right button removes one if the cursor is moved to a point which is already occupied by a dot. The mouse cursor and the normal cursor are linked to allow you to switch between keyboard and mouse at ease. Note that you can in theory move the mouse cursor to any position on the screen but that it can only be used when within the grid of the current character. 33.7.2. Saving a font to disk Of all commands that for saving your work permanently to disk is probably the most important. Note here that you are presented with three small windows which are similar to those used for the same command in LaserEd and DotEd. You can change the current DOS directory by pressing . Only enter a bare file name, i.e. do not specify a path for the disk file. The drive and directory information are gleaned from the value for the present DOS directory. Ŀ ͸ ͸ Font 1 Font 2 --- Editing Commands --- Ŀ Ŀ ij 1 1 Insert/Delete = Set/Del.Point 2 2 Shift+ArrowKey = Repeat Set 3 3 Ctrl+ArrowKey = Repeat Delete 4 4 ij 5 5 F2 = Move Character 6 = Change Ŀel Character 7 cter Mask 8 D:\LINGFONT t Character 9 d Character 10 Directory for File ess Character 11 e Character 12 12 F6 = Undo Major Change 13 Ŀij 14 Enter File Name, = No Save Save/Reject Char. 15 (Move)Copy Char. 16 (F5 = New Font 2) F10 = Back to Main Menu 12345678 ͸ij Sh-F1 = File Info; F = RUSSIAN.VGA N.VGA Sh-F10 = Display Fon; SCII: 159 Hex: 9F ; [ Use , to scroll in file, press to edit character ] 23.8. Command Summary Function keys and combinations with Shift and Ctrl F1 = Online help SHIFT_F1 = File information CTRL_F1 = DOS call F2 = Move character SHIFT_F2 = Swivel character F3 = Character mask SHIFT_F3 = Invert character F4 = Expand character SHIFT_F4 = Compress character F5 = Load Font 2 SH_F5,TAB = Copy character from Font 2 F6 = Undo major change SHIFT_F6 = Delete character F7 = Return to Main Menu F8 = Copy character SHIFT_F8 = Move character F9 = Zoom character, factor 1 SHIFT_F9 = Zoom character, factor 2 F10 = Save font to disk (and return to main menu) SHIFT_F10 = View entire font Additional key settings (all apply to edit screen) ESCAPE = Reject changes to character (edit screen) ARROW KEYS = Move cursor within matrix (edit screen) SHIFT + ARROWS = Repeat set a dot in matrix (edit screen) CTRL + ARROWS = Repeat delete a dot in matrix (edit screen) CTRL_U / CTRL_D = Repeat delete (for up and down directions) INS / DEL = Set / delete a single dot in matrix END = Rightmost column in bit map matrix HOME = Leftmost column in bit map matrix CTRL_END = Delete character from cursor to right CTRL_HOME = Delete character from cursor to left CTRL_PG_UP (i) Delete character from cursor to top (ii) First character in current font CTRL_PG_DN (i) Delete character from cursor to bottom (ii) Last character in current font PAGE_UP (i) Top row of bit map matrix (editing character) (ii) Scroll forwards in screen font file PAGE_DOWN (i) Bottom row of bit map matrix (editing character) (ii) Scroll backwards in screen font file ALT_G Goto a certain character (edit & copy/move) ALT_V Select current character from video set ALT_C Just display character set Note The key serves the main function of accepting an option or confirming an entry (mostly main menu). In addition it is used to conclude a temporary operation while editing a character, such as copying a character to a new position, shifting a character around in the bit map matrix, etc. In the latter case you are always prompted to this effect via a message in the right of the screen. 14. Additional video programmes 24.1. LoadVid Syntax: loadvid font_file /h,e,v /t Naturally after producing a font of your own with VideoEd you will be anxious not just to see it on the screen within the font creation programme but have it at your general disposal as well. This is achieved with the present programme. There are three main types of video adapters supported by LoadVid. For technical details of these adapters, consult the second section of the present book. Hercules mode By using the /h switch (see call syntax above) you can load a font into the Hercules Graphics Card Plus assuming one is present in your system. The font_file parameter must then be represented by a file with the extension .fnt which was generated by, or supplied with, VideoEd. These files are 4096 bytes long as opposed to the EGA files which are only 3584 bytes long. EGA mode The /e switch is intended to be used when loading a font into the EGA adapter. Use files with the extension .ega. You notice that these are slightly smaller than the corresponding .fnt files. If you have a multi-resolution EGA card (capable of various modes) in your system unit then check that it is in the default EGA mode before trying to use LoadVid otherwise the font load will probably not succeed. VGA mode By using the /v switch you load a customised font into the VGA adapter. This is the video adapter present in IBM PS/2 machines. You must use a special VGA font file (such as those which one can generate with VideoEd) as otherwise the length of the screen will be incorrect after calling LoadVid. Display character table If you specify /t on the command line then after LoadVid has loaded the specified font you are presented with a screen on which the entire ASCII set is to be seen. The characters used for this display are those in the font you have just loaded thus providing a check on whether the operation just carried out was successful or not. You press any key to return to DOS. 24.2. VidPerm Syntax: vidperm font_file The intention behind this utility is to render any font loaded into either an EGA or VGA video adapter permanent, i.e. resistant to a video reset. This is necessary as so many programmes reset the video adapter of the computer either in starting or during operation, e.g. when switching from a graphics mode back to a text mode. If you load a font in the normal fashion with LoadVid then this customised font is lost after the video reset. Video Permanent functions by re-routing a pointer in the Video Display Data Area in low system memory (just after the BIOS Data Area, at 0040:00a8) to point not to the tables in the ROM BIOS of the video adapter but to an area of system memory in which alternative tables, including the customised font passed to Video Permanent from the command line on loading, are located. These tables are used anytime a video reset is made. The net effect of this is that your font will survive any change in video mode which a subsequently loaded application may make. A few points in connection with Video Permanent should be noted. The first is that it remains in memory after being loaded. This is necessary as the font buffer with the contents of your customised font must be retained in order for it to be accessed any time a video reset is made by some programme or other. The sacrifice you make here is about 12K of system memory (the programme Video Permanent itself and a 4K memory buffer for the font in question). Video Permanent should be loaded immediately after you start your computer (your best move is to include it in autoexec.bat). If you call it a second time it installs itself again, and you forfeit another 12K. There is no checking on the type of video adapter in your machine as this would require code which would in turn take up a little more system memory. As the latter is undesirable, adapter checking has been left out, so make sure you know what video subsystem is in the machine your operating before calling Video Permanent. Either an EGA or a VGA file (created with VideoEd for example) can be passed to Video Permanent from the command line. It automatically recognises which is which and loads the correct number of bytes into the internal font buffer. 24.3. InsWP Syntax: inswp font_file font_number There is a basic difficulty with WordPerfect 5.x if one wants to use customised screen fonts generated with VideoEd, namely that WordPerfect, on starting, discards any font previously loaded into the video adapter, no matter what type the latter is (EGA/VGA or Hercules Graphics Card Plus). The solution to this difficulty is to use the internal font loading capability of WordPerfect to attain one's customised font. The procedure is as follows. Start WordPerfect. Press , then "3" for "Display" and "2" for "Colors/Fonts/Attributes". At this stage WordPerfect will offer a series of options depending on the installed video adapter. EGA/VGA adapters. Here one can choose to load an additional font to be used to display (i) underlining (monochrome underlining is blue lettering on colour systems!), (ii) italics, (iii) small capitals. Opting for any one of these options leads to an EGA font file being loaded from disk by WordPerfect. These fonts are all 3584 bytes long and have the extension .frs (=font resource). The beauty of this is that you can edit one of these with VideoEd as the latter recognises them as normal EGA screen font files. You must enter the name of the file to be edited via the command line for VideoEd or specify the file template *.frs on the command line (in the manner described above) in order to be able to access these files from within VideoEd. Change one of the supplied WordPerfect files to your liking, store it on disk and load it internally with WordPerfect. Say you changed the small capitals font, egasmc.frs, to include a Russian alphabet instead and loaded it internally in WordPerfect. The net effect of doing this is that when you choose the screen attribute "small capitals" via , 2, 7 you now have your Russian font at your disposal. You must of course link up your screen font with a printer font; for details of this consult the relevant section of the present book. Hercules Graphics Card Plus. The position with the Hercules Plus adapter is more intricate. This adapter allows the user to have up to 12 customised fonts simultaneously on the screen. In WordPerfect this possibility is used to show such font styles as italics, bolding, shadow, outline, double underline in just that form on the screen. To see a font of customised characters, you must replace one of these styles with a font of your own. To realise this one must first understand how WordPerfect manages the Hercules Plus adapter. A single file, hrf12.frs (or hrf6.frs for 6 as opposed to 12 fonts) is loaded into the Hercules Plus adapter. Via the first option of the "Colors/Fonts/Attributes" menu, "Screen Attributes", you can associate a certain Hercules Plus font with a certain font style, say double underlining as a WordPerfect function with a font containing doubly underlined letters. You can just as well associate a font of customised characters with a certain WordPerfect formatting function, say a font of phonetic characters with the function "outline style". To do this you must change the supplied file hrf12.frs. The present utility achieves this task for you. The WordPerfect file consists of 12 Hercules fonts in a single file. Each is 4096 bytes long. With InsWP you can insert a font, which you have generated with VideoEd, at a certain position in the multiple font file 8hrf12.frs. To do this enter the command line something like the following: inswp russian.fnt 4 This inserts a Hercules Plus font russian.fnt, produced with VideoEd, into the position of the fourth file in the WordPerfect font file hrf12.frs. Note that the latter must be in the current directory as must the font file to be inserted. It is possible to insert several fonts into the WordPerfect file. Now start WordPerfect. Press , 3, 2, 2, 1. This will select the 12 font mode for the Hercules Plus card and enter the screen attribute selection menu. Move to the formatting function you wish to customise. Press the space bar until the word "Sample" on the right-hand side of the screen is displayed in the font which you just inserted; continue for other formatting functions, if so desired. Terminate with and return to word processing. Your customised font or fonts are now at your disposal (and remain so between word sessions with WordPerfect). Note. Changing hrf12.frs means that the version you now have is not identical with the original. Should you inadvertently overwrite the copy of this file on your hard disk, then copy the original from the WordPerfect distribution disks ("Fonts/Graphics" diskette) back onto the hard drive. 24.4. VideoSet Syntax: vs This is a utility which offers users information about the current video system on a computer and allows you to configure this. Basically it allows you to load user-defined fonts into the video adapter. Depending on what adapter you have one or more of the font loading options will be available. VideoSet attempts to recognise the type of video adapter in your computer correctly. However due to the wide variety of adapter clones available a wrong diagnosis may be made. In such cases you can manually override the determined video adapter type and thus have access to other options in VideoSet. Be careful when doing this not to choose the incorrect adapter type as the results are then unpredictable. Note that any font loaded or line mode chosen from within VideoSet remains active after you return to DOS so that you can use the programme to setup the video adapter in a mode which which you require for a different programme assuming that the latter does not reset the video adapter on starting. 15. SetKey Syntax: setkey keyboard_file 25.0. Introduction SetKey is simplicity itself. When you start it you are faced with a screen in which two sets of keyboard characters are displayed on screen, one for the lowercase symbols and one for the uppercase ones. The default layout is that of an American English keyboard. Ŀ SetKey - Customise your keyboard layout the easy way! AKEYB.EXE Default Layout ͸ Uppercase Letters ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + Q W E R T Y U I O P { } A S D F G H J K L : " ~ | Z X C V B N M < > ? Lowercase Letters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = q w e r t y u i o p [ ] a s d f g h j k l ; ' ` \ z x c v b n m , . / F5 = Next Window ; Letter No. 1 Original: ! Substitute: ! Help; Page; Write to text; Save keyboard; End With the Arrow keys (or , ) you can move within the keyboard template (the inverse video block wanders across both sections of the keyboard template). To change the value of a particular key, press . You will notice that a cursor appears and you can now enter a single character. It may well be that to access the screen font symbol to be laid on the current key in the screen template you will have to press the key and type in the ASCII code value of the screen font symbol as a number on the numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard. After entering the code value, do not press the key as the entry is automatically terminated by SetKey. With one of the arrow keys you can now move to another character. By pressing you can save the present layout and return to DOS; using instead leads, as one might expect, to this layout being abandoned (not saved to disk); this must be confirmed by the user. Five grids in all are available within SetKey. These correspond to the five character tables which can be activated by the keyboard driver akeyb.exe. (1) American English keyboard layout (full, with shift) (2) Customised keyboard layout (full, with shift) (3) keyboard layout (half, no shift) (4) keyboard layout (half, no shift) (5) keyboard layout (half, no shift) Note that only the first two layouts cover a full complement of keys (one normal set and another when the key is depressed). The remaining three are half sets for each of which you must press one or more status keys. To view other grids, simply press . The next grid appears and can be edited. For the next one press again. When you press this key and the last grid is already displayed, the programme loops back to the first layout again, i.e. the default layout. Selecting symbols via the current video character set. Instead of pressing and entering the numerical value of a character to be assigned to a particular key setting you can press . This activates a chart which shows the current video set. Here you move the highlight bar to the character you wish to set the current key to and press . This function is analogous to that in LaserEd. With  you simply view the current character set without selecting any symbol for a key setting.  Write key settings to text file. For documentary purposes it is frequently expedient to store the settings for a keyboard driver to a text file which one can examine at one's leisure afterwards. Pressing achieves this in SetKey leading to a text file being generated which looks something like the following. Key Settings for Default Plane 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 0 0 - - = = q q w w e e r r t t y y u u i i o o p p [ [ ] ] a a s s d d f f g g h h j j k k l l ; ; ' ' ` ` \ \ z z x x c c v v b b n n m m , , . . / / ! ! @ @ # # $ $ % % ^ ^ & & * * ( ( ) ) _ _ + + Q Q W W E E R R T T Y Y U U I I O O P P { { } } A A S S D D F F G G H H J J K K L L : : \ " ~ ~ | | Z Z X X C C V V B B N N M M < < > > ? ? Key Settings for Customised Plane 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 0 0 - = ' q q w w e e r r t t y z u u i i o o p p [ ] + a a s s d d f f g g h h j j k k l l ; ' ` ^ \ # z y x x c c v v b b n n m m , , . . / - ! ! @ " # ? $ $ % % ^ & & / * ( ( ) ) = _ ? + ` Q Q W W E E R R T T Y Z U U I I O O P P { } * A A S S D D F F G G H H J J K K L L : \ ~ | ' Z Y X X C C V V B B N N M M < ; > : ? _ Key Settings for Right Alt Plane 1 2 ? 3 ? 4 5 6 7 { 8 [ 9 ] 0 } - \ = ? q @ w e r t  y ? u i o p [ ? ] ~ a s d f ? g ? h j k ? l ; ? ' @ ` | \ z ? x ? c v b n m ? , . / Key Settings for Alt + Control Plane 1 2 ? 3 ? 4 5 6 7 { 8 [ 9 ] 0 } - \ = ? q w e r t  y ? u i o p ? [ ? ] ~ a s d  f g  h j k l | ; ? ' @ ` | \ z ? x c v b n m , . / Key Settings for Shift + Alt + Control Plane 1 2 ? 3 ? 4 5 6 ? 7 8 9 0 ? - = ? q w e r t ? y ? u i o p [ ] ? a s d ? f g ? h j k l ; ' ? ` ? \ ? z ? x c v b n m , . / 25.1. Creating a new keyboard driver SetKey does not generate a new keyboard driver but alters an existing one. With LinguaFont a driver is supplied, called 8lkeyb.exe. This driver is intended as an input for the drivers users design themselves. To create such a driver, the first step is to copy the normal driver. Copy it as follows (assuming that you wish to create a Russian keyboard driver, for argument's sake). copy akeyb.exe keyruss.exe You can now edit the newly created file keyruss.exe with SetKey by entering the following command line at the DOS prompt and pressing . setkey keyruss.exe In order to be successful in editing such a driver you would have to define a Russian character set (for example with the font manager LinguaFont by the present author) and load it as a screen font into your video adapter. You can then devise a layout which enables you to access the symbols of your Russian screen character set from the keyboard. 25.2. Managing keyboard drivers Remember that the keyboard driver akeyb.exe, which is the source of all keyboard drivers which users may create and then alter with SetKey, allows two full keyboard layouts. You switch between layouts by pressing and together and then pressing or to activate one layout or the other. Note a few final points in connection with the keyboard drivers you can design with SetKey. 1) Initially when you create a new keyboard file by copying the original keyboard driver supplied with SetKey, the default keyboard layout is duplicated in the customised keyboard layout. 2) There may be one or two peripheral letters of the keyboard (diacritics) which cannot be re-defined for a customised keyboard layout. 3) When you first load a keyboard driver it is the default layout which is active; you may then switch between layouts as follows: Ctrl - Alt + F1 = Default keyboard layout Ctrl - Alt + F2 = Customised keyboard layout 4) If you wish the customised layout to be active initially or if you wish to activate it with the keyboard driver already resident in system memory then enter the number "2" (= 2nd. layout) as a command line parameter as in: lkeyb 2 5) By default the key functions as just that: it converts lowercase letters to uppercase ones but nothing else and, importantly, is not turned off by the user pressing the or key. However, if you wish to have the second type of situation (that found with so-called multifunction keyboards with PCs nowadays) then enter /s as a command line parameter and this will then hold. lkeyb /s 25.3. Loading a keyboard driver A customised keyboard driver is loaded by simply entering its name at the DOS prompt and pressing as follows (with the exemplary Russian keyboard driver). keyruss This keyboard remain resident in system memory and is used by DOS until you either reset the computer or load another keyboard. What is important to remember here is that the keyboard is independent of any application programme (word processor, database management system or whatever) which you might subsequently load and is, of course, present on the DOS level as well. Bear the latter fact in mind and change the keyboard setting to the default layout (American English) when in DOS (press Ctrl-Alt+F1) as you will probably never need a customised layout when working on the operating system level. Be careful! When using a customised keyboard driver, the customised layout (reached via Ctrl-Alt+F2) will contain symbols from the upper ASCII area which will have been re-defined for the screen by the user so that they display the special symbols he/she requires. You can use this alternative keyboard layout for entering text but not for entering commands in the programme you are using. Say, for example, a particular command in your word processor requires that you press followed by the one of the letters "y/n" (a common situation). With the customised keyboard layout, the key reacts normally, but when you strike the "n" or "y" key you do not convey "no" or "yes" to the programme. Instead the key which is to be found on the "n" or "y" keys in the customised keyboard layout is sent to the programme and the latter will most certainly not be able to interpret this in any meaningful way. At best, the programme simply forgets you ever started the command and returns you to the text, at worst it does something which is the reverse of your intention. The moral of the story is: switch back to the default keyboard layout before issuing commands in a programme. 16. Using character sets with data processing software The LinguaFont set is intended to provide the user with a complete system for processing foreign language alphabets on the PC. The screen display, the keyboard layout and the printer output have been catered for by various programmes of the set. There remains one part of this whole complex which the user must manage him/herself. To explain this consider the starting point for the average user. One has one's favourite word processor with which one writes all one's texts. Along comes LinguaFont and lo and behold you have the screen and printer fonts you have always wanted at your fingertips. You can even design your own programme-independent keyboard layouts. You then write your first text in the language of your choice, print it via the printing function of your processor and nothing happens. Why? Let me give my ideal user the benefit of the doubt and assume that he/she has loaded the download file which matches the screen file being used into the printer correctly (before starting a print operation). Granted that, one must pay attention to two further aspects of font management which the user must look after him/herself. 1) Activation of download. 2) Translation of screen to printer characters. 1) You must communicate to your printer that the symbols which you know are special font symbols are to be taken from the download memory area of the printer and not from the normal firmware font in the ROM of the printer. To achieve this you must embed the command sequence for the printer in your text which, in simple words, tells the printer to enter the download area and fetch the next symbol from there. This is the sequence ESC % 1 (= "download on" in the Epson Esc P printer command language, see second section of this book). The printer is told to leave the download area with the sequence ESC % 0 (= "download off" in the Epson ESC P printer command language). At this stage you may well ask why I did not do this for you in advance. The answer is that I do not know what software the users of LinguaFont are going to be running. However, I have taken a step towards helping you by explaining in the following section with the example of WordPerfect how this works for a certain word processor. 2) If you look at the screen fonts which are supplied with LinguaFont then you immediately notice that all the special characters are stored in the upper ASCII area (and the lower area is left untouched). Now most printers have only a download capabilitiy of 128 characters which is in practice further reduced to 94 because the characters below $32 are printer control codes which should not be defined for a download font (with the possible exception of ASCII $3 - $6). What is most important, however, is that the download symbols of the printers have ASCII address numbers which lie in the lower area, i.e. under ASCII $128. Take a fictitious example. I define a screen symbol which is shaped like a Greek epsilon facing backwards (an actual symbol in phonetics). For the printer I also define the symbol with DotEd (assuming a dot matrix printer). Now within the character editor for the printer I must choose a symbol in the lower ASCII area, say $101 (lowercase "e") for mnemonic reasons while the screen symbol I redefine has the ASCII number $238 (capital Greek epsilon); I cannot use $101 in the screen file as this would replace normal "e" which is obviously undesirable as this is needed the whole time. The result of this situation is that the screen symbol has the upper ASCII address $238 and the printer symbol has the lower ASCII address $101. How do I link the two? By means of what is called a character translation table. This is a table in a word processor (or other type of software) in which one can specify that certain screen symbols are to be changed ("translated") to other values before being sent to the printer. If you now take care of both of these requirements, activation of the download and translation of screen symbols before printing, then the symbols turn up correctly on paper. The specifics of how this is done in various types of programme are offered below. 26.1. Word processors 36.1.0. Download activation Embedding of the necessary command for activating the download can be achieved in a variety of ways. Some require that you are quite versatile at patching programmes. These roundabout methods are ignored here as one cannot assume that the knowledge necessary for this is present with the majority of users of LinguaFont. The problem is solved most easily if your word processor allows you to embed a printer command directly into the text (which is the case with WordPerfect). All you do is call the particular function and enter ESC % 1 (= "download on") without forgetting to turn it off (with ESC % 0 (= "download off")) after the special symbols or else all the following text will be printed from the download area, producing garbage where normal text is expected. There is a more elegant solution to the embedding problem if your word processor allows the use of macros. In the case of WordPerfect this is so. For the purposes of illustration two macros for "download on" and "download off" (called 8alti.mac and 8alto.mac) are included with LinguaFont (on the Font Diskette). All they do is to embed the necessary sequences without the user having to call the specific function directly: you simply press for "download on" and for "download off". If you check your text subsequently with (= "reveal codes") then you see that the printer commands are now contained in your text. But what if you are using word processing software which does not cater for printer command embedding in this way? There is still a solution. It involves patching the printer driver of the programme. What you must do in this case is edit the printer driver (if you cannot do this with the software, throw it away). Then decide on some formatting feature which you can do without (say, strike-through or double underline) and enter the sequence for "download on" (ESC % 1) and "download off" (ESC % 0) where the sequences for turning this feature on and off stand. Note that various editors require that you enter this sequence in decimal, others that you use hex notation; check what applies to your word processor and enter the sequences accordingly; here they are in the various forms: Download on: ESC % 1 Hexadecimal: IB 25 01 Decimal: 27 37 01 Download off: ESC % 0 Hexadecimal: IB 25 00 Decimal: 27 37 00 After altering the printer driver in this way you will probably have to take a further step to generate a new printer driver. With Microsoft Word you must compile the printer driver text (which you can edit with Word and store without formatting information) by means of the supplied utility 8makeprd.exe. Choose the option "T" when for retrieving the text of a printer driver from the compiled form and the option "P" when you wish to re-compile the altered text. For further details, consult your programme documentation. Now return to editing a normal text. Mark the stretch of text which uses special font symbols with the feature you have adapted for download activation (say, double underline). This works just like the macros of WordPerfect. It's a little clumsy but the effect is the same. With the present version of Microsoft Word it is practically the only solution to download activation problem. 36.1.1. Character translation The next requirement, character translation, is dealt with by editing the printer driver. Somewhere in the printer driver text there will be a table which acts as screen input and printer output. Enter the printer download addresses correctly at the points in the upper ASCII area where your special screen symbols lie. Then the matter is settled. Here are a few fictitious examples: Screen values Values sent to the printer . . . . $238 -> $101 $239 -> $37 $240 -> $68 . . Exactly how you enter values into the table of your printer driver will depend on the software you are using. The dollar signs in the above example merely indicate that the values are decimal and not hexadecimal. Some printer drivers require that hex notation be used for values in translation tables; others allow you to use ASCII symbols (i.e. not numbers). Check this carefully! For more details about dealing with download fonts and software, consult the relevant sections of part two of this book which offer more technical details. Character translation may not be necessary if you are using a dot matrix printer with an upper ASCII area download. In this case you can locate the download symbols (via DotEd) at the same addresses which you use for the screen symbols. Then only download activation is required in your text. Character translation is usually necessary with laser printers also as customised fonts should contain characters in the lower ASCII area to avoid complications with your data processing software. You can access your customised font by associating it with a certain font from within your word processor. 26.2. Database managers You may very well have database management software with which you wish to process data containing customised screen symbols, say you wish to build a literature database for Russian. The two requirements for management of special symbols remain: download activation and character translation must be taken care of. For the purposes of illustration, I will discuss briefly the situation with dBASE which can be taken to apply to other sophisticated database managers such as Borland's Paradox. In order to embed printer download activation commands into a dBASE database you must programme dBASE. The interactive mode makes no provision for this. You direct all output to the printer with the two commands: Set device to printer Set print on Then you issue a string with the help of the @ X,Y SAY ... command as follows: @ 0,0 SAY CHR(27) + "%" + CHR(1) The row and column coordinates specified after the at-symbol would naturally vary depending on where on the page you are actually printing. But in principle it is irrelevant as the sequence is not printed but is merely a command for the printer. Once this is issued all subsequent printing is done with characters from the download area of the printer. To turn the download off include the following line in your source code at the relevant position: @ 0,0 SAY CHR(27) + "%" + CHR(0) Do not forget to turn off the printer when finished printing with the commands: Set device to console Set print off This might seem like a very complicated way to activate the printer download. However, if you are used to programming you will realise that you only have to do this once. You can construct a procedure which turns the download on or off (the direction being decided on by a parameter which is passed with one of two values) and simply call the procedure anywhere in your source code where it is needed. If you neither programme in dBASE nor are using a compiled application which explicitly allows for downloading then you must be content with processing customised screen fonts without printing them directly from within dBASE. You could, however, export a database to your word processor and print it from there. The question of character translation is easily solved with dBASE as it has a conversion table in the form of an additional file (dbprint.ptb) which it consults on printing a database. You can edit this file with a utility supplied with dBASE and enter the printer download addresses at the relevant screen addresses in the input column of the translation table. 17. Supplementary programmes Apart from the three character editors, the LinguaFont set contains a number of utilities which are intended to carry out secondary functions which are necessary during font management. 1.1. LoadDot 1.2. LoadNec 1.3. LoadLas 2.1. NewDot 2.2. NewLas 3.1. TranDot 3.2. TranLas 4.1. Upgrade 4.2. DotScr 4.3.1. Italic 4.3.2. Bold 4.4. Size 5.1. CtrlDot 5.2. MemDot 5.3. TestDot 6. Intro 7. Desktop 8. BatEd Note that these programmes may be required by various options in the main menu of the character editors but are not necessary if you simply want to process (or create) a character set (for screen or printer). Their functions are described briefly below. 37.1.1. LoadDot Syntax: loaddot font_file [/t(2)] The easiest way to load a download font file into your dot matrix printer is to use the present programme with the file you wish to load given as the font_file parameter. The programme carries out various checks, such as whether there is a parallel port in the computer, if there is more than one you are asked to choose one. LoadDot furthermore checks that the printer is on-line and only then starts downloading the font file. A message is issued when the operation is completed. By using the /t switch (which is optional) you can force LoadDot to also print a table of the characters in the file you have just downloaded. For documentation purposes it is useful as the character addresses within the download file are immediately recognisable.  Note. The font file specified must be a valid dot matrix printer download file generated with DotEd. If the font file has been produced in any other manner then you must ensure that the file does not contain an ASCII $26 character anywhere as this is treated as an "end of file" signal by the printer and thus any characters in the file after this point will simply be printed instead of being stored as the bit patterns of downloaded characters. 37.1.2. LoadNec Syntax: loadnec font_file /l,u,b [/t(2)] This programme has been specifically designed for use with the NEC Pinwriter Plus series of printers. A download capacity of 256 characters is to be found with the latter. The area can be treated as (i) 2 separate areas of 128 characters or (ii) one large area of 256 characters. By using a switch you can specify the download mode and the area to be used for the downloaded characters. The key to the switches is as follows: /l = 128 character font to be loaded into lower ASCII area /u = 128 character font to be loaded into upper ASCII area /b = 256 character font to be loaded into a single area covering the entire ASCII set The addressing of downloads with the Pinwriter Plus series is somewhat different than with simply 24 dot matrix needle printers. There are two additional commands encoded as so-called "form separator" sequences (i.e. they begin not with ESC, $27, but with FS, $28). The first of these communicates to the printer that either a single download area is desired (256 characters) or 2 blocks of 128 characters. FS W 1 ($28 $87 $01) 256 character download FS W 0 ($28 $87 $00) 128 character download (x 2) If you choose the second sequence and load two 128 character download fonts into the two halves of the download area (by means of LoadNec) then you can later address these areas via the second of the special "form separator" sequences for the NEC printers. FS X 1 ($28 $88 $01) Activate lower download area FS X 0 ($28 $88 $00) Activate upper download area The above commands must be embedded into your data processing software (e.g. word processor) so that the printer is sent the correct activation sequence just before characters which are to be taken from the one download area or the other are printed. For further details on these commands (including programming examples), consult the technical documentation to your Pinwriter Plus printer. The second switch with LoadNec is the same as that for the previous programme (it prints a test table of the lower and possibly the upper ASCII area, see above for details). 37.1.3. LoadLas Syntax: loadlas font_file id_no [/t(2)] This is the corresponding programme to the above, but for laser printers. An extra parameter is necessary here as each font loaded via LoadLas is also assigned a font identification number (see discussion of this in the section on LaserEd). Basically the font identification number can be any digit in the range 0 through 32767. The number is specified as a plain number (no preceding slash or dash as with other switches used for programmes called from the commmand line). As you cannot print individual characters from within LaserEd (contrast this with the situation within DotEd) this is the only way you can see the results of your character editing on paper before you use a character set during word processing. The table switch can be entered as /t or /t2 on the command line. The latter specification forces LoadLas to print the upper ASCII area on a second page; normally it only prints those symbols from the lower ASCII area on a single page. The parameter font_file refers to a valid download file generated with LaserEd or any soft font file which conforms to the Hewlett Packard format. Various messages may be issued by LoadLas if you have more than one parallel port in your computer or if your printer is not on-line or if the programme cannot find the specified download font file. 37.2.1. NewDot Syntax: newdot source_font target_font For the user who wishes to starting creating his/her own fonts this is the most important programme. With it he/she can import characters from one of the download font files supplied with the LinguaFont set into a new file of his/her own. The parameters 8target_font may be an existing download file but need not be. If the file does not exist already it is created. Here you immediately recognise the possibility of importing characters into an existing download font file or creating one afresh. Assume for the description of the programme below that I am using the supplied file old_eng.dl1 as source and wish to create a new target file new.dl1 with some of the characters of the source file. Consider the following screen layout. Ŀ ijij Font Type: Pica [10 CPI] Font Type: Pica [10 CPI] Font Size: 93 Chars. [7268 Bytes] Font Size: 5 Chars. [463 Bytes] Current Character: ] 93 5D Current Character: 1 49 31 Source File: OLD_ENG.DL1 Target File: NEW.DL1 The screen is divided into two halves. On the left the first character of the source file can be seen. By using <[Ctrl-]PageUp> or <[Ctrl-]PageDown> one can page in this file or use to go directly to a character. Note that the left half of the bottom line of the screen is displayed in inverse to show that the left half of the screen (source font) is active (this is visible on the screen but not on the present printed page). Activating source or target font. Use the key to switch to the right half of the screen (target font). By means of the same keystrokes as with the source font (<[Ctrl-]PageUp> and <[Ctrl-]PageDown>) you can move in the target file. To begin with, the file will be empty so that paging in the file just leads to a counter in the bottom line of the screen increasing or decreasing. Importing characters. To copy characters from source to target activate the source (with the key) and move to the character you wish to copy into the target file. Press . The first thing you notice is that the right half of the screen becomes active (check the inverse display in the bottom line of the screen!). You can now move in the target file to the ASCII value to which you want the source file character copied. Press when you have reached this. The character from the left is duplicated on the right and the left half of the screen becomes active again so that you can continue paging in the source file. Repeat this procedure as many times as there are characters you wish to import from the source into the target file. If you press then you are asked how many characters NewDot is to transfer from left to right. By these means you can copy a series of characters at one go. Note that may not page through the target font with this keystroke. You can see how many characters you have in your target file in the status box at the bottom of the right half of the screen. The byte number of the target file is incremented when you copy characters from left to right in the screen. However, for internal technical reasons the byte count may be off by a few bytes; but the number of character is always accurate. Viewing entire font. To have a compelete font (either source or target) displayed, press . The screen changes and a graphic representation of the entire current font is offered. Press any key to return to the previous screen. Depending on which half of the screen is active (check to see which half of the bottom line of the screen is displayed in inverse) either the source or the target font will be shown. Online help. Pressing within NewDot leads to an online help text being displayed. Saving new download font file. To exit NewDot and save the target file press . The file is written to disk and you are returned to DOS. If you wish to abandon the changes made, press . To avoid accidental use of the key, you must explicitly confirm exiting without saving the target file. 37.2.2. NewLas Syntax: newlas This is the equivalent programme for laser printers. It is similar to NewDot in command structure and user interface. However it is somewhat more comfortable inasmuch as it provides you with a directory listing from which to choose the source and target font. Note in this connection the two special commands which you have at your disposal on the file lister level of this programme. F4 Drive. Allows you to choose a new drive from the list of logical drives on your computer system. Sh-F4 File template. Permits the specification of a new file template. After you do this the file listing is refreshed to show just those files which match the template you entered. Note that if no files match then nothing is displayed. Revert the file template to an earlier value or enter a new one by pressing again. Ŀ F4 = New Drive Shift-F4 = File Template ͵ FileName Ext. Size Date Time ͸ BALKAN .LPF 3178 01/04/93 10:10 BALTIC .LPF 2497 01/03/93 17:44 CLASS_GR.LPF 12285 01/07/93 15:16 CZECH .LPF 4460 01/04/93 08:13 EMPTY .LPF 3599 01/07/93 13:25 EXT_CYR .LPF 5554 01/04/93 08:10 HEBREW .LPF 3931 01/05/93 15:19 HIST_ENG.LPF 2688 12/18/92 12:34 ͵ Files: 32, Size: 323669 Bytes ; - Select Font 1 - --- D:\SRC\TC\AFONTS\LASER --- After you have chosen the source font, you are asked if you wish to start a new font (press ) or choose an existing one from a directory listing (press ). If you select a font as target then characters are added from the left (source) to the right (target). Ŀ Ŀ Font 1: PHON_TMS.LPF For Font 2, press one of these keys: F5: Start new font; F10: Load existing one If you are viewing a file with very large letters, the edges may not be shown on the screen. However, enough of the symbols are to be seen for you to recognise characters clearly. Ŀ Ŀ ijij Font Size: 104 Chars. [13469 Bytes] Font Size: 96 Chars. [15314 Bytes] Current Character: + 43 2B Current Character: L 76 4C Source: PHON_TMS.LPF Target: RUSS_TMS.LPF ٳ Pay attention to the fact that the font header of the source file is grafted onto the target font. If the target font already contains characters which are not of the same point size as the source font then the new version of the target font will be a corrupt laser printer font which will not upset LaserEd so much as your laser printer which will probably ignore any commands to print characters from this file when you want to print characters from this font with your data processing software later on. 47.2.2.1. Function key settings [Ctrl-]PgUp,PgDn Navigate in either font Shift-F10 View font 1 or 2 graphically Tab Switch from one font to the other F8 Copy character from font 1 to font 2 Alt-G Goto ASCII number to accept character Shift-F8 Copy a number of characters from left to right Ctrl-F7 Page through colour combinations F10 Save font 2 (on right of screen) to file F7,Alt-F4 Exit without saving additions to font 2 37.3.1. TranDot Syntax: trandot font_file /10,12,p If you have generated a download font in a certain pitch with DotEd and now wish to have the same set of symbols in another pitch, then you do not have to create a new font to do so. It is enough to run the download file through the present programme to have its pitch changed. The parameter 8font_file must refer to a valid download file generated with DotEd. The switch after the file name specifies whether you are translating a Pica source to an Elite target (use the /10 switch) or an Elite source to a Pica target (use the /12 switch) or a Pica source to a proprotional target (use the /p switch). TranDot changes the formal features of a download file (file extension, font header) but not the shapes of the characters it contains. It is up to the user to edit the altered file with DotEd and expand or compress the symbols it contains so that they resemble the new pitch in size. 37.3.2. TranLas Syntax: tranlas source_file target_file This performs a similar function to the previous programme. Note an essential difference: TranLas does not change one and the same file but grafts information from a source file to a target file both of which must be valid download fonts generated with LaserEd. Although you have been warned on several occasions (see various sections above) to ensure that the font header (the first 64 bytes of a laser printer download file) matches the characters defined in a file, the purpose of the present programme is to deliberately flout this maxim so that you can formally translate one file type into another. Say, for example, you have a 10 point Times Roman font with customised characters (a foreign language font of some sort, for example). You wish to create a 14 point file to match (for headings and titles, for instance). Obviously the new font is to include the same characters as the source font. The first step is to copy the source font to a new name so that you have a duplicate of it as in the following example: copy lang_10.lpf lang_14.lpf This gives you a new version of the original file. Now take a 14 point file of some sort (if you do not have one, then create an empty one with LaserEd) and use it as the source file with TranLas as in: tranlas old_14.lpf lang_14.lpf What this does is to graft the font header from the first file (which is a genuine 14 point file) onto the second file which up to this only referred to 14 point size in its name but was internally a 10 point size file deriving from lang_10.lpf. With this move you have formally converted a file of one point size into another. Of course the symbols in the new file are not automatically larger. This has to be done manually by the user in a later work session with LaserEd. 37.4.1. Upgrade Syntax: upgrade source_font target_font Computer users who have a laser printer will in all probability have started out with a dot matrix printer and so may have customised character sets for the latter type of printer which they would like to transfer to a laser printer format. The present programme permits just that. The source file for Upgrade is a dot matrix printer download font and the target font is the laser printer font which is the output of the upgrading operation. If the target file already exists on disk you must confirm overwriting it. Once you have transferred a file you must edit it manually. The automatic point size which Upgrade gives to the laser printer files it produces is 12 and the typeface is Times Roman. Naturally dot matrix printer fonts will not be large enough when transported to a laser printer environment (as the dot grid they use for characters is coarser than that for laser printers). You notice this when you load the resulting file with LaserEd. The characters must be expanded somewhat. This can be achieved quite easily by pressing when in the edit mode and then using either the vertical and/or horizontal arrow keys depending on the direction in which you wish to expand a particular character. Note that you must also thicken the stems of letters to achieve the correct proportions of a true 12 point Times Roman font. For the purpose of comparison take a look at one of the laser fonts supplied with LinguaFont. This should give you a good idea of what the shapes of such a font are like. With LoadLas you can of course print out a table to see the result on paper. The target font you create may not be formally what you want for your laser printer. Say you would like a 10 Helvetica font instead of a 12 point Times Roman. You achieve this very easily by taking the output file from Upgrade and running it through TranLas which allows you to change the formal characteristics of a laser font (i.e. alter the font descriptor at the beginning of the font file) from one type to another. Remember that the characteristics specified for the entire font in the font descriptor are those which are used on printing when the laser printer receives a command to print characters from a certain font unless your data processing software uses a font identification number to activate a particular font, see the discussion in the section on LaserEd for details. 37.4.2. DotScr Syntax: dotscr input_file /d,s In order to allow you to convert a dot matrix screen font to a screen font and vice versa a new utility has been included in the LinguaFont set. The parameter input_file in the command syntax stands for a character set file. If the switch /d is used then the character set file must be a dot matrix font (produced with DotEd) and a corresponding screen font is generated. If you specify the switch /s then the character set file must be a screen font for either an EGA/VGA video adapter or the Hercules Plus Graphics Card. The programme determines internally which type of font the user specified. When generating a dot matrix printer font from a screen font, a non-proportional Pica (10 CPI) font is the result; if the source font is a printer font then the output font is an EGA font. The latter can be converted to a Hercules Plus font with VideoEd if so desired. The quality of the output fonts generated by DotScr varies. Printer fonts derived from screen fonts are better than the opposite. In each case you must edit the characters manually to attain an acceptable final result. The need to produce fonts via DotScr should not be that great, however, as a number of screen and printer fonts are supplied with LinguaFont anyway and you can mix and combine these at will with either the respective characters themselves or (for printer fonts) with the utility NewDot. 47.4.3.1. Italic Syntax: italic font_file The purpose of the present programme is to italicise a font. What it does is to change an entire font in the manner in which you can alter an individual character by pressing within LaserEd. The slant factor is slight to avoid unduly distorting the characters of the font. No changes in the form of the symbols in the font are made, i.e. letters are not cursivised. Note. The 8font_file parameter refers to the source and target of the italicisation operation: no separate italic font file is created. Be careful that you really want to italicise a font before running Italic. Use a copy if you are just experimenting. 47.4.3.2. Bold Syntax: bold input_file The programnme Bold has been included in the LinguaFont package to allow users to automatically create a bold version of any font which they have designed for a laser beam printer. It functions in a similar fashion to the utility Italic (see previous page). Note that you will in all probability have to edit characters afterwards in order to fine-tune the shapes in the newly created bold font. 37.4.4. Size Syntax: size font_file /e,c /h0,1,2,3,45 /v0,1,2,3,4,5 Above all after using Upgrade, you will need to increase the size of the characters of a font in order for them to be on a par with original laser fonts. With the present programme you can do just that. It can also be used to convert, say, a 10 point laser font to 14 point or whatever. Size furthermore works in two directions: you can expand or compress the characters of a font. To improve the flexibility of the programme you are allowed to specify the horizontal and vertical expansion/compression factors separately. They range from 0 to 5 with the following effect (expansion or compression): 0 (no alteration of factor) 1 100% 2 75% 3 50% 4 25% 5 12.5% Two important points should be borne in mind when using Size: (i) the programme uses one and the same font as source and target of the operation, so only work with a copy if you are not absolutely sure you want to alter a particular font, (ii) expanding a font can lead to it increasing beyond the matrix size as determined by the font descriptor, i.e. there may be characters in the font which are higher or wider than the value for "cell height" and "cell width" in the font header. This will not disturb LaserEd as much as your laser printer when you try to use such a font afterwards. The remedy is to load the resulting font with LaserEd and see if the characters are oversized or not. If so, alter the header of the font file with TranLas accordingly so that font header and character size harmonize. 37.5.1. CtrlDot Syntax: ctrldot To allow the user to change the setting of the printer from within DotEd, this programme is included in the LinguaFont set. It is only for dot matrix printers; there is no equivalent for laser printers. No command line parameters are necessary for CtrlDot. When the programme starts a window is opened on the right of the screen in which various font types and attributes are listed. You can move the highlight bar with the and keys and by pressing the relevant printer command is sent through the parallel port to the printer. Certain commands can be combined with others. For example it is possible to combine "Italic type" with "Bold print" and a given "Pitch (CPI)". However, pitches cannot be combined with each other as they are mutually exclusive. You can only find out by trial and error what is possible with your particular printer. If the printer cannot be accessed an error message is issued and you choose to either retry or abort the attempt. Press to leave the programme. 37.5.2. MemDot Syntax: memdot This is a memory-resident version of the above programme which can be loaded on the DOS level and called from within any subsequently loaded programme which does not run in the graphics mode. The amount of memory used by MemDot is not a consideration with a system running under 640K and a normal application like a word processor or database management system. Press to activate MemDot. You cannot alter the hot key setting for calling the programme so be careful not to use any other memory-resident programme (like SideKick) if it has the same hot key setting. The programme remains resident until you reset your computer. MemDot can be useful in connection with some programme which does not allow you to control the printer directly from the user level (e.g. a database management system, like dBASE). Before printing from such a programme, you might like to change the setting of the printer (choose a narrower pitch to print long fields on a single line, for instance). 37.5.3. TestDot Syntax: testdot When you are experimenting with various features of your printer, you may be in doubt as to whether they work or not. For example, when getting acquainted with LinguaFont you might be in doubt as to whether the download of your computer works or not. As the cause of some unexpected effect might lie with your word processor (this is most often the case) I have included a test programme for 24 needle dot matrix printers which runs independently of any word processor (note that there is no equivalent for laser printers). The programme is started without any command line parameters by simply entering atestdot and pressing . A screen appears in which a variety of options are listed. To test any one of them press the letter of the alphabet in front of the option you require. Make sure your printer is connected to the computer, powered up and on-line. In order to test the download option, TestDot must have access to 8old_eng.dl1 as this is loaded into the printer before a sample text is printed. The options "K" and "L" are important to German users of LinguaFont. When printing German text from your word processor your printer will need to be set (via a DIP switch, see second section of this book for a discussion of these) to the IBM character set and to the US language set, although the latter may seem paradoxical. If you observe these settings then the second option referred to here should lead to correct printing of the special symbols of the German alphabet (Umlaute and ). Note. To test the download feature of a dot matrix printer with TestDot the font file russian.dl1 (part of the LinguaFont) must be present in the current directory. Assuming it can find this file TestDot will attempt to print some special symbols to illustrate this printer feature. 27.6. Intro Syntax: intro In addition to the above utilities there is a programme called intro.exe on the programme disk of the LinguaFont set. It is a help file which offers the user a brief introduction to the set of programmes so that he/she can orient him/herself quickly with the group. By no means does Intro substitute the present book. 27.7. Desktop Syntax: desktop The present programme is intended to serve as a level from which the user can control all the programmes of the LinguaFont-group. It is specially conceived for the beginner who will naturally be unacquainted with the group and not know the call syntax of many of the minor utilities. Desktop is called directly from DOS without any parameters being passed from the command line. It presents a screen similar to the following to the user. Ŀ Video Laser Matrix Keyboard Miscellaneous Help Ŀ Edit laser font Combine two fonts Send font to printer Make font bold Italicise font Alter font size Change parameters ٱ D:\SRC\LINGFONT F1=Help S-F1,C-F1=DOS A-F4=Exit F9=Env Use -,- for menus,  to choose option The user can choose a particular menu with the horizontal arrow keys. Each menu is dedicated to a sub-group of the package. Within a menu an option calls just one programme. The description of each option should suggest what the particular programme does. If an option for a programme is selected by the user which requires one or more parameters from the DOS command line then a window appears in the centre of the screen. The user is requested to type relevant information which the programme in question requires for its operation. You can cancel a command even at this late stage by simply pressing . Ŀ Video Laser Matrix Keyboard Miscellaneous Help Ŀ Edit dot matrix font Combine two fonts Send font to printer Use 256-char. printer Video <-> Printer font Control matrix printer Resident printer test Printer test programme Alter font parameters Matrix -> Laser font ٱ Example: dotscr my_dot.dl1 /d Ŀ dotscr Required: fontfile /d (printer source), /s (screen source) ٱ D:\SRC\LINGFONT F1=Help S-F1,C-F1=DOS A-F4=Exit F9=Env Enter additional information for programme call! The amount of memory used by Desktop is very slight and should not disturb the proper functioning of any of the programmes called. The programme conforms to the SAA (systems application architecture) specification of IBM. This means that the user can either use a mouse to activate an option of the -key in connection with a highlighted letter for a particular option. By pressing or the programme is unloaded and you return to DOS. 27.8. BatEd Syntax: bated The aim of the present programme is to offer users a comfortable desktop from which to choose, edit and then execute DOS batch files. The programme consists of a directory lister from which one chooses a batch file (in the usual manner for a file listing), deciding by keystroke whether to (i) edit the file or (ii) execute it. Ŀ BatEd Batch file editor and dispatcher in one 526,224 bytes free  FileName Ext. Size Date Time CC .BAT 244 01/03/91 08:44 CL .BAT 224 07/15/91 09:47 CS .BAT 219 01/03/91 08:45 CT .BAT 224 07/12/91 09:26 DT .BAT 249 06/08/92 20:37 LF .BAT 6160 12/14/92 12:20 K1 .BAT 13 10/05/90 18:34 K2 .BAT 28 10/05/90 18:33 LOADVID .BAT 237 01/03/91 08:45 MK_KEY .BAT 246 08/08/91 10:12 TEST .BAT 277 12/15/92 21:05 VS .BAT 251 08/08/91 09:44 [ Parent Directory ] [ Subdir.: BOOK ]  File: 7 of 12, Size: 8372 Bytes D:\SRC\LINGFONT =Drive, =Template F1=Help F7=Exit Return=Edit File Escape=New File Ctrl-Return=Execute 37.8.1. Desktop commands F1 Offers a window of online help. F7 Exits BatEd to DOS. F4 Allows you to log in a new drive from a list of the logical drives on your computer system. Shift-F4 Permits the specification of a file template for the directory listing. Note that if you set this to 8*.* (the default is 8*.bat) then you can access any file and edit it if you so wish. Return Edit the currently highlighted file. Remember that editing is done entirely in memory so that the file must be large enough to fit, i.e. under 400K in size. This is of course of no relevance to batch files. Control-Return Execute the currently highlighted file. Before execution you are given the opportunity of entering any DOS command line parameters for the batch file. If none are required, just press immediately. An automatic return to BatEd is made once the batch file has been carried out. Escape Start a new file (i.e. not one chosen from the directory listing). When on the text editing level you can save this new file (which has the default name noname.tmp) to disk under a name of your choice. 37.8.2. Editing commands Once you have chosen a batch file from the directory listing on the desktop the screen changes and you enter the editing level. The contents of the chosen file are shown or an empty screen is displayed (if you have chosen via to start a new file). Ŀ D:\SRC\LINGFONT\TEST.BAT Line: 2 Col: 1 [|||||||||] rem First of all load a laser font: rem Make sure that the printer is both on and on-line! pause loadlas my_laser.lpf 1 rem Now load the video font: vidperm my_video.vga rem Last but not least load a keyboard driver: my_keyb 2 rem End of batch file 47.8.2.1. Navigation keys End End of current line. Home Beginning of current line. PageUp Top of current screen. PageDown Bottom of current screen. GreyPlus Down half a screen. GreyMinus Up half a screen. Ctrl-PgUp Beginning of entire text. Ctrl-PgDn End of entire text. Ctrl-RightArrow Move right a word. Ctrl-LeftArrow Move left a word. Up,Down,Left,Right Arrow (Expected cursor movements) Ctrl-Home Goto to line #. In addition to the obvious cursor movements just listed you can jump to a particular line with the present command. 47.8.2.2. Deletion operations Del Delete current character (no shift). Backspace Delete character (shift to left). Ctrl-L Delete current line. Ctrl-End Delete from cursor to end of current line. Ctrl-R Delete word to right of cursor. 47.8.2.3. Find and replace options Ctrl-F Find a string. Ctrl-N Next find. Ctrl-E Exchange strings. 47.8.2.4. Miscellaneous commands Ins / Over Insert or overwrite mode. Note in addition to the above commands that you can toggle input modes with the key (from the Insert to the Typeover mode and back again). Ctrl-T Set tab width. The default number of spaces to which a tab character is resolved is 8. You can change this value manually by pressing and entering a new value in the dialogue box which opens; the legal range of values is from 2 to 12. If you wish to see the tab characters and the spaces which derive from them then press (= Show formatting). Notes. The tab positions can also be seen in the ruler on the second line of the screen in the main text area. When you have entered a value for the width of a tab you are asked if you wish to resolve tabs to spaces on saving a text. Toggle this value with the key (the current state is indicated before the text of the option). Note carefully that if you save a text to disk with tabs resolved to spaces then the tabs are irrecoverably lost as they are replaced by the number of spaces they are indicated by on screen. F3 Store/Retrieve Line. This command stores the contents of the current line; by pressing again you can copy the stored line into a new line. Before BatEd proceeds the user must specify whether he/she wishes to store the line the cursor is currently resting on or to retrieve the contents of the line buffer (assuming that something was copied into it earlier). Note that the tab ruler in the second line of the screen is replaced by a special prompt. Use either the , or the , keys to choose the desired action (as always, aborts the action). If the line buffer has already been filled then its contents are displayed on the second line of the screen. Ŀ D:\SRC\LINGFONT\TEST.BAT Line: 2 Col: 1 Store Retrieve rem First of all load a laser font: rem First of all load a laser font: rem Make sure that the printer is both on and on-line! Note. causes the current line from the present cursor position to the end of the line to be stored. If you wish to have the entire line copied then you must move to the beginning by pressing the key. If you choose "Retrieve", the contents of the buffer are inserted into the current line at the cursor position. The remainder of the line remains intact. Ctrl-F3 Show formatting. This is a toggle which alternatively turns the display of line ends and tabs on or off. The initial state is 'off'. Turning the formatting display on is especially useful with files which make heavy use of tabs and where the latter may vary in the number of spaces they resolve to. Note that line ends are indicated by the symbol  while the spaces used to resolve tab characters are indicated by and the beginning of each new tab position is shown by the broke vertical bar, |; normal spaces are displayed as small dots . Shift-F6 Copy previous line. Assuming that the previous line has a length greater than one, pressing the present key combination leads to the previous line being copied into the present one. Note that only that section is copied from the cursor position to the end of the previous line (to duplicate the entire line, move the cursor to the beginning of the current line with ). The section is then inserted into the present line, i.e. if there is text to the right of the cursor in the current line then this is shifted to the right by the appropriate amount. Alt-F7 Exit to desktop. Exits from the text editing level and returns you to the desktop from where you can execute the batch file you just edited, load another batch file or just exit to DOS. F9 Show environment. This commands offers you a windowful of relevant information pertaining to the file you are editing and the environment you are working in. Ŀ D:\SRC\LINGFONT\TEST.BAT Line: 2 Col: 1 [|||||||||] rem First of all load a laser font: rem Make sure that the printer is both on and on-line! ͸ pause Current File : TEST.BAT loadlas my_la File Size : 277 Bytes; 20 Lines Archived : 12/15/92; 21:05 rem Now load Current Path : D:\SRC\TC\LINGFONT vidperm my_vi Memory Left : 412848 Bytes rem Last but Current Time : 21:06:06 Current Date : 12/15/1992 my_keyb 2 Press any key ; rem End of batch file F10 Save text. For this option you must specify the name of the file you want to be written to disk. By default BatEd takes the name of the file as loaded from the desktop. You can change this at will. Should there already be a file of the same name in the present directory or that specified in the full file path then you must confirm overwriting it. 18. The essentials of font management LinguaFont is a software system for the generation and processing of user-defined character sets (fonts). You can both create new fonts yourself and adapt any of the fonts supplied with the programme package. A font can be displayed on the screen. This is a video font. A font can be printed on paper. This is a printer font. Both fonts are separate files but should be linked together such that the numerical values of the special symbols in both the video and the printer font are identical. Recall that video font are only visible on screen if you are on the DOS level or in a programme which runs in the so-called character mode. This applies to most word processors (such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word, as long as there are operating in the character mode). The video fonts of the LinguaFont package cannot be seen within Microsoft Windows as this is a graphical environment which uses its own fonts for screen display. Nonetheless you can avail of LinguaFont printer fonts when outputting text, irrespective of what programme is currently running on your computer. Adapting fonts for screen and printer Recall to begin with the steps involved in designing and then using a customised font on your PC. You copy any screen font (such as 8IBM.VGA) to a name of your choice and then alter the shape of those characters you do not need in the upper ASCII area (above $128) to display the special symbols you require. Take note of the ASCII numerical values of the characters whose shapes you redefine. You then load the printer character editor for the type of printer you have (either DotEd for dot matrix printers or LaserEd for laser printers). If you are using a matrix printer take the font 8IBM_256.DL1 and redesign those characters at the same number values as the screen characters you have defined. This is the situation for matrix printers such as those of the NEC Pinwriter series which supports a 256 character download font. When using a laser printer, take any base font (e.g. the Letter Choice 12 cpi font called 8ASC_UPRT.LPF in the laser file directory) and change the symbols as just described for matrix printers. Note. The programmes which handle laser fonts all have the syllable LAS in their name; those which deal with dot matrix printers have the syllable DOT. Bear in mind that a font which is loaded into your printer is discarded once you turn off the printer for whatever reason, i.e. if only to remedy a paper jam. The same applies to the computer itself: once turned off, a font is discarded and will have to be loaded afresh when you turn on the computer again. For this reason it is sensible to embed calls to the font management programmes of the LinguaFont package into the startup batch file autoexec.bat which is executed automatically when the computer is turned on. This is the simplest of all situations. You may advance later to designing your own keyboard to enter the characters you have redefined in the upper ASCII area directly from normal alphanumeric keys. Any existing font can be altered swiftly by mixing fonts (either for screen or printer). You may convert screen to printer fonts, italicise or bold printer fonts, etc. If you wish you can define proportionally spaced special fonts. However, printing these with right justification is a tricky matter (you must convey the width of each character to the printer driver of your word processor). I strongly advise all users who do not know exactly how to fulfill such a task to use fixed width special character sets. So far, so good. Now you come to the task of addressing and printing the special characters from within your own software (in nearly all cases this will be a word processor). To check on whether your word processor accepts your special characters, load the file 8TEST_DL.TXT (if you are using Microsoft Word you must load it in the character more by entering 8word /c from the command line, with WordPerfect no special load mode is required). Remember to have loaded your screen font with Video Permanent to ensure that your word processor does not throw away your special font on starting! Furthermore make sure that you have loaded your special printer font file with LoadLas or LoadDot beforehand! Now you should see the characters you have defined in the Upper ASCII area, in the second table of the 8TEST_DL.TXT file. To print this choose the most basic of all printer drivers available, most probably called "STANDARD", with an extension typical of your word processor (e.g. ".DBS" in Microsoft Word and ".PRS" in WordPerfect) and print the file. There should be a one-to-one correspondence between the screen symbols in the file and the resulting printout. Difficulties 1) You forgot to load the printer font file before starting your word processor and printing the test file. 2) The printer driver you chose initialised the printer before printing, thereby de-selecting the special download font which had been loaded and selected by LoadLas/LoadDot. 3) The printer driver you chose blocked upper ASCII characters from being sent to the printer, or it translated them to lower ASCII characters (stripping the 8th. bit, as it is technically called). To determine what has happened, you should exit your word processor and load your font with LoadLas/LoadDot (again, if this has not already been done), this time using the switch /t which will print out a table of the download font. If this succeeds and you see the characters you defined, then the problems lie with the printer driver used within your word processor. You may not find it very helpful of me, but all I can recommend to you at this point is to contact your software dealer and get him to sort the matter out. Problems with older-type matrix printers Dot matrix printers with only a 128 character download area suffer from a serious drawback: all the characters which you define in the upper ASCII area must be translated on printing to lower ASCII symbols as the half-sized download area only contains addresses up to 128. As you need the normal alphabet on the screen which is in the area up to 128, you have no choice but to redefine characters in the upper ASCII area and then, by way of a printer driver, translate these characters from their high values to lower values which correspond to the addresses at which your printer stores download symbols. N.B. It is pointless defining a 256 character font with DotEd if your printer does not support this (the printer will refuse to accept such a font). The above situation is compounded by the additional difficulty that when you mix normal text and special characters in your word processor, you must convey to the printer what characters are to be taken from the normal font in the printer and what ones are to be fetched from the download area on printing. To solve these difficulties you must define a printer driver (or alter an existing one). The details of this are given in Chapter 6 of the book "Using character sets with data processing software". P.S. Users of LinguaFont must understand that it is impossible for me to construe printer drivers in advance which will run with their software. For one thing, I have no idea what programmes people will be using and for another, I do not know (i) what screen characters users are going to re-define and (ii) what values they are going to choose to store special characters for the printer at. DIP switches and buffers in matrix printers All dot matrix printers have one or more rows of small switches in some more or less inaccessible part of the printer (usually under a cover at the side or back of the printer). These are called DIP (from dual inline package) switches which determine the settings from certain hardware parameters. The matter would be uninteresting were it not for the fact that many printers use their internal memory for buffering characters to be printed rather than for downloading fonts. This is a frequent cause of unsuccessful font activation with dot matrix printers. If a font does not work then check the settings of the relevant DIP switches to start with and consult your printer documentation if necessary. Keyboard management This is the most unproblematic part of LinguaFont. You may assign characters which you defined to keys on various planes of the keyboard by using the programme SetKey which is specially designed to accomplish this task comfortably. See the detailed description and the suggestions offered in the relevant chapter above. Batch files and LinguaFont A batch file is an ASCII text file, i.e. one without any formatting information such as page layout, typeface specifications, etc. which are normal in word processor documents. It simply consists of commands for DOS, one per line. The file is consulted by the operating system and the commands executed in the order in which they occur in the batch file. Details concerning how batch files are structured and their various uses can be found in any good documentation on the operating system of the personal computer. In order to facilitate font management it is sensible to create batch files for at least the following two steps. 1) Loading a video font into the video adapter of your computer (mostly like a VGA adapter on a colour system). 2) Loading a customised font into your printer (laser or dot matrix). These two steps can be combined into one and executed on starting your computer to ensure that the correct font for your processing requirements is always available. 1II Screens, Printers, Keyboards 11. Screen fonts 21.0. Preamble: Non-graphic and graphic video mode The more basic of the two above modes is the non-graphic mode. It is also termed the text or alphanumeric mode. When you are on the level of the operating system (when you turn on your computer, for instance) you are in the non-graphic mode. This means that all symbols you see on the screen (letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.) are treated as unalterable blocks of video representation which fit into the standard 8 x 14 matrix used by the PC screen. The matrix is in fact 9 x 16 but the rightmost column and the bottom two for any character block are empty so that characters do not run into each other. The only exception to this are the block graphics characters (used for windows and boxes in the non-graphic mode) between ASCII $176 and ASCII $223 as these must produce unbroken lines and shadings. Note further that only those symbols can be represented in the non-graphic mode which are available in the IBM character set (see Appendix A). When you run a programme then one of the following two situations arises. Either the programme uses the firmware IBM character set (present in a certain chip on the video adapter of your system) or it uses one of its own. By the latter is meant that the symbols for video representation are stored in a file which is part of the programme and loaded into high memory when the programme is first loaded; in this case the programme is running in the graphic mode. The advantage of the graphic mode is that each dot on the screen can be addressed individually and so new symbols, not available in the firmware IBM character set, can be represented. Furthermore graphic figures can also be shown, such as drawings, graphs, extra-large or extra-small letters, etc. The popular programme Word, for instance, can be run in either the non-graphic or graphic mode. When the second mode is chosen a small font appears on the screen and one can get more words into a line and more lines on the page. Usually one has a screen of 80 columns and 25 rows; in the graphic mode of Word, however, one has up to 90 columns and up to 43 rows. Extra large letters are not usually available in the graphics mode of a word processor or integrated software (such as the two items just mentioned); an exception to this is Microsoft Windows which allows free variation in character size with the integrated word processor. The reason why this mode is not chosen by conventional programmes (i.e. those not run in a graphics environment) largely concerns the printer. For the representation of extra large lettering on print-out the printer normally has to resort to the graphic mode of printing. This has some similarities with the graphic mode of screen display. Here the printer addresses each needle of the print head individually and does not fetch the patterns of letters from firmware (i.e. from a chip on the motherboard of the printer with the required information encoded). This is exactly parallel to the graphic mode for screen representation. Whenever the printer or the screen has to resort to forming letters on a dot-by-dot basis and is not able to use the pre-fabricated units in the firmware then the representation (on screen or printer, or both) is slowed down considerably. From the point of view of the user interested in special language symbols the disadvantage is that in the graphic mode one only has the standard characters of the IBM set (usually in a smaller form, of course, to produce a fuller screen). You may well ask where a programme gets its characters from in the non-graphic mode if it uses a file in the graphic mode. The answer to this is simple: from the character generator on the video card of the computer, the so-called firmware character set. To understand this allow me to explain how the video representation of the PC is organised. 21.1. Types of video cards In one of the expansion slots of the PC (to be seen towards the left and back of the system unit if you open it) there is a card which is responsible for video representation (you can recognise this as the cable leading to the monitor is plugged into the back of the card and frequently the cable leading to the printer is joined up to this card as well). Among the various chips on the card is one in which, in encoded form, the characters of the IBM character set are contained. This set has a fixed and definite shape and size; it consists of 256 characters which are represented in an 8 x 14 matrix on the monitor of the computer. The remaining chips on the video card determine which type of card it is. There are basically four kinds listed below. 31.1.1. Monochrome video card If you buy a PC (386 or 486 machine or whatever) without any extras then there will be at least a monochrome video card included. This is the most basic video card. It does not represent graphics nor does it show any variations in colour, i.e. your monitor remains green or amber or white even with those programmes which allow colour configuration. With this card all programmes can only use the 256 characters in the character generator chip. You might wonder why a programme which stores its graphic font on a file cannot use this file to run in the graphic mode with a monochrome video card. The answer to this is that there is more to running a programme in the graphic mode than simply using a font file; in order to address each point on the screen individually the video card must have at least 64K of memory to organise and store the screen representation. This leads one to the next type of video card. 31.1.2. Hercules graphics card The monochrome video card is not a development of IBM. The monochrome graphics video card is originally a development of the Californian firm Hercules, although there are by now many other manufacturers of such graphics video cards. It was developed essentially to allow individual addressing of each dot on the monitor's screen with a fairly high resolution. This meant that programmes were no longer bound to using blocks in the 8 x 14 matrix of the non-graphic mode. Of course you can use non-graphic programmes with the Hercules card as it also has a character generator chip which is functionally identical to that on the non-graphic monochrome video card (see (i)). In summer 1986 a new version of the Hercules card was brought on the market under the name Hercules Graphics Card Plus. Apart from the improvement in speed, the major improvement over the previous card is that it has the possibility of independently loading a font for video representation. By "independent" is meant here that you can load a custom screen font before running a programme. The font chosen remains resident until one loads another or starts up the computer afresh. What one has in effect done here is to replace the standard (IBM) character set by a custom character set. With the LinguaFont set is supplied a programme (VideoEd) for designing custom fonts, so that a user can design a font of his/her own choice and use this instead of the normal IBM character set. A custom font can either have a different shape for standard characters, or non-standard characters, or both. All the screen fonts shipped with the LinguaFont set have been designed for use with the Hercules Graphics Card Plus, the EGA or the VGA adapter (see below). This has the advantage that at any given time one can choose any of the fonts supplied as your customised font and that this font will be available on the screen in any programme which is run in the non-graphic mode. You load the font into the video card of your system by means of the programme LoadVid, for details of the latter see the first section of the present book. Furthermore one can alter the fonts supplied by using the video font editor, VideoEd, thus if one finds that a certain font, created by the present author, does not contain some of the symbols which one would like oneself, then simply edit the font to customise it to your own needs. 31.1.3. Colour Graphics Adapter (CGA) card For every byte which is held in the display memory of the computer an attribute is also present. This latter byte contains information such as whether a character is inverse video, for example, and also information about what colour it is displayed in (certain attribute information is differently interpreted on monochrome and colour systems, thus underlining on the former turns up as blue lettering on the latter). With a monochrome video card this information referring to colour is ignored. There are video cards, however, which use this. Basically there are three types of colour cards: the older simple colour card with an 8 x 8 matrix for screen characters on the one hand and the newer colour cards, Enhanced Graphics Adapter and Video Graphics Array on the other, known simply as an EGA and VGA card respectively, which have an 8 x 14 matrix as do the monochrome cards (see previous two sections). The colour graphics card has a character generator on it but it cannot accept a screen font in software form (i.e. from a file) as can the EGA card. Furthermore the resolution of the colour graphics card is so low, that there would be no point in considering the idea of loadable fonts. If you are already using a colour graphics card I can only suggest that you get rid of it quickly. The low resolution is very damaging to one's sight. In addition the colour graphics card does not produce a very stable picture, i.e. the screen display flickers, and you get a very unpleasant phenomenon known as "snow" when the screen is refreshed. 31.1.4. Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) card The EGA card is an original development of IBM. It allows addressing of individual dots on the screen as with the monochrome graphics card and has a display mode with up to 43 rows of text per screen (this is exploited by the file manager File which is part of the Tools set of utilities by the present author). Its resolution is 640 by 400 dots (or 350 dots if one subtracts the two empty lines at the bottom of each character block which are only used for the block graphics symbols, see remarks above) on a normal screen but there are by now many improved versions of the EGA card with higher resolutions which provide sharper screen display. The EGA card does not come with a font generator and loader in software form as does the Hercules Graphics Card Plus. However, it is possible by means of a specially written programme to load a font file which the EGA card then uses instead of its firmware character generator. It is suprising that despite this ability of the EGA card, practically no-one has presented a programme to exploit this possibility. Just such a programme is, however, supplied with LinguaFont. This is LoadVid which loads a disk font file into the EGA card display memory and uses this as long as no further software replaces it or you restart your computer. In effect this renders the EGA card an equal of the Hercules Graphics Card Plus in terms of screen font management. 31.1.5. Video Graphics Array (VGA) card The latest development by IBM is the VGA (= "Video Graphics Array") adapter which has a number of advantages in terms of display, e.g. it can produce up to 64 shades of gray and has a better colour resolution than the EGA card. It also has the ability to display a non-standard, customised font in the non-graphic mode. Again LoadVid is the programme you require if you have designed a font with VideoEd and wish to load into the VGA card in your system. The VGA adapter is included in the present generation of personal computers by IBM (PS/2 machines). 21.2. Replacing parts of the character set No single user needs all of the IBM character set all of the time. In fact the undemanding user will not even use the entire subsection alphanumeric characters represented on the keys of the keyboard. This means that one can do without many of the characters of the IBM set. Interestingly it also means that one could replace some of the unwanted characters with those which one might need but which are not contained in the original IBM set. The next consideration is, how many of the characters can one maximally replace? The answer to this lies not so much in the exigencies of video representation but in the abilities of your printer. The reason for this is as follows. Replacing symbols of the IBM character set is only sensible if the new characters one gains on the screen can be produced as hardcopy on the printer. The download area of 24 needle printers is in practice restricted to 93 user-defined symbols (some dot matrix printers can accomodate more than this as can laser beam printers anyway). To redefine more than 94 symbols on the screen (with VideoEd) would mean that some of these would not be capable of being printed due to lack of space in the download area of the printer. Assuming that this limit of 94 is to be kept to, the question then arises, what symbols of the IBM character set does one replace? One can in principle do without some symbols in the following three areas of the character set: (i) below $32, i.e. in the area of printer codes; (ii) immediately above $127, up to $175 i.e. in the area of the foreign language symbols which are already available in the IBM character set. (iii) above $223, up to $254, i.e. in the area which contains Greek letters and scientific symbols. Remember, however, that if you require Greek letters or if you need some of the foreign language symbols already present in the IBM character set then these must not be touched when redefining symbols. The two areas of the set which should not be tampered with at all are (i) the large alphanumeric area from $32 to $126 and (ii) the block graphics area from $176 to $223. It is obvious that the first of these areas, which contains the (English) alphabet, is not to be interfered with; the block graphics symbols should not be altered either as otherwise the screen display in some programmes would look peculiar, showing the symbols you redefined with VideoEd instead of bordering and shading in some cases. Incidentally changing symbols below $32 should only be a last resort. The reason for this is twofold: these symbols are used as printer codes and if you alter their form for screen display then you must be careful to translate them to other characters before they are sent to the printer (see section on printer drivers above); secondly these symbols may have certain effects on the screen. For instance if you enter $10 from the keyboard in some programmes (such as Word) then the result is not the display of $10 but a line feed which is the function associated with the numerical code of this character. 21.3. How screen fonts work In the non-graphics mode the screen display of your PC is made up of small blocks all of equal size (8 x 14 for all practical purposes). There are 256 such blocks available, see the comments on the ASCII character set in the appendices below. These blocks are stored on the video card irrespective of what type it is and when DOS is started they are used to form the display memory of the CPU which occupies an area above that used for transient programmes (i.e. the area into which your word processor is loaded, for example). This is an area of memory which has an image of the screen display stored in it (or rather screen display is derived from the characters to be found in display memory). Changes in display are done in display memory and only then transferred to the monitor. The actual physical location of display memory is incidentally a fairly irrelevant matter. It is usually on the video card but logically it is part of the 1MB main memory address space of the central processing unit, just as the system memory you have is also part of the main memory address space of the CPU although it may be physically distributed between the mother board, with say 256K, and a peripheral card with another 384K for instance (on a PC). Of the main memory address space 128K is reserved for display memory (the area from A0000 through BFFFF). Only a fraction of this is actually used by the various video cards. The simple monochrome and colour cards use 4K of display (in fact any card running in the text mode requires only 4K for the contents of a screen). The start address of video memory is different for monochrome and colour cards (B0000 for the former and B8000 for the latter). These facts are, however, only of relevance when one is writing programmes (such as VideoEd, DotEd or LaserEd, if I may mention this here) which are intended to run on a variety of video adapter cards. To help you visualise this distribution of memory a graphical representation may be of benefit. ͻ 00 000 Ŀ : . 640K of system memory . (includes DOS and transiently : loaded programmes) 1MB A0 000 Ĵ main : memory : 128K memory of displays address : of various kinds space C0 000 Ĵ of : 8088 : Unoccupied memory : (intended for BIOS extensions) F6 000 Ĵ . ROM Basic FE 000 Ĵ . ROM BIOS FF FFF ͼ For those interested a second diagramme is also given to present a more detailed picture of the lower part of memory which is used by DOS and the programmes you use. Ŀ Interrupt vectors BIOS data space DOS data space [approx. DOS system files 32K] (IBMIO.COM, IBMDOS.COM startup & resident part of COMMAND.COM) DOS environment Ĵ Application software [ Transient program area ] . : : [approx. : 600K] : : Ĵ COMMAND.COM (transient part) Ĵ A0 000 : (Start of video memory) : B0 000 : Start of monochrome buffer : B8 000 : Start of colour buffer : FF FFF : (End of address space) Note in this connection that there is some free space between the end of the display memory area, starting at hex C0000, and that reserved for the ROM Basic of the IBM PC and the ROM BIOS, starting at hex F6000. It is this area which is used as a tunnel through which one can access memory above 1MB with special cards such as the Intel Above Board and so make at least some use of the addressing capability of the 80286 and 80386 with version of DOS up to 4.0. The display memory should be kept distinct from the character generator chip. The latter is the permanent storage location for the IBM character set. The character set which is used for video display is read from this chip. The character generator chip is visible on any video card. It is a 4K PROM and is sometimes in the form of an erasable EPROM (called a 2732 in the trade) in which case there is a sticker over the glass window on top of the chip. On the EGA card the chip with the character set in it is either 16K or 32K in size (a 27128 or 27256 chip) as it contains two character sets and some programme code (the so-called video BIOS). In most cases the character generator chip can be removed from the video card and replaced by another without disturbing the functioning of the card as a whole. This applies above all to the normal Hercules adapter. With the EGA/VGA cards the matter is a little more complicated as these cards have an internal test routine which does not allow one to change the character generator chip without working out the so-called check sum for the contents of a new chip. This is a hardware possibility which is not to be recommended to the beginner as he/she is more likely to cause damage to his/her machine than realise a different character set. Software solutions to the problem of alternative screen character sets are to be preferred and are the only type supported by LinguaFont.  Assume for argument sake that you have generated an alternative character set with VideoEd and loaded it into your Hercules Graphics Card Plus or EGA/VGA card. Logically this font is now located in the high region of the address space of the CPU and is accessed when screen display is being constructed. Just exactly where this font is positioned depends on the particular video card. The Hercules Graphics Card Plus for example loads a customised (4K) font into an area starting at B000:A000 (it is here that LoadVid deposits a user-specified font file after reading it from disk). The net result is that different "blocks" of video display turn up on the screen for unaltered ASCII numbers, i.e. certain numeric character values have different forms than in the standard IBM character set (depending on how you defined the former with VideoEd). Consider first of all the matrix of a single such video block. IBM PC screen matrix (8 x 14 [9 x 16]) ͻ 012345678 Ķ 0 . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . . 7 . . . . . 8 . . . . 9 . . . . 10 . . . . 11 . . . . 12 . . . . . 13 . . . . . . . . 14 [. . . . . . . .] 15 [. . . . . . . .] ͼ This character does not exist in this form in the original character generator of any video card. It has been defined by the present author in the screen font file phonetic.fnt and is used throughout the following pages for the purposes of illustration. It has the ASCII value $231 in the particular screen font for which it was designed and is intended to represent a voiced velar fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The original symbol stored under ASCII $231 (a Greek gamma) looks somewhat different (it has a curve to the top left and no descending loop). For DOS it is irrelevant what is actually stored at the location for ASCII $231. DOS simply reads the contents of this address and uses it then in display memory anytime it gets a signal to display ASCII $231. This is of course very advantageous to the user of LinguaFont. He/she can redefine any of the symbols of the IBM character set which he/she does not need and DOS will display them without objecting. To understand how the redefinition of symbols is possible one must first dwell for a moment on the manner in which the video blocks of the IBM character set are stored in the character generator chip. The character set for any video adapter running in the non-graphic mode contains 4K of information. This is divided into 256 units of 16. Each stretch of 16 bytes contains the information necessary to encode a particular symbol of the character set. Because of the internal organisation of video cards the bytes may be stored somewhat differently, for example the normal Hercules card has them stored as 256 x 8 in the first 2K of the character generator, i.e. the first half of each symbol, and 256 x 8 in the second 2K, i.e. the second half of each symbol; this need be of no concern to the user as I am solely concerned here with explaining how the system of character generation works. If you were burning new EPROMs for a video card then the internal organisation, such as the splitting of symbols, would have to be borne in mind, of course. If you consider the matrix given above then you see that it consists of 16 horizontal lines (numbered 0 through 15), each 8 spaces wide (numbered 0 through 7). There is in fact a ninth column (indicated by shading in the diagramme above). This column in not used by normal characters and one cannot define its contents. What happens with it is that those symbols from $176 to $223 automatically obtain a ninth column which is identical to the eighth column of each symbol. The reason for this is to ensure that the block graphic symbols have no spaces between them when they occur beside each other. If the eighth column was not duplicated as a ninth column then there would be a space between each graphic symbol just as there is a space between all other characters (outside of the block graphics area) no matter how one defines them. Bear this in mind when designing your own characters: it is not possible to design screen characters which link up horizontally without spaces between them. Note also that no characters use 16 bytes for their representation. This means that row 14 and 15 in the above matrix are always empty (even for the block graphics symbols). This explains a difference in size between Hercules and EGA fonts which you may have noticed with VideoEd. With Hercules fonts, bytes 14 and 15 (i.e. the 15th. and 16th. bytes) of each character are present solely to arrive at 16 as the number of bytes in a character definition. This then multiplied by 256 gives 4096 (= 4K) which again is a round number for the computer. With EGA fonts this symmetry is abandoned and the character definitions consists only of those bytes which can be actually used for screen representation, i.e. 14 bytes. This number multiplied by 256 equals 3584 which is the precise size of an EGA font. Because bytes 14 and 15 cannot be used in screen representation, it is not possible to fill them with VideoEd even if you are editing a Hercules font. The question now arises, how are the 16 rows for each symbol encoded in a character set file? To understand how, consider the following diagramme. IBM PC screen matrix in binary form ͻ 012345678 Ķ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 6 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 7 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 8 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 9 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 10 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 11 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 12 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0] 15 [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0] ͼ Each row of the matrix is now represented as a series of 8 digits with one of two values, 0 or 1, i.e. a series of bits. For the video card a "1" is a signal to display a pixel on the screen, a "0" is a signal to leave a pixel free (a pixel is a single dot of video representation on the screen). The 14 rows of "1s" and "0s" contain all the information the video card needs to build a block of screen representation in the non-graphic video mode. But what are these rows? Nothing more than the binary form of a number of bytes. This can be seen when one translates the rows of bits into the corresponding bytes. Bits Bytes 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 = C7 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 = 6C 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 = 38 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 = 6C 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 = C6 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 = C6 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 = 6C 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 = 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 [ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 ] [ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = 00 ] The information needed to represent the voiced velar fricative is thus stored in the character set file as "00 00 00 00 00 C7 6C 38 6C C6 C6 6C 38 00 00 00" (note that the symbols are encoded from "top to bottom"). Its beginning address in the file is arrived at by multiplying 16 x 231 = 3696 (this is the beginning address as the first symbol in the character is 0; if the character set began at 1 then 3696 would be the end address). These remarks apply to the character generator file produced with VideoEd. It has its correspondence in the hardware of the video card as well. If one were to take the character generator chip (on a normal Hercules card for arguments sake) and read its contents with a so-called EPROM writer card (which reads the contents of a chip and creates a file from them and conversely takes a file and burns it into a blank chip) one would get a 4K long file. When one jumps to position 3696 in this file one finds the byte sequence needed to encode the normal symbol (a Greek gamma) with the ASCII value $231 in the IBM character set. This is "00 00 00 00 3B 6E 0C 0C 0C 0C 0C 00 00 00 00 00". (Bear in mind that this is not quite true as the symbols in the normal Hercules card are stored in halves, but for the purpose of explanation one can accept this presentation). If you have loaded the phonetic.fnt font file (into your video adapter card) and enter 231 via the numeric keypad (with the key depressed) a symbol appears on the screen which has the shape of the voiced velar fricative, i.e. the shape of the symbol which was defined in the font file produced with VideoEd. Extending this principle, one can replace as many symbols as one likes, for example, to gain an entire alternative alphabet alongside the English (or German) one which one uses normally. To do this one takes the ibm.fnt (or ibm.ega font file, whichever applies in your case) and changes what characters one wishes as outlined in the section devoted to VideoEd in the first part of this book. 21.4. Fonts for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus There is no necessary reason for the computer to read the character set for video display from a chip; it can equally read the contents of a file and use them as long as the file contains the correct information and as long as the video card is organised in such as way as to allow this procedure. The Hercules Graphics Card Plus offers just such a facility. There is a programme (called "RamFont") which is delivered with the card and which offers one the possibility of loading a customised character set into the video card which is then in its turn loaded into the display memory, which is part of the address space of the CPU, and subsequently used for all screen representation in the non-graphic mode until another character set is loaded with the Ramfont programme or until the computer is reset (warm or cold start). The LinguaFont utility LoadVid can also be used to load a soft font into the Hercules Graphics Card Plus. The software fonts of the Hercules Graphics Card Plus are arranged somewhat differently from the firmware font on this card or that on the conventional Hercules card inasmuch as information is stored in complete blocks of 16 bytes, i.e. not split into two halves. Again this fact is entirely irrelevant to the use of the fonts. All the screen fonts of the LinguaFont set are available as loadable software fonts for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus. The fonts can be adapted by the user at will, he/she may add symbols or substract symbols as he/she chooses. The fonts for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus work with a further system with is marketed by the Japanese firm EIZO under the designation "Monoset" and which consists of a high resolution, flickerfree monochrome monitor together with a video adapter which is hardware-compatible with the Hercules Graphics Card Plus and so capable of accepting fonts generated with VideoEd and loaded via LoadVid. 21.5. Fonts for the EGA adapter Much less documented but equally interesting is the ability of the EGA card (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) to accept character sets in the form of a file. For the user of VideoEd the distinction between Hercules Graphics Card Plus and EGA card is only minor. It solely concerns the choice of file when editing a character font. Users of the Hercules Graphics Card Plus will already have the Ramfont programme for this card; users of an EGA card can load their font files with the LoadVid. Remember with the latter that you should use screen font files with the extension .EGA and not .FNT as the latter are for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus only (there is also a difference in size between the two types of files, 3584 as opposed to 4096 bytes); bear in mind as well that you load EGA fonts with the /e switch set (see details of the programme in the first section of the present book). There is a plethora of EGA cards now available on the market which are distinguished mostly by degree of resolution (starting at 640 x 400 and extending upwards) or by some additional feature such as a printer port which may be included on the card. Those users who are bent on high resolution must bear in mind that the EGA screen font files which can be generated with VideoEd may only work in the normal EGA mode of their video adapter depending on how this reacts to a loaded font file. At worst you will have to run your card in the simple EGA mode when you wish to have a customised character set at your disposal; at best you can have such a character set in the VGA mode as well. Bear in mind furthermore that a customised character set, once loaded, remains as the active character set as long as the software you are using does not tamper with this or use its own character set instead. This applies above all to graphic programmes, such as the graphic environment Windows by Microsoft. None of the EGA character sets work here as Windows uses it own character sets for video display. Under extreme circumstances some non-graphic programmes may throw away your loaded font file. The solution to this is to load the font via a DOS command from within the offending programme. If a programme removes your customised font file, then this happens when the programme is loaded as part of the initialisation. By loading the font file from within the programme you can activate a customised file after the programme has gone through its initialisation procedures. The only way to find out what happens with a particular programme is by trial and error. Word processors are relatively safe in this respect. WordPerfect does not alter a loaded font file, nor does Microsoft Word when loaded in the non-graphic mode (with the switch /c on the command line, see the programme documentation for details). Database management systems such as dBASE (in the various versions available) and spreadsheet programmes are entirely unproblematic. 21.6. Fonts for the VGA adapter The position for the VGA card is essentially the same as that for the EGA card. There is a slight difference with regard to the text mode of the two cards, however: when the VGA card is in its default mode (after you power up the computer) then the character matrix is 16 lines high and not 14 like the EGA; for this reason you must load a font with the extension .fnt into the VGA card using the /v switch with LoadVid; otherwise the operation of both cards in the text mode is identical. 12. Printer Fonts 22.0. Preamble: Kinds of printers A computer without a printer is only half a computer. For the layman this is plainly obvious. Indeed the layman is always interested in seeing a print-out of what he enters from the keyboard as soon as possible. He is basically right in doing this as only the print-out offers hardcopy of one's work. Nothing is more frustrating and dismaying than being forced to recognise how transistory data on a computer is by accidentally destroying precious work only available in file form. The question as to how to get one's files from disk to paper is usually answered by the word processor. The printing function of a word processor is central; it may vary in certain features from programme to programme, but a hard core of functions is always present. It is at this point that the question arises, just what types of printers exist and how do they differ from each other? The answer to this question is important as the behaviour of the printing aspect of your word processor depends on this. For what it is worth, here is a review of the main types of printer. 32.0.1. Daisy wheel (solid font) printers You know from your typewriter that one of the main advances was from a typewriter with spokes to the golf-ball typewriter with the symbols distributed over the surface of a small ball which was rotated so that the symbol about to be typed faced towards the carbon ribbon. The second advance in impact technique on typewriters was the invention of the daisy wheel. Basically it operates as follows: a wheel with spokes is attached to an axle in front of the carbon ribbon of the typewriter. At the end of each spoke is a letter, cast out of metal. The wheel rotates at high speed when the typewriter is on. When the key for a particular letter is pressed, a small hammer behind the spokes of the daisy wheel strikes the spoke with the given letter when it passes the highest point on the circumference of the daisy wheel; the letter on the spoke strikes the carbon ribbon and the letter is typed on paper. It is a very simple principle which works efficiently given precision mechanics with the daisy wheel, the hammer and the hub motor which rotates the axle on which the wheel sits. Nowadays almost all typewriters of the daisy wheel type. Many typewriters can double up as printers (provided the appropriate printer interface is present). Daisy wheel machines are also available solely as printers, i.e. as output devices only to be used together with a computer. The advantage of daisy wheel printers is that they give a very good quality printout; you have no dots as the letters are available in their full form on the spokes of the daisy wheel. The disadvantage is that only those letters on the daisy wheel are at your disposal (certain limited effects such as underlining and overprinting can be achieved with a single wheel). You can of course change the wheel for italics, a different language, etc. Usually the printer driver of the word processor you are using has the possibility of stopping before every change in font, made while editing the text, to allow you to change the daisy wheel. However, the limitations of such a procedure are obvious to the user who requires many different types of symbols in a given text; in addition he/she may well find that for many of the symbols he/she requires no daisy wheel even exists. For presentation quality print-out, e.g. important letters, contracts, etc. daisy wheel printers still hold the field. 32.0.2. Inkjet (non-impact) printers Non-impact printers have been around for quite some time. Most of them are of the inkjet type. The principle here is as follows: where the daisy wheel sits on a printer of the last-mentioned type a small head is to be found. On its front side it has a number of tiny holes (either 9 or 24) out of which ink of a special kind is shot in a pre-determined pattern to give a symbol on the paper which lies on the carriage in front of the jet holes. Inkjet printers can be considered as being the same as the following type from the point of view of their scope in the field of available fonts. Their chief advantage is their quietness. As there is no impact there is no mechanical sound of a needle hitting paper; for sensitive ears, inkjet printers can be recommended. The latest generation of inkjet printers from the leading manufacturer of printers and the establisher of printer standards, Epson, have been technically improved so that the smudging of ink on paper which was part and parcel of life with an inkjet printer in bygone days is now a thing of the past. The same applies to the inkjet printer by Hewlett Packard. 32.0.3. Dot matrix printers The most widely spread type of printer is the dot matrix printer. It was invented in the mid sixties and has been steadily developed since. It is used not only with personal computers but in many other spheres of daily life where quick print-out is required, e.g. for bank statements, with cash registers, etc. The firm responsible for establishing a standard in this sphere is Epson; they have produced printers conforming to the so-called Epson ESC P standard which sets out a definite number of commands for controlling matrix printers. This standardisation has helped to ease the situation on the printer market which up to the early eighties was characterised by a free-for-all in printer command language. The principle with dot matrix printers is as follows: a printer head in front of the paper on the printer carriage contains a series of tiny needles (9 or 24, the latter arranged as two slightly displaced series of 12) which shoot out of the holes in which they lie when they are activated by the computer on printing, hit the carbon ribbon between them and the paper; the result is a collection of dots which one recognises as a printed symbol, typically a letter of the alphabet. Note the essential difference between the printer types here and in the last paragraph and the following one vis vis daisy wheel printers: the printed symbols are not available to the printer in a pre-fabricated, cast form. Rather the structure of each symbol is to be found in codified form in a series of chips within the printer. By sending certain codes to the printer the computer can cause the printer to take the encoded pattern of a symbol in a chip, transfer it into instructions for the needles of the print head, the result being the printed form of the letter whose numerical code was sent by the computer to the printer. Well what are the advantages and disadvantages to this particular method? The main disadvantage is that you can see the dots of which the printed symbols are composed. The extent to which you can see the dots basically depends on how many needles your printer has, i.e. is it a 9 or a 24 needle printer? With 9 needle printers there may be the possibility of printing in what is called "letter quality". During this type of printing the printer head makes smaller horizontal movements to bring the dots closer together, it may also print a line twice (so-called "doublepass"). However, download symbols are never available in "letter quality" on a 9 needle printer. On a 24 needle printer the question of letter quality does not arise to the same extent as with 9 needle printers as the large number of needles gives a higher resolution without resorting to doublepasses, smaller horizontal increments, etc. For the user of LinguaFont interested in downloading special symbols (sending his own symbols to the printer for later printing) the 24 needle printer is the most suitable as the general high-quality resolution holds for user-defined symbols as well as for typefaces like italics. For LinguaFont I have taken the decision not to produce any fonts for 9 needle printers as the quality is too poor. I hope that those users who already have a 9 needle printer (such as an Epson FX 80 or FX 85) will not be too disappointed by this decision. One must realise that the design of download fonts is very time-consuming and thus can only be done for one type of dot matrix printer, obviously for that with the best quality print-out. At this point I should say that in one respect the 9 needle printers have the edge over 24 needle printers: they can accomodate twice as many download symbols as the 24 needle printers, i.e. 256. You might well ask why this is the case, seeing that the 24 needle printers are a later development of the original 9 needle ones. The answer has to do with the amount of memory needed by the computer to store user-defined symbols. A user-defined symbol for a 9 needle printer only requires a fraction of the memory needed for a symbol with the 24 needle type. Thus for a 24 needle printer to have an intake of 128 user-defined symbols it requires considerably more memory than does a 9 needle printer to have double the intake. It would, of course, still have been possible for the designers of 24 needle printers to include a RAM area large enough to accomodate 2 x 128 user-defined symbols. The fact that they did not is a reflection of the relative disinterest of the manufacturers of computer equipment in facilities which are needed by science and the humanities more than by industry and commerce. There are a few exceptions to this, represented by the Japanese firms Toshiba, Fujitsu and NEC, which have a series of 24 needle printers which have double the download capacity of those printers built around the Epson standard for 24 needle printers. These remain rather unique cases, however. Note that the Epson ESC P command language for printers applies to 9 needle and 24 needle printers with slight modifications for the latter resulting from the larger number of needles. The advantage of dot matrix printers over daisy wheel printers is clear: you can define any symbols you like and with those already available in the printer's firmware you do not have to stop the printer to switch from one type to another. The technicalities of defining and loading user-defined symbols is discussed in detail below. 32.0.4. Laser beam printers The future of printing belongs quite definitely to laser printers (also referred to explicitly as laser beam printers) and not to dot matrix printers. These are printers of the non-impact type which have a very high resolution (usually 300 by 300 dots per inch in text mode) so that one cannot distinguish the single dots any more. Furthermore they are fast (typically producing between 5 and 10 pages per minute in the text mode), can accomodate a very much larger number of internal fonts than even the best dot matrix printers and have astounding graphic capabilities. Additionally they can perform formatting tasks, which one normally only associates with the typesetting machines of publishers, such as centering a text after putting it into proportional form, or allowing precise starting points for various columns in tables when proportional spacing is used. The equivalent to the Epson ESC P standard with dot matrix printers is the command language used for the Hewlett Packard generation of laser printers (known as Laserjet printers, various models). This quasi-standard is by now so widespread that other marketers of laser printers (such as Epson themselves) allow for the emulation of Hewlett Packard with their own machines. By this is meant that a laser printer can (via the control panel or by means of software) be made to behave as if it were a Hewlett Packard laser printer, i.e. it can process data in the Hewlett Packard format. The character editor LaserEd supplied with the LinguaFont set can create and process fonts in the Hewlett Packard standard. Because of the feature of emulation with many other printers, this means that a whole group of other laser printers can process the soft fonts generated with LaserEd. Vis vis dot matrix printers, the laser printer has the advantage for the user of fonts that it can store many of these at once (contrast the situation with the dot matrix printers where only one download is provided for). Indeed it is common practice for all printing to be achieved by using soft fonts (downloaded fonts as opposed to firmware fonts in chip form within the printer). The Series II Laserjet printer can accomodate 32 soft fonts at once which means that you can define one or more foreign language fonts, for example, have these in various point sizes, store several regular fonts alongside these and still have memory left over. In order to achieve this laser printers contain 512K or 1MB of RAM memory. 22.1. Additional printer issues 32.1.1. Paper feed With all of the above types of printer, except laser printers, a matter arises which the beginner computer user should devote some thought to. This is the matter of what manner of paper feed one chooses. Paper feed is a general term referring to the mechanism which is employed by the computer for ensuring that there is a continuous flow of paper for printing. The reason one should consider this matter carefully is that you usually cannot position paper in the printer manually (at least not without disturbing the printer and its settings). Anyone who changes from a typewriter to a computer should bear this fact in mind. Invariably paper feed poses problems for the beginner: the paper is not transported correctly, the printer distributes the text of one screen page over two pages on print out, the printer swallows (or appears to swallow) lines of text unaccountably. What form of paper feed you are using may be decisive for such procedures as printing a text from some point other than the beginning, printing a page or more out of a longer text, etc. If you encounter difficulties then do not come to the conclusion either that your form of paper feed does not work or that the application programme you are using cannot deal with the paper feed properly. In the vast majority of cases the problem rests with incorrect user operation. This of course covers a multitude of sins and very often the proper use of a form of paper feed (in particular of cut sheet feeders) is not well explained in the documentation which comes with the device. You can rest assured, however, that your software (e.g. WordPerfect, Microsoft Word or whatever) is in principle capable of handling the paper feed mechanism correctly as the people who write printer drivers which support such devices know the ins and outs of paper feed mechanisms. 32.1.2. Commands relating to paper feed There are three mains types of paper feed, two of which involve a device being added to the printer. Before beginning a discussion of what these types are, you should be clear about the use of a number of terms which are necessary for an explanation of paper feed mechanisms. 1) Top-of-form This is the absolute top margin of a sheet of paper. It may not be identical for the printer and the programme you are using, however. This situation occurs when the printer transports paper further than the actual top margin of the page when positioning paper before printing begins. For the programme which is controlling the printer, the position which the printer stops at after loading a new page is the top-of-form. 2) Form feed This is a command which has the ASCII code value $12 (abbreviated as "FF" [= form feed]) and which causes the printer to move to the top-of-form of the next page. Note that with fanfold paper the paper is simply transported the necessary number of lines, with a cut sheet feeder a new page is drawn into the printer. 3) Page eject Page eject is not an ASCII code. It is a function of a programme which has the same effect as is achieved by form feed. Normally a programme simply sends a form feed to the printer when the operation "page eject" is to be carried out (in dBASE, for example). 4) Line feed This is a command which has the ASCII code value $10 (abbreviated as "LF" [= line feed]) and which causes the printer to move the platen forward by an amount which corresponds to one line, i.e. to 1/6 of an inch when you have set line spacing (via your word processor, for instance) to 6 lines per inch. Note that the line feed is a movement of the platen. If paper is in the printer then the sheet of paper will be moved forward by a single line. For an application programme controlling the printer it is irrelevant whether there is a sheet of paper in the printer or not. The line feeds it sends to the printer is a command for the motor driving the platen. 5) Carriage return This is a command which has the ASCII code value $13 (abbreviated as "CR" [= carriage return]) and which causes the printer to move the print head from its current position back to the lefthand margin of the page. It is essential to grasp here that a carriage return does not necessarily involve a line feed and vice versa. Contrast this with a typewriter where the platen always moves the sheet of paper forward a set amount (that which corresponds to the line spacing chosen) when a carriage return is executed. 32.1.3. Printer settings Control panel. On one side or in front of the printer is a panel with three or four buttons and lights activated by these. They serve the function of issuing a line feed or a form feed manually, of turning the printer off-line (on which one of the lights of the panel is normally turned off), of choosing an internal printer font (usually in connection with a display which shows the number of the font), etc. Other functions, such as choosing pitch, may be possible with the control panel. By holding down two buttons simultaneously one can, on power-up, make the printer perform a self-test which is a print-out of all the internal fonts in the printer. This merely serves the function of proving that the printer is in working order. Note two peculiarities of the control panel: (i) you cannot issue a line feed or a form feed to the printer while it is on-line, you must switch it to off-line to do so; (ii) if you choose a font by means of the control panel but demand a different font via your word processor then the latter has precedence. This is a general feature of computer devices: where a parameter can be set via hardware or software the latter can override the former. DIP switches. Every printer has a set of very small switches in some more or less inaccessible part of the printer; you normally have to open the printer or take off a lid somewhere to get at them. These are called DIP switches (the abbreviation DIP comes from dual-inline-package which is meaningless today). It is common to have more than one set. They are furthermore numbered, so that one can have SW1, SW2, SW3, etc. referring to different banks of DIP switches. The function of DIP switches is to set parameters which one does not alter that often (as opposed to those on the control panel). Among these are the following: (i) the type of transmission one uses (serial or parallel), (ii) the type of font one wishes as default (draft or letter quality mode), (ii) the language one is printing in (there are usually 8 to choose from, English and 7 further European languages; some printers have 2 sets of characters for Danish), (iii) the use of the IBM character set or the doubling of the lower ASCII set in italic form in the upper area, (iv) the setting of the eighth bit to 0 or 1 (note that setting it to 1 means that everything in the upper ASCII area will be printed in italics on the Epson FX85, for instance), etc. Paper feed and length of page. Another parameter set by DIP switches is type of paper feed. As a rule one can choose between continuous paper and cut sheet feed. Be careful to set the appropriate DIP switch to the type of paper feed you are using. Note that if you intend to operate the printer manually (i.e. use individual sheets of paper without a cut sheet feeder) you still must set the appropriate DIP switch to "cut sheet feeder" for reasons which are explained below under "manual operation"). Some printers (such as the NEC Pinwriter series) furthermore allow one to determine how carriage returns and line feeds are to be carried out. To avoid complications set these to their simple values, i.e. a carriage return should be nothing more than that and a line feed should not involve a carriage return either. There may also be a DIP switch for the length of sheets of paper used for printing. Usually only two values are possible: 11 inch (= A4 size) or 12 inch long sheets. For Europeans the second size is hardly available anyway so that one does not have to decide what size one wishes to use. Note that the page length may be given as a number of lines. An 11 inch long page has 66 lines and a 12 inch long one has 72 lines at 6 lines per inch (normal spacing). This refers to the absolute number of lines on the page and not to the amount of text you choose to print on each page (this is determined by the user on the software level). 32.1.4. Types of paper feed 1) Manual operation. This is the simplest type. It means that you must place every page individually into the printer. You cannot (or at least you should not) use the roller knob to transport the paper into the printer. This is done by the printer itself. There is a button which automatically draws the sheet of paper into the printer, shifts the print head to the centre of the platen and positions it such that the top margin is moved up to just in front of the print head. This action is that described under top-of-form above. Some printers perform top-of-form by means of a lever (called the release lever) which is frequently coaxial with the roller knob. This lever retracts a bar (called a roller shaft), which normally holds the paper in position against the platen, and the platen starts to rotate until the paper is drawn in just the amount necessary for the top margin to be positioned in front of the print head. For each page of paper you wish to print you must repeat the procedure: place a sheet behind the platen, trigger a top-of-form, either by the control panel or using the release lever. When the release lever is left go of, the printer usually starts to continue printing of its own accord. If top-of-form is arrived at by depressing a button on the control panel one usually has to depress another button to put the print back on-line, i.e. to make it continue printing. 2) Continuous paper (with tractor feed). One of the distinctive signs of computer print-out is a ragged edge to the pages. This is due to the use of fanfold paper which is a type of continuous paper perforated at regular intervals (corresponding to either 11 (A4) or 12 inch pages). In order for the computer to be able to transport the paper it must have a left and right margin with holes at regular intervals, these holes fitting over the teeth of two cog wheels one at each end of the platen. These wheels are coaxial with the platen and transport the paper when the platen rotates. The cog wheels prevent the paper from slipping. With some printers this tractor mechanism is part of the printer; with others it must be purchased as an accessory. The paper is normally placed in a stack behind the printer and a form separator keeps the paper being drawn into the printer (for printing) separate from that which is transported out of it (after printing). When one is finished printing a text one must tear off the sheets of paper which have being printed much as with a roll of kitchen paper. The left and right margins with the holes punched in them can be torn off as there is a perforation between the side margins and the paper which is printed. Determining the top-of-form with fanfold paper is done by aligning the print head with the top margin of the paper via the line feed button on the control panel. One must take care that after each page the printer leaves enough blank lines to transport the paper past the horizontal perforation which marks the end of the page. There is usually a function called "perforation skip" which is activated when one chooses continuous paper feed with the appropriate DIP switch. If the printer fails to begin printing each new page at the required distance from the perforation then one should check the DIP switch setting and one's software to see if a perforation skip is sent to the printer by the computer or some other command if the printer is overshooting the top-of-form of the next page. 3) Cut sheet feeder (single and multiple bin). In order to print on single sheets of paper without placing them manually in the printer a device called a cut sheet feeder has been developed for most printers. It consists of an attachment placed on top of the printer, linked up to the platen by two cog wheels. A cut sheet feeder can have one or more bins, by which is meant that one can have one or more stacks of paper in the feeder (or a stack of paper and one of envelopes, for instance). Cut sheet feeders are either mechanical or electrical. The former type does not involve being connected to the printer via a cable, while the latter does. The effect of both is the same, but the management of them is not. The basic difference between mechanical and electrical feeders is that the former normally require a printer command to transport a fresh sheet of paper. In the Epson LQ 1500 standard the command ESC EM R (hex: 1B 19 52) is necessary to ensure that a fresh sheet of paper is transported correctly (i.e. that a top-of-form is carried out). This command must be included in the printer driver of your software (word processor); if it is missing, then the printer will usually swallow two line feeds and so displace printed text by two lines for every page which is printed. Sometimes it suffices to specify in a printer driver menu that one has a cut sheet feeder, sometimes the above command must be added explicitly. The printer definition utility of WordPerfect, for example, contains an entry for top-of-form with cut sheet feeders. Note that the command is ASCII terms is $27$25$82, that is the letters "EM" stand for the ASCII code $25 which has the name "End-of-Medium" and is abbreviated to "EM" (compare the abbreviations for carriage return, form feed and line feed above). If you are using a multiple bin cut sheet feeder then one must also bear in mind that to select a bin a certain command is necessary which must be included in the printer driver of your software. 32.1.5. Lines to be printed per page The length of a page is an absolute parameter which is determined by the longitudinal size of the paper you use when printing. This is separate from the question of how many lines are to be printed per page which is determined by one's software. The manuals for word processors explain what it is necessary to consider when calculating the amount of text which will appear on a page. At this point I would just like to sketch briefly what factors are involved and mention a couple of peculiarities of programmes which must be borne in mind in this connection. The text of a single page in a word processor can consist of (i) a header, (ii) a footer and (iii) text, with possible footnotes. If you have a footnote on a page then the word processor automatically deducts the number of lines in the footnote from the body of your text. Note in this connection that the term 'footer' does not refer to footnotes. A footer is a piece of text which is printed at the bottom of every page; examples of footers are page numbering, chapter titles, etc. Managing headers and footers is a little more complicated than footnotes. Consider the following diagramme of a page to be printed. It is based on the layout for a former version of the present documentation which was printed on a dot matrix printer. The information presented here and the discussion offered apply in principle to laser printers as well. LinguaFont Reference Manual CR CR (LF) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx . . . . xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (LF) CR CR - 56 - The first line of the header consists of the title of the present book; the second line consists of a separator; the third and fourth lines of the header are blank. Note that the header is four lines long; it could have been shorter or longer if desired. As the third and fourth lines are empty they turn up as two blank lines on printing. This is realised by the word processor sending the printer two carriage returns without any text (symbolised by the two occurrences of "CR" on successive lines above). The text of the page is represented by lines of "x'es". One point deserves attention here: the word processor (here: WordPerfect) inserts a line feed of its own accord (symbolised by "LF" in parentheses above) between the header and the text and between the text and the footer. This means that there are three empty lines between header and text on the one hand and text and footer on the other hand. This does not have to be borne in mind during processing on screen. When editing text the word processor checks to see if a header and/or footer is present, substracts the number of lines occupied by them from the total number of lines of text which were specified for printing, the remainder being the number of lines which are to be found between two page breaks on the screen. To illustrate this consider the values for the version of the present handbook being discussed. Page length = 66 lines Lines per page = 62 lines 62 Header = 4 lines Ŀ Footer = 3 lines > -7 Number of lines -- of text = 55 lines 55 As the book was originally printed on A4 paper and then reduced in size to A5, 1 line spacing was chosen which in turn reduced the number of lines of text per page to 2/3 of the above value. When printing on the dot matrix printer the ESC EM R command was issued after every page thus insuring that the print head was properly aligned at the top margin of each sheet of paper before printing. The difference above between the page length and the lines per page is 4. In the appropriate menu of WordPerfect the top margin was set to 2 lines which meant that WordPerfect started printing 1 line in from the top-of-form position of the printer. Why 1 one may ask? Remember that one line (a line feed) is added between a header and text and between text and a footer by the word processor without its being instructed to do so. This line feed (see diagramme above) is subtracted from the top margin set in the page format menu of WordPerfect so that the end result is that the printer carries out one line feed at the beginning of each page, the number of lines between the top of the header and the bottom of the footer is then 64 and one line feed is issued at the end, followed by ESC EM R which causes the printer to align the print head with the top margin of a fresh sheet of paper. Note here that the line feeds between header and text and between text and footer are only added when headers and footers are present. If one simply has text then a top margin of 2 lines in the page format menu of WordPerfect leads to 2 line feeds being issued before the printer starts printing text on the current sheet of paper. From this example users will hopefully develop an awareness of the factors which one must consider when one wishes to achieve accurate aligning of text on paper during printing. Should the printer driver supplied with your word processor not do the job satisfactorily for you to begin with then you have to take the technical documentation of your printer in one hand and the reference manual of your word processor in the other and, in a spirit of patience and endurance, experiment until the results are precisely what you want. 22.2. Internal details: What's inside your printer It is obvious that what you see on the screen should appear unaltered on paper when printing. This is normally what happens when you print a text in one of the major European languages (but not any of the Slavic languages) on the PC (assuming your PC is configured correctly). All printers have a character set stored internally in the form of firmware much as a video card has a character set for the screen stored in the character generator chip. In fact good printers have not one but several character sets. The symbols of each set are basically the same. They usually contain the lower ASCII set unaltered and, with those printers capable of printing the entire IBM character set (such as the NEC Pinwriter series or various Epson printers), the upper area as well. The various sets are different not in what the symbols they contain represent but in the actual shape the symbols take. Thus in a proportional character set the letter "g" is likely to have a descending closed loop while in a non-proportional character set like Pica 10 this is not necessarily the case. Furthermore the symbols in a proportional character set are more highly seriffed with more rounded forms. In a draft character set the symbols are plainer in their shape than those of a Pica 10 letter quality set, etc. In each of these cases, however, the symbols are basically the same, i.e. a "g" is recognisable as a "g" irrespective of whether it is printed in proportional, Pica 10 or draft quality. The various character sets of a printer contain different character shapes but essentially the same character set. In the following the questions arising from the difficulty of linking screen and printer and that of defining customised characters are illustrated with examples which refer to 24 needle dot matrix printers. Towards the end of the chapter a special section is devoted to a consideration of laser printers, how download fonts are generated for them and managed via software. 22.3. Screen and printer fonts The fact that the character sets are the same on most printers (bar shape) might lead one to think that this situation does not allow of any variation. However, the fact that an "A" on the screen always comes out as an "A" on printing does not mean that there is an unalterable relationship between screen symbol and printed symbol. The relationship can be determined by the user. This fact can be exploited to achieve new user-specific effects on the PC. 32.3.1. Linking screen and printer Normally a given ASCII symbol which is shown on the screen is sent to the printer with its screen value and causes a symbol to be printed which we intuitively recognise as identical to the screen symbol. One can alter this situation in one of two ways, very often by linking up the two manners of alteration. The first of these is to define a symbol for the printer (see next section) and to assign it a code value which is identical with a certain screen symbol. For instance, say one defines a symbol for the printer, the letter ja in Russian. This is shaped like a reversed capital "R". For mnemonic reasons one can assign this symbol the ASCII value $82 which is the same as that for capital "R". Now if you use the necessary printer command before and after the Russian letter then you will have linked capital "R" with this user-defined symbol in the printer. However, with the PC you can go a stage further and redefine the symbol for the screen as well. In this particular case you will find the letter in the Russian language font supplied with the LinguaFont set. The second case where screen and printer symbol may not coincide comes about if one filters the symbol of the screen before sending it to the printer; consider how this functions. The letters displayed on the screen are stored by a programme, say a word processor. When one wishes to print a file created by a word processor then the printing facility of this programme is used. With sophisticated programmes the printing facility offers one the possibility of filtering symbols in a so-called character translation table. What this does is to determine what characters are to be outputted to the printer when certain characters are inputted by the word processor's text file. To take an example, say you have a symbol "." which you do not want printed as a full stop (dot) but as a somewhat larger square then you could filter it out and replace it by "" on printing, i.e. replace ASCII $46 by ASCII $254 in the character translation table. The original purpose of character translation tables was to enable one to produce foreign language symbols by printing one character and a backspace followed by a diacritic, e.g. to produce German "" one could print "u", backspace and the inverted commas ". The result was approximately the same; this was the only way of printing Umlaute on printers which only had the lower ASCII set at their disposal. In advanced data processing one can put character translation tables to much more sophisticated use, particularly when one is using a programme (like WordPerfect, Word, etc.) which allows one to translate single characters into whole strings. For the user of LinguaFont the advantage of character translation tables is that they permit him to determine what ASCII code is to be printed for a certain ASCII code of the foreign language screen font which he is using (generated via VideoEd). With all the screen fonts of LinguaFont the special symbols are to be found in the upper ASCII area which must be substituted by code values in the lower ASCII area before being sent to dot matrix printers for reasons which will become clear when one considers how download fonts function (see next section). With laser printers and with dot matrix printers capable of handling more than 128 download symbols (such as the printers of the NEC Pinwriter Plus series) a character table may not be necessary depending on how many symbols one redefines for the screen with VideoEd (or which are redefined in a supplied font of the LinguaFont set) and where these screen symbols lie in the upper ASCII area. 22.4. What is a download font? To put it simply a download font is a font which is sent from the computer to the printer (the term "download" means to send something away from the computer to a peripheral device; the opposite of this is to "upload", both terms are used in a similar sense in networking and telecommunications). It is a font which the user has defined him/herself (or someone else has defined for him/her) and which is not available among the firmware character sets of the printer. You can look at it this way: among the 4 or 5 character sets which the printer has one is empty and can be determined by the user when loading his/her own character set into this empty area. The font which the user loads into the printer must be in a certain form for it to be accepted by the printer in the first place. Normally if you design download fonts yourself you have an editor which ensures that the symbols which you draw within the editor are stored in the form in which the printer requires them for downloading. To understand just what this form is, allow me to sketch the basics of encoding printer downloads. The principle of encoding information about character shapes explained for the screen above applies in general to any type of output device which must store information on character sets, be it a monitor or a printer. Thus one should bear in mind that a given download font will consist of series of bytes which when viewed in binary form offer patterns of dots or blanks which will be realised by the print head on printing. To take a very simple case, the byte 3C had the binary form 00111100 which means that in a download this would result in two blank dot spaces followed by 4 filled dot spaces and closed by two blank dot spaces. Having explained the principle one can now proceed to an actual case. For the definition of customised fonts one can choose one of four font types with those printers which conform with the original Epson LQ1500 standard. 1) Draft 10 characters per inch (cpi) 2) Pica 10 characters per inch (cpi) 3) Elite 12 characters per inch (cpi) 4) Proportional (variable character pitch) The first type is that used for fast printing and has a relatively low resolution. As it is nowadays considered unacceptable for quality printing, printer fonts cannot be defined with this low resolution with DotEd. The types under 2) and 3) are so-called letter quality types as the printer prints more slowly with a far greater number of dots per character so that the individual dots are scarcely visible. The fourth type is proportional, a type with different widths for each symbol, depending on actual character width; thus the letter "i" takes up less space than the letter "w", etc. Be careful to distinguish between letter-quality printing and proportional printing. The former does not imply the latter (consider types 2) and 3) above which both have a standard width for all characters) while the latter (proportional) is always printed in letter-quality (proportional draft would be pretty senseless). When defining download fonts with DotEd one must choose one of the latter three types listed above. Note that there are three possible pitches here: 10 cpi, 12 cpi and variable pitch (for proportional spacing). The remaining pitch types of the printer can be applied to the download symbols without redefining them for a particular further pitch. Thus one can print Pica 10 in enlarged mode (all symbols appear twice as wide) or in condensed mode (all symbols appear nearly half as wide). With printers which support double vertical and triple horizontal spacing (for example the NEC Pinwriter series) download symbols can be printed in these pitches, again without redefining them for these pitches. Note, however, that if you define a download font for Pica 10 cpi (or use one designed for this pitch) it will not be printed in Elite 12 cpi simply by issuing the command for Elite to the printer. In this case one must redefine the download. This has meant that the present author has had to make a decision about what pitch to choose as standard pitch for the download fonts supplied with LinguaFont. As 10 cpi is the normal pitch for dot matrix printers it was the natural choice. Elite download fonts must be defined separately. However, to do this you can use TranDot to convert a Pica 10 cpi file formally and edit this subsequently. All you need to do is to narrow the symbols somewhat (the vertical shape of symbols is identical for all pitches). Bear in mind that the characters of an Elite (12 cpi) font are 20% narrower than the corresponding ones of a Pica (10 cpi) font. Proportional fonts are not included with LinguaFont as symbols with varying width pose great difficulties with tables, diagrammes or indeed any type of text where one requires a flush righthand margin apart from the standard one at the left of the text. Of course proportional, block justified text remains the aim of every serious user of a PC for word processing, but at the moment it is hardly realisable unless one has a printer which is intelligent enough to calculate flush margins (or centering) after determining the widths of symbols. The only kinds of printer which do this satisfactorily are laser-beam printers which produce print out like a typeset book. As DotEd is geared towards 24 needle dot matrix printers, no proportional download fonts are offered, but if you design a proportional font and then save it to disk, a text file is automatically generated which contains the widths of the characters defined in the font file. You can use this to alter the width table contained in your word processor and thus use such proportional files satisfactorily with right justification. The beginner should not start with proportional files as they are troublesome. Try a fixed pitch font to start with (Pica or Elite) and see that you get that to work to begin with. Taking the example of Pica 10, the question now arises, just how does the printer require customised symbols to be encoded before they are downloaded into the printer. The answer to this lies in the matrix for these symbols. This is 24 dots high and a maximum of 36 dots wide. Now how could one encode a dot pattern for such a matrix using bytes? The answer is to distribute the vertical or horizontal series of dots over several bytes. The exact method used by printers which conform to the Epson LQ 1500 standard (and later derivatives of this) is as follows. Each symbol of the download file begins with a specification of what address the symbol is to be stored at (the addresses from ASCII $0 to $127 are available but as the first 32 of these may be used by the printer as commands only the values from ASCII $33 to $126 should be used). Then there follow three bytes which contain the following information: 1) the number of free spaces to the left of the symbol, 2) the number of dots occupied by the particular download symbol and 3) the number of free spaces to the right of the symbol. This can be illustrated neatly by considering a specific case. Printer matrix in binary form ͻ 012345678901234567890123456789012345 Ķ 0 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... MSB 1 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... 2 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... 3 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... 1st. 4 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... Byte 5 ..1111111110000000000000111111111... 6 ..1111111110000000000000111111111... 7 ..0000111110000000000000111111000... LSB 8 ..0000011111000000000001111100000... MSB 9 ..0000001111100000000011111000000... 10 ..0000000111110000000111110000000... 11 ..0000000011111000001111100000000... 2nd. 12 ..0000000001111100011111000000000... Byte 13 ..0000000000111111111110000000000... 14 ..0000000000011111111100000000000... 15 ..0000000000001111111000000000000... LSB 16 ..0000000000111111111110000000000... MSB 17 ..0000000011111100011111100000000... 18 ..0000000111110000000111110000000... 19 ..0000001111100000000011111000000... 3rd. 20 ..0000000111111000001111110000000... Byte 21 ..0000000001111111111111000000000... 22 ..0000000000011111111100000000000... 23 ..0000000000000000000000000000000... LSB ͼ ٳ 1F (width of symbol) 02 03 (dots left of symbol) (dots right of symbol) N.B.: MSB = most significant bit; LSB = least significant bit The above matrix shows the information needed to store a download symbol in the RAM of a 24 needle dot matrix printer. At the bottom one sees "02" which is the number of dots to the left of the symbol, then comes "1F" (= 31 in decimal) which is the width of the symbol in dots, followed by "03" which is the number of dots to the right of the symbol. In the download file there now follow a series of bytes which is exactly three times the width of the customised symbol, i.e. 93 bytes. The reason for this can be seen from the above diagramme: Each vertical column in the symbol is 24 dots high (0 through 23), 24 divided by 8 is 3. As a byte is an 8 place binary digit one needs three bytes to store the dot pattern of a single vertical column. The number of columns which the symbols contains multiplied by three is thus the number of bytes which are necessary to encode the bit pattern of the entire customised symbol. The download file now continues with the bytes necessary to specify the address and the shape of the next download symbol and so on until the entire download font is defined. The beginning of a download font contains a number of bytes which are not part of the definition of symbols but which convey to the printer that a download file is being sent and that it should be stored in RAM (the sequence for this is ESC & 0 [hex: IB 26 00]); this sequence is immediately followed by the start address and the end address of the download file. Then come the byte sequences which define the shape of each download symbol. Note that each set of three bytes which makes up the information for a vertical column is ordered a certain way. The bytes are resolved into binary form and stringed together; the leftwardmost digit is then the bit for the first position on the top of the column and the rightwardmost bit of the three bytes is the last position on the bottom of the column (see the diagramme above, the term most significant bit refers to the position furtherst to the left of a byte in binary form, the term least significant bit to the position furtherst to the right). The binary information contained in the customised symbol diagramme above produces the following pattern when printed on a printer compatible with the original LQ 1500 standard by Epson. Printer matrix in zoomed printed form ͻ 012345678901234567890123456789012345 Ķ 0 .................................... 1 .................................... 2 .................................... 3 .................................... 4 .................................... 5 .................. 6 .................. 7 ......................... 8 .......................... 9 .......................... 10 .......................... 11 .......................... 12 .......................... 13 ......................... 14 ........................... 15 ............................. 16 ......................... 17 ........................ 18 .......................... 19 .......................... 20 ........................ 21 ....................... 22 ........................... 23 .................................... ͼ If one compares this resolution with that of the screen symbol discussed above then one sees that the matrix is much finer on the printer than on the screen. This accounts for the fact that while many of the symbols in the screen fonts of LinguaFont are somewhat stylised forms of actual letters, the printed forms are more acceptable. The principle behind the screen fonts is simple: the symbols must be as easily recognisable as possible. One has to do one's best with the 8 x 14 matrix which the PC offers for screen symbols in the non-graphic mode. Using a larger matrix would mean resorting to bit-mapped graphics with all the disadvantages that entails in terms of software restrictions and processing speed. Note that there is an additional command for Epson printers and compatibles which can be used to copy a duplicate of the normal character set into the RAM area and subsequently replace these by download symbols. This procedure is useful if one is redefining one or two symbols and does not want to have to send a printer command from the word processor for download activation. What one then does is to include this command (ESC : 0, hex: 1B 3A 00) at the beginning of the download file and then follow it with the bytes defining the shape of the customised symbols. When printing a text, one activates the download at the beginning and stays in the download as all the normal symbols which one requires have been copied into the RAM area at the beginning of the download file. 32.4.1. Dealing with downloads The user of download files with a printer must bear a few facts in mind to ensure that the results he/she expects actually appear on print out. These concern the printer on the one hand and the software you are using on the other. The first most important fact about downloads is that they are transitory. As you can load a new download at will into the printer, the files are stored in a temporary form, i.e. in the RAM area of the printer. This means that if you turn off the printer the download is cleared from RAM. There are other situations in which the download can be lost, however, notably when the printer is reset for some reason or other, for example when you make a warm start (by pressing ). You know that a printer reset has occurred as the print head make an abrupt movement to the right and left again and, if you have a cut sheet feeder, a page eject is sometimes issued. Once the print head makes the twitching movement typical of a reset the download is lost and must be re-loaded. If you have to turn the printer off because of paper jam, remember to load the download again before continuing printing. The software you are using needs to be operated in a special way if you are working with downloads. Basically what one must remember is to send the printer command for "download on" (ESC % 1, hex: 1B 27 01 in the Epson ESC P standard) before the actual download symbol and to send the corresponding command for "download off" (ESC % 0, hex: 1B 27 00 in the Epson ESC P standard) after the symbol. When the text contains a series of download symbols in direct succession then it suffices to have the "download on" command at the beginning of the series and the "download off" command at the end. If you forget to turn the download off then all subsequent characters will be taken from the download and the print out will look chaotic. With word processors (or with the word processing facility of integrated software) one can use one of the screen attributes, such as bold (high video) or underlined in connection with download symbols. The printer driver must then be patched in such a way that the position, where the normal command for the printer attribute corresponding to the screen attribute is to be found, now contains the download on command and download off is to be found where this attribute is switched off again. For example if one replaces "bold" by "download" in the printer driver then with all printers in the Epson ESC P standard this means substituting ESC E (bold on) with ESC % 1 (download on) and ESC F (bold off) with ESC % 0 (download out). With WordPerfect one can embed printer commands directly and on the diskette of LinguaFont two macros are to be found, one which turns the download on (Alt-I for "download in") and one which turns the download off (Alt-O for "download out"). This means that one does not have to sacrifice a screen attribute in the printer driver for the download on/off commands. When processing a text, one then presses , types the download symbol or symbols and then . If one checks on embedded codes in WordPerfect (press , "Reveal Codes") then one sees that the download symbol or symbols are preceded by the "download on" command and followed by the "download off" command and these commands furthermore do not disturb one by appearing on the screen with normal display, i.e. without formatting data shown. The snag with the above method of switching on and off the download is that you always have to remember to turn it on and off. There is a further means of activating the download which has one disadvantage which is, however, frequently outweighed by the advantages. In the character translation tables of sophisticated word processors (including Word 3.0 and later, WordPerfect 4.1 and later) it is possible to replace one character in a text file with a string on printing. What one can do here is to replace a download symbol x by a string consisting of ESC % 1 x ESC % 0. This string, when sent to the printer, activates the download, prints the symbol x from the download area and deactivates the download again, i.e. returns to one of the standard firmware character sets. The advantage to this is that one does not have to remember to embed the "download on" and "download off" commands when processing a text, or to mark the download symbols with a certain screen attribute which contains the on/off commands in the printer driver. There is one precondition for using this type of download control. This is that the download symbols not be on the same screen addresses as normal non-download symbols, otherwise it would be impossible to print the latter as the download would always be turned on before them. One could get around this by defining download symbols as belonging to another character font (internally for the word processor) but this would involve just the sort of switching during processing which one wants to avoid. With the screen fonts of LinguaFont the stipulation that the download symbols not be identical in any case with the code values of normal alphanumeric characters below 128 is fulfilled anyway as all the special symbols are at or above 128, i.e. in the upper ASCII area. Well what is the disadvantage of this method which I alluded to above? It is that printing is slowed down by this means if you print large stretches of download symbols consecutively. Say you want to print a whole text in a download font and control the switching of the download via a specially adapted character translation table (input a character, output a string with translated character and download commands). The printer needs a pause of about 5 or 6 seconds before it prints each line. The reason for this is that the printer prints blocks of text delimited by carriage returns, i.e. it prints in lines. In each line of text, however, it receives for each character the command "download on" and "download off". The delay is then due to the enormous number of on/off commands which the printer must process. If one is not printing entirely in a special download font, for example, if one is using a phonetic download font with only some phonetic symbols here and there in one's text then the method of managing downloads just described is ideal. Printing is not slowed down measurably and one can forget embedding download commands during text processing. Finally a hint on trouble-shooting if you have difficulties printing when using downloads. It is possible with printers built around the Epson ESC P standard to obtain a so-called hex dump of the incoming data from the computer. This is usually done by pressing one or more buttons on the control panel before turning the printer on (see your printer manual for details). When the printer is to produce a hex dump then every byte of incoming data, including printer commands, is printed as a hex figure. The advantage of this is that one can see whether certain commands, such as "download on" or "download off", are actually received by the printer. If they are not then one can check the other parts of the system, such as the printer driver of the software being used, to determine the reason for the desired effect not resulting on print-out. 32.4.2. Using master style commands When one is editing a text one frequently wishes to use extra large lettering or to print a paragraph in condensed or the text of footnotes in slightly smaller pitch than the body of a text. This can be achieved by using the different commands for Pica, Elite, condensed, enlarged mode, etc. However, one can simplify the matter considerably by the use of so-called master style commands. These are formed from a type of printer command contained in the Epson ESC P standard which allows one to use one and only one escape sequence with a number at the end which carries all the information about pitch and/or such aspects as whether the characters are to printed as italics or underlined. My experience is that beginner users do not usually grasp the gain in simplicity of printer pitch control which implementing the master style command entails so a brief explanation of the details of it is called for. The basic principle behind the master style command is that one uses just one escape sequence and by combining numeric values, which stand for pitches and attributes, attains variations and combinations which would require several commands otherwise. Consider to begin with the following table. Master style parameters Print style Decimal value Bit number Pica 10 0 0 Elite 12 1 0 Proportional pitch 2 1 Condensed mode 4 2 Enhanced 8 3 Double-strike 16 4 Enlarged mode 32 5 Italic 64 6 Underlined 128 7 The master style command consists of two ASCII codes ESC ! (hex: 1B 21) followed by a number from 0 to 128; this is referred to as ESC ! n where n is a numeric value. The number has one of the decimal values of the rows listed above. But the real advantage of the master style command is that you can combine pitches and attributes. Say for example you want to print text in Pica 10, Italic and Double-strike then you send the command ESC ! 80 to the printer. How does one arrive at the figure 80? Simply by adding decimal values as follows: Pica 10 0 Italic 64 Double-strike 16 --- n = 80 Three printer commands have now been reduced to one. Furthermore if one wants to return to, say, Elite after having printed in Pica, Italic and Double-strike then one simply sends the command ESC ! 1 to the printer, i.e. you do not need two additional commands, one to turn off Italic and one to turn off Double-strike. Master style commands are very useful when dealing with character types in word processors. When a word processor offers the possibility of having several character types then one can activate all of these by using the single ESC ! command followed by a number for the particular type (pitch and/or attribute); again returning to a standard pitch is done with just one command, e.g. ESC ! 0 for Pica 10 irrespective of what pitch and/or attribute is active. The compactness of master style commands is often welcome when the entry in the printer driver of some piece of software can only be of a limited length, for instance only four bytes long. 22.5. Laser beam printers Although the means by which printing is achieved is radically different with laser printers compared to dot matrix printers, the encoding of download fonts is essentially similar. Indeed any device connected to a computer which is intended to represent characters in a matrix will do so by taking information encoded in bytes and translate these into a bit pattern where the value 1 in such a pattern stands for a dot and the value 0 for a space (i.e. no dot). Given this principle which was seen to apply to screen representation and to dot matrix printers above, one can now look at the details of download encoding on laser printers. Before examining any individual characters one must consider two groups of information which are present with laser printer fonts but not (at least to the same extent) with fonts for dot matrix printers. 32.5.1. Font descriptor To begin with each download font has a header at the beginning of the file which is termed a "font descriptor". This contains information which applies to the font as a whole, i.e. to each character which may be defined in the file. For Hewlett Packard soft fonts there is a 64 byte header at the beginning of each font. Some of this information is now irrelevant for present-day laser printers. Only that of relevance for designing fonts (with LaserEd) is commented on here. For more details, see the programme description for LaserEd in the first part of the present book. Font type. This specifies whether a font is 7-bit (up to $127) or 8 bit (up to $255). Baseline distance. Here the distance from the top of a character cell to the baseline is specified. Cell width. This is the entire width of a character cell. Cell height. This is the entire height of a character cell. Orientation. Two values are possible here: 0 stands for portrait and 1 for landscape orientation. Spacing. Again two possible values exist here: 0 for fixed spacing of characters and 1 for proportional spacing. Symbol set. By this is meant the symbols which are actually printed for certain ASCII values. As you might expect the lower ASCII area is the same for all symbol sets (i.e. ASCII $65 for example will always result in a capital "A" being printed). However the upper ASCII area can be occupied by a variety of shapes and symbols depending on which set is chosen. How to choose what set is outlined in the description of LaserEd in the first section of this book. Pitch. Pitch is the number of horizontal increments per character. A font in 10 pitch would require the printer to move 30 dots per character as the resolution in text mode with Hewlett Packard printers is 300 dots per inch which divided by 10 equals 30. Font height. This is not the height of the character cell but the height of the cell plus a number of vertical dot spaces which will determine how much room there is vertically between two characters printed on consecutive lines (this can be affected by line spacing, of course, which can lead to additional space being added which in not contained in the font height parameter). Style. Two values can be found here: 0 for upright printing and 1 for italic. Stroke weight. Assuming a value of 0 for normal printing, one can then vary this to give a darker print (bolding) by increasing the value, say, to +3 or on the other hand lighten the print-out by using a negative value, say -3. This features has no equivalent with dot matrix printers which only have a feature "bold print" which cannot be varied. Typeface. By this is meant the shape of individual letters. Take the letter "R" for example. It can be printed with no embellishments at the extremeties of the letter (technically known as serifs) to give a sans serif type of print (Helvetica is a popular sans serif typeface). Or by contrast it may contain such additions as tiny horizontal strokes at the lower ends of the letter and a tiny dash to the left at the top of the stem of the letter. This is characteristic of a Times Roman typeface. Underline distance. Not a feature one is likely to concern oneself with unduly. It simply specifies the distance between the baseline of a letter and the top row of a printed underscore. Font name. This is purely documentary and is included at the end of the descriptor. It may be used occasionally by the printer, e.g. when printing a test table of a download font. 32.5.2. Character descriptor At the beginning of each character there is also a descriptor, this time specifying parameters which only hold for the character being defined. The character descriptor contains the following information: Orientation. This is the same as the corresponding parameter in the font descriptor. Its inclusion here is due the possibility of specifying orientation separately for each character. Left offset. This is the number of dots from the reference point (the left handside of a character determined by the character width specified in the font descriptor) to the first column of dots in the specific character. Top offset. By this is meant the number of dots a character extends above the baseline. If the character is sitting on the baseline (as do capital letters, for instance) then this value is automatically the height of the character plus one for the baseline itself. If not, it is the character height minus the descender of a character (e.g. with lowercase "g", "y", etc.) Character width. This refers to the precise number of columns which the defined character occupies. Sometimes called the "ink width" to emphasise the fact that it is the width of the character itself without possible left and right margins. Character Height. This is the entire height of a character, i.e. the top offset plus a descender if the defined character contains one. Delta-X. In the Hewlett Packard command language for laser printer soft fonts there is no parameter called right offset. Instead the term Delta-X is used to refer to the total width of a character, i.e. the left offset, the ink width of a character and a number of further dots (which one would term "right offset"). The Delta-X parameter is often referred to as the distance travelled by the printer cursor after printing a character. This is another way of looking at it. You can imagine that a printer has a cursor (the current location of the printer's laser beam). When a character is printed, the beam moves to the right a number of dot spaces (the left margin), then it prints the character (i.e. moves to the right by the ink width of the character) and subsequently moves to the right another few dots. The total distance travelled is the Delta-X value for the particular character. In LaserEd the term right offset is used as this is intuitively understandable given the existence of a parameter "left offset" anyway. The Delta-X parameter is then calculated by the programme. After the character descriptor a sequence of bytes follows in a font file which specifies how long the actual character definition is (the printer and indeed LaserEd must know this is order to read the correct number of bytes for the definition of the current character). There then follows a series of bytes which must be resolved to a series of bit patterns to give the matrix for the character defined in much the same way as with dot matrix printer download files. While the technicalities of calculating the bytes necessary for encoding a symbol are different between the two printers, the principle is the same. To see how a laser printer achieves this task, consider the following matrix. Symbol definition for laser printer in 40 x 60 matrix ͻ 0123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 Ķ 0........................ 1........................ 2.......................................... 3................................................ 4................................................ 5................................................ 6................................................ 7................................................ 8................................................ 9................................................ 10................................................ 11................................................ 12................................................ 13................................................ 14................................................ 15................................................ 16................................................ 17................................................ 18................................................ 19................................................ 20................................................ 21................................................ 22................................................ 23................................................ 24................................................ 25................................................ 26................................................ 27................................................ 28................................................ 29................................................ 30................................................ 31................................................ 32.......................................... 33.. 34 . 35...................................................... 36....................................................... 37.......................................................ۺ 38........................................................ۺ 39........................................................ۺ ͼ The first point to be noted here is that the size of the matrix is flexible. In this particular case it is 40 rows by 60 columns (this corresponds roughly to a 14 point capital letter character). The left offset (and the right one for that matter) do not have to be left free within the bitmap matrix on the editor screen but are specified in a table of character parameters (for the details of this, see the description of LaserEd). There is no baseline in the matrix either. This is calculated by substracting the top offset from the character height. If these are identical then the symbol is sitting on the baseline, i.e. has no descender. In the case of the above symbol (which represents the Russian shch letter) the horizontal line of the character is on the baseline and the tail to the lower right forms a descender. As neither the left offset nor the baseline is included in the bit map matrix with laser printer characters, all the symbols of a download font are flush with the left and upper margins of the screen matrix (you will most likely have noticed this with LaserEd). What remains is the conversion of a screen matrix characters into a series of bytes which form the character definition data in the corresponding download file. This is achieved as follows (see matrix diagramme below). The bit pattern of each row is converted into the corresponding bytes. As a byte has 8 bits the result is a multiple of 8. But what if the number of columns in not such a multiple? This is in fact the case with the sample character above which occupies 60 columns, 4 less than the next multiple of 8, 64. Here the notion of byte boundary padding, as it is called, comes in. Starting at the leftmost column the bit pattern is translated into bytes. 7 bytes can be so translated with the above character. The remaining four bits (i.e. columns 56 to 59 of the screen matrix which starts at column 0) are taken to be the four most significant bits of an 8th. byte and the remaining four righthand bits (least significant ones) are set to 0. 8 bytes for each row with 40 rows results in 320 bytes being needed to include the definition of this character in a download file. Not all characters in a file will be as wide as the one shown above. Slender characters like "i" or "l" will require fewer bytes to be encoded. Nonetheless, one arrives at a considerable size for such a download font. A 14 point download file with 256 characters would take up around 50K. As you can see one is dealing with files of quite different dimensions from those of dot matrix download files. Point sizes usually range from 10 to 18 in a text with some headlining and some footnotes. To print a text using soft fonts usually involves loading anything up to a few hundred kilobytes of download files to have an appreciable range of point sizes at one's disposal. Key to encoding of character's bit pattern: boundary padding = 4 bits (4 empty columns to right of character) 0 - 59 = 60 columns + 4 = 64 8 = 8 bytes per row (0 - 7) 0 - 39 = 40 rows, 8(bytes) x 40(rows) = 320 bytes of definition data ͻ 0123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123 Ķ 01111111111110000000001111111111110000000001111111111110000000000 11111111111110000000001111111111110000000001111111111110000000000 20001111110000000000000001111110000000000000001111110000000000000 30000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 40000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 50000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 60000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 70000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 80000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 90000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 100000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 110000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 120000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 130000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 140000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 150000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 160000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 170000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 180000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 190000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 200000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 210000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 220000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 230000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 240000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 250000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 260000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 270000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 280000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 290000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 300000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 310000111100000000000000000111100000000000000000111100000000000000 320001111110000000000000001111110000000000000001111110000000000000 331111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111110000000 341111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111110000000 350000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011111100000 360000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001111100000 370000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000111110000 380000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011110000 390000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011110000 ͼ Bytes: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13. Keyboard drivers 23.0. Preamble: A word about keyboards For the English speaking user of a PC the keyboard is something which he/she does not have to think about. This is because the values assigned to the keys correspond to those which the computer assumes when turned on, if not instructed otherwise. For the foreigner the use of a PC in a major European language entails the loading of a so-called keyboard driver. This normally takes the form of a kind of character table which corresponds to the alphabet of the language he writes in and the character table furthermore corresponds to the symbols printed on the keys of the keyboard delivered with his PC in his own country. Thus for a German the keyboard of the PC contains "Umlaute" and instead of the different kinds of bracketing to be seen on the keys to the right of the American-English keyboard. The keyboard driver keybgr.com is loaded on power-up and assigns the keys of the keyboard the German values which are printed on them. If your printer can only process 7-bit wide characters or if it is a daisy wheel printer it needs to be switched to German via a so-called "escape sequence". Note then that the symbol which appears on the screen when you press a keyboard key may not have the same numerical value (i.e. ASCII code) as the same symbol which appears on your printer if the latter operates in the so-called 7-bit mode. For the operation of the keyboard, however, it is irrelevant what happens at the printing stage. 23.1. How the keyboard works The keyboard of the PC, like other peripheral elements of the computer, is controlled by a chip of its own. This is the 8048 in the PC and the 8042 in the AT. These chips have the function of monitoring the keyboard to see (i) if a key is pressed and (ii) for how long it is pressed. As nearly all of the keys of the keyboard are repeat keys (ii) is an important function: any key which is held down for more than half a second (or whatever the value for the repeat function is) causes the controller chip to send the code of that key repeatedly to the computer until the key is released. The controller chip passes the keystrokes to the CPU which via a ROM BIOS interrupt (INT 9h) stores them in a so-called queue where they await processing. About 15 keystrokes can be held in the queue if the computer is not able to process each keystroke as it comes. Note that some programmes enlarge this buffer by a technique of their own and others clear it. Clearing the keyboard buffer is necessary for smooth cursor control. Say, for example, you are moving the cursor horizontally down the screen and you wish to move 16 lines, for argument's sake. You must hold the key depressed for a second or two to do so. However because their is a delay in response between keystroke and the desired action on the screen the cursor will normally wait for a fraction of a second before beginning to move. If you now hold the cursor depressed until it shifts 16 lines downwards and then let it go, you find that it shoots beyond where you wanted it to stop. This can be very irritating because it means you have to reposition the cursor again. Some programmes, such as Word and WordPerfect clear the keyboard buffer regularly (so and so many times a second) so that when you release the cursor it freezes on the spot. 23.2. Scan codes It is essential to grasp that when a key is pressed on the keyboard a certain letter is not sent to the computer. Instead the keyboard sends a so-called scan code which in its turn is translated either by the ROM BIOS of the computer and/or by a resident keyboard driver if one is present. This latter situation arises when (i) the computer is used to write in any foreign language for which there is provision (French, German, etc.) or (ii) when a custom keyboard driver (such as that supplied with LinguaFont) is encountered. There are 83 or 84 scan codes (for the PC and the AT respectively) and 101/102 (for the newer PS/2 machines by IBM) they are associated permanently with certain keys. The following diagrams show the layout of the current PC keyboard shipped by IBM (i.e. the 101/102 key version) and the scan codes associated with its keys. Note that there is no difference in scan codes between the different language versions of various keyboard drivers; the redirection of language-specific characters is achieved under DOS by the particular national keyboard driver, e.g. keybgr.com, which is loaded residently and filters keyboard input before this is further processed. IBM PC keyboard Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ Esc F1F2F3F4F5F6F7F8F9F10F11F12 PSSLSR [Lights] Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ ` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Back In PU NL / * Ĵ Ĵ Ĵ Tab Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] DeEdPD Hm PU Ĵ Ĵ + Caps A S D F G H J K L ; ' \ <ٳ < > Ĵ Ŀ Ĵ Sht \ Z X C V B N M , . / Shift  Ed PD Ĵ Ŀ Ĵ CtrlAlt Space AltCtrl <  > Ins Del<ٳ Abbreviations 1) Esc = Escape; 2) NL = NumLock; 3) SL = ScrollLock; 4) SR = System Reset; 5) Tab = Tabulator; 6) Ctrl = Control; 7) Sht = Shift; 8) Hm = Home; 9) Ed = End; 10) PU = PageUp; 11) PD = PageDown; 12) PS = PrintScreen. The remaining abbreviations are those used on the keys themselves, namely 1) Alt = Alternate; 2) Caps = Capitals; 3) Ins = Insert; 4) Del = Delete. Scan codes of keys Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ 1 59606162636465666768133134 PS46SR Ŀ Ŀ Ŀ 41 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213 14 827173 69535574 Ĵ Ĵ Ĵ 151617181920212223242526 27 837981 717273 Ĵ 28 Ĵ78 29 303132333435363738394041 757677 Ĵ Ŀ Ĵ 424344454647484950515253 54 72 798081 Ĵ Ŀ Ĵ28 29 56 57 58 29 758077 82 83 Not only does the keyboard generate a certain scan code when a key is pressed it also generates one when the key is released. The number of the release scan code is obtained by adding 128 to the input scan code, i.e. by setting the eighth bit. This fact is, however, irrelevant even when using the keyboard routines of LinguaFont as the release scan code is generated automatically irrespective of what the input scan code is. 23.3. Shift state You will probably have noticed in the above diagrammes that scan codes are only given for lower-case letters and digits. What about the upper-case letters and the diacritics on the numeric keys? These are taken care of very simply. The controller chip for the keyboard monitors what key is depressed and what status flag goes with it. By this is meant whether another key is pressed simultaneously which would affect the interpretation of the keystroke for the BIOS and DOS resident keyboard driver. This "other key" is one of the following: (i) key; (ii) key; (iii) key. When one of these (or in some cases a combination of them) is pressed and an alphanumeric key is pressed as well one obtains a different shift state as it is called; this state is maintained as long as the particular key is held down. Thus if you keep the key depressed all the other keystrokes you make (from a through z) are interpreted as upper-case letters until the key is released; this is possible because the controller only sends the release scan code of the key when this is actually released by the user. In addition to this the BIOS checks to see whether the key is also active in which case it substracts 32 from the characters between 97 and 122, i.e. it changes lower-case letters into upper-case ones, and whether the key is on in which case the cursor pad scan codes are interpreted as numbers and not as cursor control commands, such as , , , etc. Note that these two keys are toggles, that is they reverse a given state (turn "on" to "off" and vice versa); using the key with the key active leads to lower-case letters being displayed. Some programmes when loaded turn the key to "on" (this is achieved by setting bit 6 of the first keyboard status byte). Normally the reason for this is that keyboard input for the particular programme (most frequently a programming language) is not case-sensitive and thus automatically entered as upper-case. The various status changes can be easily recognised by representing the so-called keyboard mask byte diagrammatically. The byte consists of 8 bits which can be combined in various manners to renders combinations of shift states (e.g. , , etc.). Keyboard status mask Ŀ 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Ĵ Ins Caps Num Scroll Alt Ctrl Left Right Lock Lock Lock Shift Shift The BIOS of the computer furthermore monitors input to see whether certain critical combinations of keys have been sent from the keyboard. Such combinations are, for example, which triggers a warm start, / which causes a programme to suspend action (unless the particular programme has reset the relevant interrupt (INT 23h) internally for itself, in which case it does something else) or which causes a dump of the current screen display (taken from the screen memory buffer) to be sent to the printer. When information from the keyboard is conveyed to the computer as scan codes not one but a set of two bytes are sent which are termed the main byte and the auxiliary byte respectively; seen from the point of view of the programmer, the keyboard input is an integer which is divided into two bytes, the standard size of an integer in C++ (on a PC). This is the way keyboard input is interpreted in the programmes of the LinguaFont set. In all cases where a simple alphanumeric key, or an alphanumeric key in combination with the or key or an ASCII code via the key and numeric keypad (see below) is entered the ASCII value is stored as the main byte with the auxiliary byte containing the scan code. Consider a few examples: [Hex Number Id] Ŀ Main Byte CARR_RETURN 0x 1c 0d BACKSPACE 0x 0e 08 CTRL_U 0x 16 15 CTRL_D 0x 20 04 Ŀ Auxiliary Byte The notation above is that used in the C preprocessor definitions of keys used in LaserEd and DotEd, for instance. In the left column are the names of keys on the keyboard (or key combinations) and in the right are two byte integers which are quoted as hex values (labelled with a preceding "0x"). The first two digits (e.g. "1c") indicate the auxiliary byte and the second two (e.g. "0d") show the main byte. You can see that the auxiliary byte is identical with the scan codes for the particular keys as indicated in the keyboard diagramme above (note that the latter are quoted in decimal form for ease of recognition). Alongside normal keys there are also a number of special keys and key combinations which are transmitted to the computer with the main byte set to zero while retaining the scan code as the value for the auxiliary byte. Consider the following. PAGE_UP 0x 49 00 PAGE_DOWN 0x 51 00 CTRL_PAGE_UP 0x 84 00 CTRL_PAGE_DOWN 0x 76 00 The above applies to the function keys, to combinations of the key, the key or the key with either a function key or an alphanumeric key (though the combination of key and alphanumeric key renders a normal integer with an ASCII value as main byte as these combinations actually exist under ASCII $32). Furthermore all the keys of the numeric keypad (when it is not numerically active!) send scan codes which are translated as values for the auxiliary byte with the main byte set to zero. Such keystrokes are those which are typically used to activate commands in programmes as opposed to those used for entering data. 23.4. Entering codes directly Apart from using the alphanumeric keys of the keyboard one can enter ASCII codes directly by depressing the key and typing the number of the ASCII code on the numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard. This is obviously superfluous with codes which are available on the alphanumeric keys anyway but is very useful for accessing codes which are not present on the keyboard. By this means one can access the entire IBM character set above 128 and below 32 (programme permitting!). A practical example of where this can be sensible would be the following. Say you are writing an English text and would like to quote something in French, Spanish, German or whatever. The letters of these languages which are not in the English alphabet but somewhere in the IBM character set can only be accessed by holding down the key and typing the number of the letter you are looking for on the numeric keypad. Thus while writing English you can have access to special letters like , , , , , , , etc. The numbers required for these letters are $130, $132, $134, $135, $140, $145, $149. For a complete list of the foreign language letters available as standard, see the appendix to this handbook. Note that if you have a good printer which reproduces the entire IBM character set (such as the NEC Pinwriter series) and you do not tamper with the character translation table of your software (word processor or whatever) then these foreign language letters appear in just their right form on the printer. The direct method of entering ASCII codes just described is of significance for the user of LinguaFont as he can access the special symbols of the screen font he has loaded by typing the number of the particular symbol on the numeric keypad while holding down the key. Just what symbols have what ASCII values in the re-defined screen fonts depends on what ASCII values you assigned to the symbols you defined within VideoEd. The easiest way, however, to enter the special symbols of a screen font from LinguaFont is to adapt the keyboard driver which is shipped with the programme set to your own needs. How this is achieved is described below. 23.5. Using special keyboard drivers For all screen fonts of LinguaFont, or fonts users may produce themselves, corresponding keyboard drivers can be generated with the help of the programme SetKey which enables one to set custom ASCII values on the keys of the PC. This then serves the function of facilitating the entry of the special symbols of the screen fonts. In each case the keyboard driver generated is a DOS-executable programme which is loaded (residently) and remains at one's disposal until replaced by another keyboard driver or until the computer is reset (warm or cold start). Like any other DOS programme a keyboard driver is loaded by simply typing its name, the letters in front of the extension .COM. To ease identification all the keyboard drivers should begin with the element KEY..., for instance the Greek keyboard driver which happens to be supplied with LinguaFont for illustration purposes, for example, is named keygreek.com and it is loaded by entering keygreek at the DOS prompt. Note that nothing appears to happen when you do this, that is the screen display does not change in any particular way, but by the fact that DOS does not echo the error message "Bad command or file name" one knows that the programme has been executed without any problems. A keyboard driver puts two possible keyboard layouts at your disposal. Every alphanumeric key can have two possible values assigned to it (independent of the state of the status byte, see previous section). When switching between one layout and another the entire group of keyboard settings changes. When you load a keyboard driver, the default layout is that of the language you normally write in (in practice either English or German as these are the two languages LinguaFont is available for). To switch from the default keyboard to the custom one (that which is indicated by the name of the particular keyboard driver) you press the following combination of keys: + By this is meant that you hold down the key and the key together and while doing so press the key once. If you check the keyboard layout by pressing a few alphanumeric keys then you find that the special symbols of the language contained in the name of the keyboard driver appear on the screen (assuming you have loaded the corresponding screen font file beforehand). German users of LinguaFont should note that with the German keyboard drivers, the entire set of English (i.e. American) characters are available, even though the default layout is German (with Umlaute and ), that is the square and curly brackets ([]{}) as well as the backslash (\), the broken vertical bar (|) and the tilde ~ are nonetheless available as these are necessary in many programmes and of course of benefit to the user no matter what language he/she is working with. To switch back to the default layout of the keyboard you perform the following keystrokes: + This restores the normal values to the keys until the next time you perform the keystokes + . You can switch between layouts as often as you wish and from whatever level you like. Note. Some word processors use their own keyboard driver internally. In such cases the LinguaFont keyboard driver, should one be loaded, is disabled. There is nothing you can do to prevent this; the only solution is to define the internal keyboard of the particular programme to suit your needs. Remember that if you edit a text with symbols from one of the fonts from LinguaFont, save the file and retrieve it at a later work session then you must load the necessary screen font to see the correct symbols on the screen; to edit the text you should load the necessary keyboard driver, although to enter one or two symbols one could use the key + numeric keypad to access the special symbols as long as you remember what ASCII values they have in a particular screen font. Do not forget to load the necessary download font before printing as otherwise you will not obtain the symbols from the screen on print-out. 1Appendix A A closer look at the IBM character set It is obvious from a glance at the keyboard of a PC that the IBM character set contains the letters of the English alphabet, in lower- and uppercase, the numbers 0-9 and a set of diacritics (largely punctuation). However, what one sees on the keys is only a small part of the IBM character set, to be precise it only 95 of the 256 characters contained in the set (there are 47 keys, multiplied by two gives 94; the space bar also corresponds to a character [ASCII $32 = space!], this giving a total of 95). The beginner may well ask, how can one reach them? The answer is by depressing the key on the lower left-hand side of the keyboard and typing a number, on the numeric pad to the right of the keyboard, which corresponds to the ASCII value of the character one wishes to access, e.g. $235 to access the symbol which looks like Greek delta, . There is another way of accessing a character not shown on the keys of the keyboard. Take for instance the character which is number 235 in the IBM character set. As the characters which appear on the screen on depressing a given key on the keyboard are not unalterable one can write a keyboard routine (with the programme SetKey supplied with LinguaFont, see description above) which places the characters one wishes to access via the keyboard on the letter keys. This then renders unnecessary the use of the key together with the numeric value of a character. Such keyboard routines are an integral part of the startup batch file autoexec.bat when using the PC to write in a foreign language (one of the major European languages such as Swedish or German or French, etc.). Bearing in mind that the keys of the keyboard correspond to well less than half the characters of the IBM set, it would seem appropriate to consider how the character set is arranged as a whole. ASCII, extended ASCII and the IBM character set First half, Lower ASCII The set opens with 0 (i.e. not 1!) which is blank. There are 256 symbols in all, i.e. 0 to 255. $1 - $31 Printer control codes, with a few characters, such as $3 (= , programme abort), $7 (=, bell), $26 (= , end-of-file), which are used by programmes and by the operating system as signals of one kind or another. They are frequently referred to by specifying the key and an alphanumeric character from @ and (upper-case) A through Z which cover the characters ASCII $1 to $26. By pressing the key with one of these characters one can access them on the PC. It is of course possible to do the same by using the key and the corresponding ASCII number on the numeric keypad (with the exception of $0 which cannot be accessed via the numeric keypad). The codes from $27 to $31 can be accessed by using the key and one of the bracketing symbols [, \, ], {, |, }, ~. The names which are used for the codes under $32, such as "End-of-medium", "Device control", "Cancel", "Acknowledge", etc. (see appendix), derive from usage in telecommunications which was established in the early days of the ASCII code. $32 - $127 The subset of alphanumeric characters. This consists of the following in ascending order: (i) space, diacritics (punctuation) [$32-$47], (ii) the digits 0 - 9 [$48-$57], (iii) diacritics (some more punctuation) [$58-$64], (iv) the uppercase letters A-Z [$65-$90], (v) diacritics (bracketing and punctuation) [$91-$96], (vi) the lowercase letters a - z [$97-$122], (vii) diacritics (bracketing) [$123-$126]. When a foreign language is used on the PC additional symbols replace some of the above characters for 7-bit processing, thus the "Umlaute" and of German are to be found instead of the characters $91-$93 and $123-$126. For 8-bit processing (what you usually have on a PC and the software designed for it) foreign language symbols such as Umlaute are to be found in the area immediately above $128 (see below). The first half of the character set ends with a small triangular character, $127, known as "delete". Second half, Upper ASCII $128 - $173 This section contains symbols not present in the alphabet of English but nonetheless needed in the major European languages (Romance and Germanic languages, but not Icelandic or the Slavic languages, for example) such as vowels with various kinds of accents over them, ligatures like , the palatal nasal of Spanish , etc. This group is sometimes referred to as the World Trade Character Set. $174 - $223 If you look at a table of the IBM character set then you see that this section of the set contains peculiar angular shapes and shadings. This section is known as the block graphics area. When these characters are stringed together they are used to draw boxes of various shapes and offer backgrounds of different shadings on the screen of the PC. Programmes which makes liberal use of windows, such as many of those in the LinguaFont set, rely heavily on these symbols to represent the compartments into which the screen is divided during the operation of a programme. $224 - $239 This section contains a selection of letters from the Greek alphabet. $240 - $254 This section contains some mathematical symbols and is intended together with the previous section to be used in scientific applications. The character set closes with $255 which is blank. Note. In the following section the numbers of the IBM character set will be referred to by writing a dollar sign and a number after it, e.g. $65 refers to ASCII character number 65 which is displayed on the screen and your printer as uppercase A. I will use this accepted convention for referring to characters. In order to follow this you will need to consult the table of the IBM character set found in the next appendix. Note that in other literature characters are often alluded to by using hex notation (with base 16) which can be confusing for the novice when a particular number does not contain a letter (a value from 10 to 16 in the hex system). For instance, one must be careful if one sees a figure like "20" when an author is quoting in hex, this is decimal "32", decimal "20" being hex "14". Bytes, hexadecimal numbers and the 256 limit The above character set is ultimately derived from the so-called ASCII set (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) which originally contained only 128 characters. The first 128 of the IBM character set is the same as the original ASCII set (although the actual shapes of the characters $1 to $31 have been invented by IBM). The second 128 (the upper half) is peculiar to IBM. It is common practice, however, to simply talk of lower and upper (or extended) ASCII by which is meant the first 128 and the second 128 respectively. The two parts of the IBM character set can also be referred to as 7-bit ASCII and 8-bit ASCII respectively. The reason for this is as follows. The symbols of the IBM set are encoded as bytes (a unit which consists of eight binary places or digits). Each binary digit is termed a bit. The numerically most significant bit is the leftwardmost one. This can be seen from the following comparison. Before starting this discussion, however, you should be warned that all counting systems start at 0 and not 1 as we do when we count as laymen so to speak. Thus the decimals in the following appear to be "off by one" which they are not as they begin at 0, not 1. The decimal number "7" corresponds to the binary number "1000", the decimal number "9" corresponds to the binary number "10000". In the latter case the "1" is one place more to the left. As the most significant bit always lies to the left, this binary number is greater that the first one where the "1" is one place less to the left ("10000" vs. "1000"). Now in binary terms the decimal number "127" is "1111111", and the decimal number "255" is "11111111", i.e. "255" has one more "1" to the left than does "127", it is 8 bits long whereas "127" is only 7 bits long. To talk of some piece of computer equipment as being "8-bit" means in effect that it has the capability of processing information which is encoded in binary digits which are "eight places wide". Note furthermore that if one uses a byte to encode a 7-bit long binary digit then the leftwardmost byte is necessarily zero, i.e. to represent decimal "127" as a byte one writes "7F" which in binary terms is "01111111". The eighth bit of this byte is zero. Frequently in computer programming and printer control one talks of setting the eighth bit. By this is meant that the leftwardmost bit of a byte is changed from zero to one, without altering any other bit. The result is a value which has been increased by 128, for example setting the eighth bit of (hex) 5A (= [binary] 01011010) results in (hex) DA (= [binary] 11011010). With printers which operate according to the Epson ESC P standard, setting the eighth bit of incoming data causes it to be printed in italics. There are three printer commands which are associated with the eighth bit of incoming data: ESC > causes the eighth bit to be set; ESC = causes it to be deleted (i.e. set to zero); ESC # retracts printer control of the eighth bit. The ultimate and the penultimate command are not the same, as the one forces the eighth bit to be zero in every case while the other simply leaves the eighth bit of incoming data untouched. From the above remarks one can now understand why the number of characters in the IBM character set cannot be greater than 256: when a binary number has a maximum of eight places then the largest number it can represent is (decimal) 255 (= binary 11111111, or hexadecimal FF). To represent a larger number it would have either to include an extra place, e.g. be 9-bit or upward, or use two bytes to encode a single number. But as the IBM PC (but by no means every computer!) is built on the principle of eight-bit wide data processing (i.e. is based on the byte) the upper ceiling of 256 cannot be exceeded in encoding characters with single bytes. 1Appendix B Problems: Causes and remedies The purpose of the present section is to offer users a few tips with problems which they might encounter with LinguaFont, not so much with the handling of the programmes themselves (check the various sections of the manuals if you have difficulties here) but with the hardware devices which are controlled by programmes of the LinguaFont set. These can be grouped into three broad areas. 1) Video adapters Remember that the screen fonts which you generate with VideoEd can be used in connection with the following adapter types: 1) Hercules Graphics Card Plus 2) Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) 3) Video Graphics Array (VGA) If your system has anything else, e.g. a normal Hercules card, then you cannot load a customised screen font. Problem 1: Font is discarded by an application programme Some data processing software resets the video adapter when it is loaded. This means that if you load a screen font with LoadVid (and have seen on the ASCII chart the latter displays that the font is correctly installed) you will not have the customised symbols at your disposal within this programme or afterwards for that matter. There is a way around this: load your screen font from within the offending programme by running a DOS command with LoadVid and its switches as parameters. This will usually do the trick as the resetting of hardware is something which, if done at all, only occurs when a programme is loaded. Problem 2: Font is lost on loading an application programme This is a similar problem to the above but can have a different cause, namely loading a graphics programme. All the screen fonts of LinguaFont only apply to the so-called alphanumeric mode or text mode. They cannot be used when the video subsystem is in the graphics mode. Normally you recognise the graphics mode as large and unusual shapes or graphics are available within a certain programme. Users of word processors should also note that Microsoft Word loads automatically into the graphics mode (although this is not immediately obvious) so that if you wish to use a customised screen font you must use it with the /c parameter, i.e. enter word /c from the DOS command line. 2) Keyboards This is the least problematical area of hardware devices controlled by LinguaFont. Recall that you copy the supplied keyboard akeyb.exe and edit it to suit your needs (with SetKey) and then load it from the DOS level. You switch between the default layout (English or German) and your customised layout by pressing or . Problem 1: Application programme has its own keyboard driver The above method should work; if it does not there is only one reason for this: the programme you are using has its own keyboard driver (this is the case with Euroscript for example). Such programmes normally offer you the possibility of editing the keyboard so that you can achieve the same effect as with the LinguaFont keyboard driver. Problem 2: Conflict with keyboard enhancers Should there already be a non-DOS keyboard programme loaded residently before you call your customised keyboard driver, difficulties could conceivably arise. The only solution is to remove the conflicting programme (usually a so-called keyboard enhancer). You can include a call to a customised keyboard driver in the startup file autoexec.bat to ensure it is always loaded. 3) Printers Download symbols are not printed This is obviously the most common difficulty with the LinguaFont set as a whole and can have a variety of reasons. To exclude software causes to begin with, you should load your download font with either LoadDot or LoadLas with the /t switch set to get a table print out of the download characters. For the discussion below I assume that the symbols are not even printed with this method. Dot Matrix Printers DIP switches wrongly set. All dot matrix printers have a set of so-called DIP switches which allow for permanent hardware settings in your printer. This is the first place to look if a download font (via LoadDot does not work). There may a switch which turns off the download, correct it and try again. Among cheap dot matrix printers it is common to use the 8K memory of the printer either as an input buffer or a download area. Such machines always have the former as a default setting. Again check the DIP switch responsible for this and set it to "download". As you are at it make sure that your dot matrix printer is set to the IBM character set. There will be a DIP switch which selects between this and Italic print for upper ASCII characters. Check the national character set settings also. If your printer can print the entire IBM character set then you do not need to set this switch to the language you are using (leave it set to American). Laser Printers As the handling of laser printers is fairly tricky there is a special section on troubleshooting with laser printer fonts included at the end of the section on LaserEd. To recap here: remember that any font which is not correctly defined or activated is simply ignored by the laser printer. To visualise the position here, think of the RAM memory of the laser printer as a pool in which you can store a large number of fonts. To locate a particular font in the pool during printing the laser printer can use one of two means: 1) The font identification number 2) The font characteristics as determined by the font header The first method is the easiest as you only need to specify one parameter, namely the number of the font you wish to address. The latter method is based on the idea of next best match. You send the laser printer a sequence which more or less accurately describes the font you wish to address. Assuming that the font is present in the printer's memory and that there is no other font with the same characteristics in memory as well, this method should also work. The laser printer might refuse to print characters from a font for a variety of reasons apart from incorrect activation. A font may be adulterated by containing over-sized letters. By this is meant that you defined letters too big for the cell height and width as specified in the font header. Within LaserEd this is only possible if you deliberately disable matrix size limiting. Another cause of adulteration could be using a baseline which is greater than the cell height less one. These problems are most likely to arise if you create a font from scratch. If in doubt use the supplied fonts as these have been tried and tested or just go back over your own work. Printer font management In the body of the present book several references (with examples) have been made to the methods to be used to manage fonts from within your data processing software. Recall at this point that you must pay attention to two particular aspects: 1) character translation 2) download activation Character translation is a procedure whereby the bytes contained in a file (and displayed on the screen) are translated from the ASCII value they have to a different value on printing. This will be necessary with the LinguaFont sets. You will probably define screen symbols in the upper ASCII area with VideoEd and have printer download symbols with values in the lower ASCII area. Your software will then have to translate these upper ASCII values to lower ones on sending them to the printer. Incorrect translation will obviously produce garbage. Download activation is the second step necessary from within your data processing software to produce the right results on printing. As the custom font you use will not be the same as the normal font used for printing (irrespective of whether you are dealing with a dot matrix or a laser printer) you will need to switch from your standard font to your special font when you want to print characters from it. Within a word processor switching can be achieved quickly and easily via a macro for changing to the special font and one for changing back again. As laser printers do not distinguish between special character fonts and normal fonts (of various types and sizes) the means of addressing the two is essentially the same: you use a font identification number preferably; failing this use the font characteristics method as indicated above. Again remember to steer clear of symbols below $32 and above $128 if you suspect that your software does not support them for printing. You should avoid defining symbols with the ASCII values $0, $3, $7, $9, $10, $12, $13, $26, $27, $28, $127 or $255 for any printer. Character width tables It stands to reason that if you define a font containing characters of differing widths that the latter must be conveyed to your data processing software if it is to print right-justified text containing characters from your customised font. You will have gathered from the descriptions of DotEd and LaserEd above that an ASCII file with the relative widths of the characters from a proportionally spaced file is written to disk when you save such a file. It is now up to you the user to enter these character widths into the character width table of the printer driver of your data processing software (e.g. word processor). Naturally it is not possible for the present author to do this as I do not know what characters you are going to define and what software you are going to be using. If the idea of creating a character width table for your software is too daunting then define your character font (within DotEd or LaserEd) as a fixed spacing font. For example you can define a font as a Courier 10 cpi font with LaserEd and use it with other (possibly proportionally spaced) fonts within your data processing software and rest assured that the printed result is always right justified. Note. The character widths in the table file generated by LaserEd should be just what you need to create a character width table in your data processing software (in this case it is the Delta-X of each character divided by 4). But check the technical documentation on your software to be on the safe side. 1Appendix C C how they run The Borland C++ compiler (version 3.1) has been used to produce the LinguaFont font manager because of its speed, comfort and excellent interface to the operating system via inbuilt system calls. Various parts of programmes have been realised by coding in assembler; in each case the Borland Assembler was used, again for similar reasons. The source code for all programmes of the LinguaFont set and the accompanying book were written entirely by the present author without the support or assistance of any further party. About the author. Raymond Hickey was born in 1954 in Ireland; he received his school education in Waterford and his university education at Trinity College, Dublin where he took an M.A. in German and Italian. He did his PhD in general linguistics (syntax) in Kiel, West Germany in 1980 and his "Habilitation" on Irish English phonology in Bonn where he was an "Assistent" from 1980 to 1985, a "Privatdozent" from 1985 to 1987 and professor from 1987 to 1991; from 1991-1993 he was professor for linguistics at the English department of the University of Munich, then at the Universtiy of Bayreuth and since 1994 holds the chair of English linguistics at the University of Essen. 1III Glossary of Terms 7-bit This term refers to the size of the basic unit of data organisation in a generation of personal computers which was popular up to the beginning of the eighties. With the advent of computers based on the 8088 processor by Intel, 8 bit data structures became the rule. This meant that 256 characters could be processed by specifying one byte. 7 bit systems, such as the Apple II, could only process 128 characters, i.e. the lower ASCII set. 8-bit A term referring to the fact that 256 characters can be processed by a computer by using a single byte. This means that the character set of an 8-bit data system, such as the PC, contains both lower and upper ASCII symbols. This term is not to be confused with 8-bit bus structure (see the entries for 8088 and 80286 elsewhere in the glossary). 8 x 14 The screen matrix for the IBM character set when the character generator on the video card is used (i.e. when a programme is running in the non-graphic mode). The actual screen matrix is 9 x 14, but the 9th. vertical column is only occupied when a symbol lies in the area of the block graphic symbols (from $176 to $223). What happens then is that the pixel structure for the 8th. column on the right is repeated for a 9th. column. This means that when block graphic symbols are used for screen design they can form continuous shapes; normally there would be at least one free vertical column between them (namely the 9th. column to the right of every symbol). Note that if one redefines characters between $176 and $223 (with VideoEd) then they will be nine columns wide, the 9th. being the same as the 8th.; furthermore, redefining symbols in this region can lead to peculiar screens with programmes which use all or nearly all of the block graphic characters. 1 line spacing A type of vertical spacing of lines, the name of which derives from typewriting where it is possible to have half-size vertical increments. In printer terminology, 1 spacing is 4 lines per inch, the normal vertical spacing being 6 lines per inch. 9 or 24 needles This refers directly to the number of needles contained in the print head of a dot matrix printer. For the user it is a way of referring to the dot density of print-out. While 9 needle printers may have a letter-quality printing mode, the resolution they produce cannot exceed a certain level given the low number of needles. 24 needle printers have a much higher resolution which is available in all modes of printing, not just in letter-quality, i.e. for italics, download symbols, etc. alphanumeric key One of keys in the large centre block on the keyboard of the PC. The designation alphanumeric is meant to imply that the keys are used for entering characters from the alphabet, numbers or diacritics such as punctuation, bracketing, etc. These keys are to be distinguished from the functions keys in a block on the left and the numeric key pad in a block on the right of the keyboard. Alt-key One of the auxiliary keys on the keyboard of the PC. It is normally positioned on the left below the alphanumeric keys. It has no function of its own, but is used in combination with other keys to trigger some effect, typically to activate a command in an application programme or to run a macro. ANSI 8 The name of a symbol set commonly found with laser printers. ASCII text file A file which contains no formatting information and thus can be read by any text editor. Most word processors have a mode for reading and writing ASCII text files, i.e. for suppressing the formatting information, page layout, screen attributes, etc. which they normally include in the text files they create. ascender If one takes a letter like (lowercase) "x" or "o" as a starting point an ascender is then any part of a letter which extends over the highest point of these reference letters. The opposite is a descender (see relevant entry). Autoexec.bat The name of a special kind of batch file which is processed on power-up after the computer has completed it's self-test and DOS has been loaded. It contains the commands of programmes which are to be run before one starts working with the computer, for example a keyboard driver for German which enables one to write with the special letters of German or the setting of a path of access for the hard disk. backup Refers to a file which is the last version processed and kept for security purposes; a copy of an original diskette. baseline An imaginary line on which every character of a symbol set rests. If part of a letter such as (lowercase) "g" or "y" extends below this, it is termed a descender. BASIC A programming language which has enjoyed immense popularity and which is supplied with almost every microcomputer. For serious work, however, Basic is unsuitable as it is unstructured and tends to result in sloppy programming; in this respect Pascal and C are infinitely superior. Basic is an acronym for "beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code". batch file A specific type of file which contains a series of DOS commands (including the names of executable programmes) and which is processed when its name is entered from the operating system level. baud rate A unit for measuring the speed of data transmission along a serial line (to a printer or between computers which are in a network, for example). An acceptable value for a printer is 9600; serial transmission programmes can reach much higher rates while acoustic couplers are considerably slower. binary The adjective referring to the numerical system based on units of 2 as opposed to the decimal system, based on 10, or the hexadecimal system, based on 16. The only two permissible values are 0 and 1 which physically correlate with some electrical state such as current flow versus no current flow or (frequently) high voltage versus low voltage. bit A single data item which can have one of two values, 0 or 1, corresponding to voltage charges of plus or minus or a voltage difference where a threshhold is set above which the value 1 is assigned to a bit, below it 0. The abbreviation for binary digit. bitmap A term to refer to a representation of a character in memory (and from there on the screen of the PC) which can be edited (for instance with VideoEd, DotEd or LaserEd) and which is only later translated into a series of bytes to be stored in a file which is then processed by a peripheral device such as the video adapter (Hercules, EGA or VGA card in the case of VideoEd) or printer (in the case of both DotEd and LaserEd). bit-mapped graphics A method of screen representation whereby each pixel is mapped individually as opposed to mapping on the level of whole characters. The advantage is that everything on the screen is treated as graphics and thus different character sizes can be represented, i.e. one is not restricted to the 8 x 14 matrix of the character generator of the video adapter. The disadvantage is that screen functions like scrolling are relatively slow. For bit-mapping the video card must have a RAM area of its own, e.g. the Hercules graphics card has 64K divided into so-called pages determined by the method of managing memory. bit rate A term referring to the speed with which data is conveyed along a line of communication or an internal bus in a computer (see baud rate as well). block graphics The subset of the IBM character set between $176 and $223. These are used for screen display and obviate the need for programmes to resort to bit-mapping for widowing, screen splitting, pop-up menus, shading, etc. bold A term which refers to an increase in stroke weight in printing. Dot matrix printers achieve bolding by either doublestrike or slight displacement of a character on printing it a second time. Laser printers usually have separate fonts for boldface type which is what one is used to from books and newspapers, for instance. boot The act of self-starting which the computer performs on power up. It is an abbreviation of bootstrap loading. There are in fact two types of boot (i) a cold start which necessitates that power be off before the computer is started, (ii) a warm start (or soft reset) which simply resets the state of the CPU to zero and thus triggers the initiating routines of booting, though usually without the system memory test which is carried out with a cold start. To activate a warm start you must carry out a pre-defined set of keystrokes, normally ones which you are unlikely to do accidentally, i.e. by requiring the use of both hands. With the PC this set of keystrokes is + . Sometimes when the system hangs a warm start is not enough to get it to function again. buffer An area of memory set aside to accomodate data which cannot be processed immediately such as keyboard entries which cannot be passed on the CPU at once, or a RAM area in a printer which allows it to store incoming data until it is ready to print it. byte A series of eight bits joined together to give an ordered sequence which represents a number, thus the leftwardmost bit in a byte is the most significant bit, the rightwardmost one the least significant bit in a numerical sense. It is the basic unit of organisation in the PC. Nearly all operations on the PC refer to entire bytes; occasionally one can access individual bits. An example of a byte is the "at"-symbol @ which has the hex value "40" (decimal = "64") and the binary representation "01000000". C A systems programming language which was conceived as the language for the operating environment Unix (in which parts of the latter are also written) and which has been widely used for the development of software for the PC as it produces very efficient code and allows one to make reference to hardware features of the computer for which a programme is being written while retaining a large degree of portability (the ability to run on a different machine from that on which a programme was developed). Since the mid 1980's a much expanded version of the original C language has been available in an implementation for the PC, C++. All the programmes of the LinguaFont set are written in C++. carriage return A printer command (ASCII code value $13) which causes the print head to move back to the left-hand margin of a page. How far the print head moves depends on the margin set in the programme which is controlling the printer. cartridge font An addition to a printer which is pushed into a slot intended for it at the bottom of the front of the printer and which contains, in firmware form, the encoded information for a particular font. It has the advantage that the particular font does not then have to be loaded into the printer by downloading and is not lost on resetting the printer or turning it off. cell A term referring to the matrix in which a character is contained. For the printer it is defined by maximum values for a character width and height. On the screen it appears as a matrix in which the character in placed (in LaserEd for example). character size A term referring to the number of pixels used to display a character on the screen. There are two basic situations here: either the 8 x 14 matrix of the character generator is kept to or it is not. When the latter is the case bit-mapped graphics are being used with the consequences for portability and processing speed which that entails. When one is dealing with printers, character size is normally specified in points which is a unit of vertical measurement. character descriptor A series of bytes in a download font file for a laser printer which contains information on a character which is defined at that point in the file. With laser printers character descriptors contain information regarding the offsets around a character, its width, height, etc. character generator The name for a PROM on the video card of the PC which contains in encoded form (as firmware) the information necessary to display the symbols of the character set on the screen. The information is encoded as a series of bytes which are to be viewed in binary form the "ones" and "zeros" of these bytes are interpreted as a pixel set or a pixel not set in a matrix for each character of the screen. Fourteen bytes are used for each character; as a byte is 8 places wide in binary form this means that one can encode characters in a 8 x 14 matrix (where 16 bytes are used, the last two are always empty, still giving 8 x 14, the normal screen matrix of the IBM character set). The character generator PROM is 3584 bytes (14 x 256) or 4096 bytes (16 x 256) in size. On the EGA card the PROM containing the character generation information is larger as it contains two character sets (one in an 8 x 14 matrix and one in an 8 x 8 matrix, i.e. in the old colour mode) and machine code as well. character (i) A term used to refer to a symbol used for screen display or print-out or both. There are 256 characters in the IBM set used on the PC. (ii) A term used to designate a data type, for example in a database management system or programming language. The data type "character" thus refers to any symbols which are treated just as a screen display symbol and not as a symbol with arithmetical or logical value. characters per inch A means of referring to how many characters are printed in a horizontal inch with a fixed width font. At least three typical values should be noted: Pica (10 cpi), Elite (12 cpi) and condensed/compressed (15 cpi) on dot matrix printers. Laser printers have 10 cpi and 16.6 cpi pitches for internal fonts. The vertical size of fonts is measured in points. character translation table A table in the printer driver of a word processor (sometimes to be found in other programme types as well) which determines what symbols of the text to be printed are to be altered to other values. Basically character translation tables can be of two types (i) one character can be replaced by another or when by two then with an automatic backspace between them; this type of table is used to produce letters with accents in print by printing a letter, going back one space and printing a diacritic over the letter. (ii) one character can be replaced by a string; here there is no (immediate) limit to the number of characters which can be sent to the printer for one character in the text file. Needless to say, the latter type is infinitely more flexible than the first and can be used, for example to replace single characters in the text file with a stretch of text on print-out. com1, com2 The abbreviations for the two serial communications ports in the PC. communication protocol A set of values for a number of parameters which are specified for transmitting data along lines between computers or between a computer and a peripheral device such as a printer. Associated with serial transmission where a number of protocols are available. compatible computer A computer which in its design is very close to that of the IBM PC or AT (i.e. the CPU is either an 8088 or an 80286). Compatability is rarely complete. For most users, however, this seldomly becomes a problem. If one places high demands on one's computer, particularly if you wish to use BIOS routines or tamper with the hardware, then problems may arise as the BIOS of compatibles is not the same as that of IBM, for obvious copyright reasons. condensed mode A method of printing in which the letters are printed particularly close together; a value of 15 characters per inch is typical; some printers have 17 cpi or even 20 cpi pitches as well. configuration (i) A constellation of hardware elements, and perhaps software, to form a computer system. Due to the openness of the PC it can be assembled to give various configurations, for example a certain size of system memory, a particular type of video card and monitor, a particular keyboard, etc. (ii) In general a term referring to a variety of settings in a system which has a group of variable parameters. Control-key A key to the left of the alphanumeric block in the centre of the keyboard of the PC. It is an auxiliary key which has no function of its own. Together with one of the alphanumberic keys it can be used to trigger some programme function. On the level of the operating system many of the combinations of key and a letter have a definite function, such as aborting a programme, suspending it, etc. control panel A small panel on the bottom right-hand side of a printer which contains a series of buttons which are used for at least the following four functions (i) to switch the printer on-line/off-line, (ii) to select an internal printer font, (iii) to trigger a line feed, (iv) to trigger a form feed. Some combination of the buttons for the above functions also causes the printer to undergo a self-test when they are held down while the printer is switched on. Courier The name of a typeface which is usually contained in a laser printer as a permanent (firmware) font. It is easily recognisable as it is the normal typeface of golf ball typewriters by IBM. cursive A term referring to a typeface which resembles handwriting (script) by having letters which join up with each other, or almost do, and have special shapes for certain letters, such as "b" which has an ascending loop as opposed to an ascending line in other typefaces. Not to be confused with "italic" which refers to the slant a letter may have but does not say anything about their form. cut sheet feeder A type of paper feed consisting of one or more bins placed on top of the printer and connected via two cog wheels with the platen. The bin contains a stack of sheets of paper, e.g. of A4 paper, the individual sheets being drawn into the printer for printing. daisy wheel A type of solid-font printer in which the individual characters are available in non-alterable form on the spokes of a wheel which rotates at high speed and is hit by a hammer when the appropriate letter passes it, resulting in this then being printed. database management system A programme (an item of application or development software) which is dedicated to producing and managing databases. It may contain a variety of features which are not strictly necessary for this task, such as a programming language and-or word processing facilities, but which render it more flexible in the constellation of application software as a whole. Certain minimal features are present in all programmes of this type such as (i) the organisation of data into records and of records into fields, (ii) the ability to search and sort the records of databases and, in so-called relational systems, to set a relation between two databases such that their record pointers move in some specified relation to each other. database An ordered table-like sequence of data divided into records and fields. This arrangement of data is chosen when one wishes to perform some operation on the data, such as searching through it or sorting it in a specified order or setting it into relation with a similarly organised set of data. For the computer a database is basically a file on a disk in which the information it contains has been stored according to certain principles. With a word processor information is stored on the basis of lines of variable length. With a database the information is contained in sections with delimiters which correspond to fields in screen representation. The storing of information in slots has the advantage that on retrieval the slots and their contents can be manipulated at the will of the user. This principle is used by spreadsheets as well with the difference that the latter type of programme normally stores numerical data. default A term which refers to the value a parameter takes when the user does not explicitly specify a different value. Delta-X With laser printers in the Hewlett Packard format, a term referring to the distance the printer cursor moves after printing a character. It is calculated by adding up the left offset, the ink width of the character and a number of dots to the right of the character. descender A term referring to the printing of letters whereby certain letters of the alphabet, such as (lowercase) "g", "j", "y" are actually continued downwards below the level required for letters such as "a", "e", "n", i.e below the baseline. Early printers were not always capable of producing descenders. display Refers to screen representation as opposed to, say, representation as print-out. DOS Abbreviation for "disk operating system". In the PC universe refers to either PC-DOS or MS-DOS. DOS prompt When you power up a PC you land in the operating system (unless you specify in the autoexec.bat file that a programme should be loaded) and the cursor lies immediately to the right of an arrowhead with a letter before it. This is the so-called DOS prompt. The letter stands for the drive which is presently logged in. You can now enter a command. The appearence of the prompt can be customised, for example by entering prompt $p $q$g you are shown the subdirectory of the drive before the arrowhead. This is useful for locating your position when using a hard disk with many subdirectories. dot matrix printer A type of printer which creates letters by printing a series of dots on paper which imitate the form of the letters. This type of printer is enormously flexible compared with solid-font ones such as daisy wheel printers. If it has 24 needles then the resolution is so high that the individual dots which go up to make a letter are not recognisable at a casual glance. double pass A method of achieving high quality print. Each line is printed twice, each time the dots are slightly displaced so that spaces between dots on the first pass can be filled out on the second. This technique is normally confined to 9 needle printers to help produce letter-quality print-out despite the relatively small number of needles. double underline A type of underlining in which two lines are drawn under each letter. Not all printers can produce double underlining and the two lines are not always distinguishible. Printers in the Epson ESC P standard do not have a special command for double underlining so this must be achieved by using a graphics command. download symbol A symbol which has been designed by the user and loaded into the RAM area of the printer; it is activated by a special printer command. Usually grouped together to a download file via software such as DotEd or LaserEd. downloading A technique for loading user-defined symbols into the printer. Note that these symbols are stored in RAM which means that when the printer is turned off (or reset by the computer) they are no longer present. In more general terms downloading means sending information on a transmission line away from the computer; uploading is information flow into the computer. draft mode A method of printing in which letters are printed with fewer dots and thus very much quicker than in letter-quality mode. dual-in-line package Usually abbreviated to DIP. It now refers to one or more small blocks of switches which are used to fix settings for a printer, the computer motherboard (with a PC), peripheral cards, etc. With printers DIP switches are used to fix certain parameters which are not altered frequently, such as paper length, type of interface, language used for printing etc. Care should be taken, especially with printers, to insure that the DIP switch settings are correct as otherwise certain effects cannot be achieved or certain others cannot be turned off. EGA card A graphics card introduced by IBM in late 1984. It replaces the old colour card which had a very poor resolution. The EGA card has the same resolution as the monochrome card or the Hercules card when in non-graphic mode, i.e. 640 x 400. It cannot reach the 720 x 348 pixel resolution of the Hercules card in graphic mode and thus usually has no 90 or 130 column screen display. It furthermore requires a special type of monitor. There are a large number of models of EGA card now (1988) on the market which are distinguished by higher resolution than with the original EGA card by IBM. All EGA cards have the ability to accept a customised character set in file form. Within the LinguaFont set loading such a font is achieved with the programme LoadVid. eighth bit The leftwardmost bit in a byte. If a system can only process 7-bit data then this bit is 0 (or not present). The PC can of course process 8 bit data so that each byte can encode any of 256 characters (the IBM character set consequently contains 256 symbols). There is a common function for printers and for programmes which sets or deletes the eighth bit (i.e. sets the value of the leftwardmost bit in a byte to 1 or 0) should it be desired that a certain input results in an identical output but with the value for the eighth bit reversed. Elite The name of a pitch of 12 cpi. The typeface of characters in Elite is identical to that of Pica, the letters being slightly thinner due to the higher density per inch. enlarged mode Another term for headline mode, i.e. the printing of characters in doubly wide pitch (common on dot matrix printers). EPROM An abbreviation for "Erasable programmable read-only memory". Refers to chips of the same kind as ROMs with the difference that the contents can be erased by exposing the silicon wafer in the chip through a little window on the top of the chip to a certain kind of ultraviolet light. With the help of a special device one can fill the chip with new information which remains in it until it is erased again by the method just described. With the help of an EPROM burner one can transfer the contents of a file (software) to an EPROM (firmware). Epson ESC P standard A command language for printers which, due to the world-wide standing of Epson (a Japanese firm which invented the dot matrix printer), has become a standard for printers. It covers such commands as attributes (italics on-off, boldface on-off), layout features (number of lines per page, spacing, etc.), fonts (Pica, Elite, Headline mode, etc.). escape sequence A series of bytes beginning with ASCII $27 (= ESC, Escape) which serve as a command for the printer and are not printed. A stretch of text which you send to the printer from your word processor will, if it contains formatting information (bold type, double line spacing, etc.), have such escape sequences contained in it to cause the printer to output the text with the formatting you specified when processing it. In some cases escape sequences begin with the next ASCII character, $28 (= FS, Form Separator). Such sequences for laser printers tend to be quite long and have a distinct internal structure which can be divided into control groups and value fields. If an escape sequence is parameterised it is additionally followed by binary data (typically character definition data in a download font file) the amount of which is specified in the sequence. factory settings The settings which hold (usually for DIP switches in a printer) for a piece of computer periphery as delivered by the manufacturer. Users should always check these as one cannot assume that the factory settings are those one wants oneself. A notorious example is to be seen with printers from Japan which have a factory setting for the American English character set even with those printers sold in various European countries. fanfold Paper for a computer printer in the form of one continuous sheet which is perforated at intervals corresponding to A4 pages in length, and which are folded like the letter Z so that it lies in a stack. firmware Information which is encoded in ROM chips, e.g. the standard fonts of a printer. The term is intended to suggest an intermediate stage between software and hardware. font A set of symbols, in either firmware or software form, which contains the letters of the alphabet, the digits 0 through 9, various items of punctuation and usually a series of diacritics, all in a particular unifying design of shape. Examples of fonts are Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier. font descriptor A header contained at the beginning of a font file which specifies certain items of information pertaining to the font as a whole (contrast character descriptor). font file (i) Information which a printer can process concerning letters and symbols of a character set which is stored in the form of a disk file and which can be loaded into the printer with a copy command. (ii) The term also refers to a file which can be loaded into the video adapter card to offer the user a customised screen character set. font ID With Hewlett Packard laser printers, a number which uniquely identifies a particular download and which can be used by software (typically word processors) to address this font. formatting information Additional information contained in a text created with a word processor which refers to features of page layout, typeface, etc. The formatting information must be translated into printer commands when actually printing text. The advantage of formatting a text by the internal means of a word processor is that it can then be printed on a variety of printers by choosing different printer drivers when outputting text. form feed A printer command (ASCII code value $12) which causes paper in the printer to be advanced to the top margin of the next sheet, irrespective of the position of the print head vis vis the current page. form separator A flat piece of transparent plastic which separates the incoming from the outgoing paper during continuous paper feed. function key One of the ten (or twelve) keys to the extreme left of the PC or AT keyboard; in recent keyboard versions (including the latest by IBM) the function keys may be spread in a line across the top of the keyboard. These keys are non-alphanumeric keys and are assigned command values in programmes. Precisely what values they have depend on what programme one is using. There is little or no standardisation in this area. Gothic See Letter Gothic. graphic An adjective which characterises some software as involving the use of bit-mapping for screen display and not the character generator on the video card. graphics card A type of video card which is capable of bit-mapping screen representation. There are basically two types of graphics card, a monochrome one (the Hercules card) and a colour one (nowadays the EGA or VGA card). graphic printing A printing mode in which each of the needles of the print head is individually addressed. This mode is used for printing graphs, charts, tables and also by some programmes such as Windows (a graphics environment programme) and T3 (a scientific word processor) to print non-standard character sizes. It has not been referred to in the present handbook as the download area cannot be used in the graphic printing mode. graphics tableau A flat, board-like device with a type of light pen attached. One can draw on the surface of the board and the movements one makes are digitalised and reflected on the monitor screen when the tableau is used with the necessary software. grid Another term for matrix either for the screen or the printer. hairline The thinnest part of a letter. With typeset quality print out the strokes of letters vary in thickness. hardware Any physically present part of a computer, e.g. the screen, keyboard, cards in expansion slots, etc. Used in deliberate contrast to software (programmes). headline mode A printing mode in which all letters are printed twice as wide as normal. Helvetica A popular typeface in which all letters are printed without serifs. This typeface is easier to read when one is using very small characters. Hercules mode A video mode in which more than the normal number of columns and rows are present on the screen. The Hercules mode usually has a 90 column wide display and 29 or 43 lines (in Microsoft Word for example). The Hercules mode can also refer to the representation of attributes such as italics and boldface as just that and may lastly also refer to the use of bit-mapped graphics for the maximum amount of screen display manipulation. Note that the 43 line per screen display is also possible with the EGA card (if the controlling software allows this). hex(adecimal) notation A means of representing numbers or characters (such as those of the IBM character set) as hexadecimal digits. Thus the ASCII code "27" (= ESC) is written "1B" in hexadecimal notation. Conversion tables for hexadecimal to decimal and back are often included as appendices to printer or computer manuals and should be consulted when the specification of codes, such as printer commands, are given in hexadecimal notation. Memory addresses and assembler source code are always given in hex notation, for example. hexadecimal The numbering system which uses 16 as its base. The digits are labelled 0 through 9 and A through F. In a hexadecimal system 256 numbers can be characterised using two digits, i.e. from 00 (= decimal 0) to FF (= decimal 255). highlighting A means of making a choice in menu-driven command structure. Of the series of options to choose from one will be displayed in inverse video, in the highlighted mode. By the using the cursor keys one can move the "highlight bar" up and down the list of choices and press the key when it is positioned on the choice one wants to make. Used extensively in the programmes of the LinguaFont set. high resolution Refers either to high quality screen display (individual pixels can hardly be recognised with the naked eye) or high quality print-out on dot matrix printers (usually 24 needle printers, laser printers have only high resolution anyway). horizontal motion index A parameter of printer horizontal movement which is used to specify a shift in the print-head position from left to right. Each printer has a minimum horizontal movement increment such as 1/300 of an inch. The horizontal motion index is consequently a multiple of this. Frequently abbreviated to HMI. See vertical motion index as well. IBM character set A set of 256 characters which is to be found in the character generator on the video card of a PC. Good printers can reproduce at least numbers 32 to 254 of this set. Only a fraction of the set is alphanumeric. For more details, see relevant appendix. inkjet A type of printer which has a series of tiny jets in its print head, these shooting out a tiny amount of ink in a specified order to compose the letters of the text being printed. They are almost completely silent as they are non-impact printers. interface The common boundary between two devices, systems, subsystems, or the user and a system. The term also refers to an instrument which arranges for the transfer of data from one device to another, e.g. between the computer and a certain kind of printer. italic The degree of slanting which the letters of a character set show. With dot matrix printers, all typefaces can be italicised (right-slanted) by issuing a certain printer command (escape sequence). With laser printers, special italic fonts are available which have a varying degree of slanting and possibly combine this with cursiveness. Left-slanting fonts are practically unknown or only available as a gimmick with certain font software. justification The procedure whereby a flush margin is produced with text either on the screen or on printing. Left justification is (nearly) always present, so that the question of justification refers to the availability of right justification which is also called block justification. kerning A procedure whereby certain letters are brought very close together on printing (in proportional pitch) so that there are practically linked. For example when uppercase "A" is followed by "W" kerning would leading to the left edge of the "W" overlapping with the right edge of the "A". Another example is the combining of lowercase "f" with following vowels notably "i" where the dot of the "i" is covered by the end of the upper loop of the "f". keyboard layout There are various keyboard layouts available for PCs. At the beginning there was one for the original PC; another layout was then used by IBM for the AT. In 1986 they introduced yet another layout for their latest versions of the various types of PC. Other manufacturers sometimes use different layouts for special keyboards. The scan codes generated by the keys must however be the same even though the keys are physically located differently on the keyboard or may be different in size compared with IBM keyboards. keyboard The flat, detachable board with 83 keys on it which are used to type in commands and text and which is connected to the computer via a cable with a DIN jack at the end of it. There are various types of keyboards, varying in size and distribution of keys and also in the ability for the keys to be programmed or not. keyboard driver A small programme at the DOS level which is loaded residently (usually on power-up) and is responsible for being able to access foreign language characters on the alphanumeric keys which are not present in the English alphabet. landscape A term referring to the orientation of print out. With this type, characters are printed parallel to the longer edge of a sheet of paper. laser printer A type of non-impact printer which is fast and gives very high quality print out. It usually has a large RAM of its own (typically 512K or 1MB) and a number of pre-defined fonts as well as extensive graphic capabilities. laser-beam printer See laser printer. leading zero A zero which is to the left of the rightwardmost "1" of a binary digit, thus the digit "01110110" contains one leading zero, the digit "00101110" contains two, etc. least-significant bit The bit which is rightmost in a binary representation. Least significant means least significant in terms of numerical value. left offset The number of empty dot columns in a cell to the left of the character this contains. Letter Gothic A typeface commonly found with daisy wheel printers and, as a soft font option, with laser printers. letter quality mode A method of printing in which the printer makes the most of its ability to produce good print-out. Printing is always slower in this mode as more dots are used than usual to form each letter. The shapes of letters are normally different in this mode than in draft, typically containing serifs. ligature A combination of two letters. This can be so to begin with, as with the combined a and e symbol  or can be the result of kerning (see above) as with f and i together. light The opposite of boldface, i.e. letters are printed less thickly than normal. Indicated on laser printers by a negative value for stroke weight. Line Draw A typeface available as a soft font option with laser printers and which includes the block graphics symbols of the IBM character set. line feed A printer command (ASCII code value $10) which causes the platen to move forward by an amount which corresponds to one line in the spacing which has been chosen by the controlling programme, e.g. by 1/6 of an inch with 6 lines to the inch spacing. lineprinter A high-speed printer which is capable of printing an entire line at once. The method involves several rotating disks (as many as there are characters in the maximum line length) on which the entire printer font is available in solid form. Each disk is rotated the necessary amount for the letter which it should print in a line to be facing the paper which is printed and then all disks are simultaneously pressed against the paper carriage and the line is printed. Line Printer A typeface available as a soft font option with laser printers and which is somewhat plain in its appearence. logo A character which does not represent a letter of an alphabet but a symbol used as a kind of printed badge for a firm, organisation, institute, etc. Typically found on notepaper or on advertisements. Programmes frequently use a firm logo at the beginning to emphasise software copyright. lower ASCII area The symbols from $0 to $127. They consist of printer control codes ($0-$31), alphanumeric characters ($32-$126) and the delete character ($127). There is a high degree of standardisation in the use of these characters as opposed to that of the upper ASCII area. Systems which can only process this set of characters (i.e. not the upper area as well) are referred to as 7-bit systems as the eighth bit cannot be set to identify another 128 characters. lpt1, lpt2, lpt3 The abbreviations (deriving ultimately from "line printer") which DOS uses for the three parallel devices (usually printers) which can in principle be connected up with a PC. macro A command which is itself a set of commands and which causes these to be executed. In order to simplify the operation of a programme macros are very useful as they drastically reduce the number of keystrokes which the user must perform or indeed allow him/her to render certain procedures entirely automatic. With laser printers, macros are also definable simplifying printer control. map The image of the screen in a certain area of the CPU's memory. It is the memory map which is altered by programmes when instructions are carried out, such as scrolling, or when text is typed in, etc. The display memory is physically present on the video card but logically it is part of the CPU's address space. The video card passes on the information to the monitor where it is converted into visual signals in the cathode ray tube. manual feed The act of placing sheets of paper into the printer manually and issuing a command (via the roller knob or control panel) for the printer to draw in the page. margin (i) The empty dot columns to the left and right of a download character, (ii) the blank space left deliberately on the left- and righthand side of a printed page. matrix A rectangular array of elements, arranged in rows and columns which can be manipulated according to the rules of matrix algebra. Math A typeface, available as a soft font option with laser printers, which contains a variety of symbols needed for scientific applications. memory-mapped Refers to screen display which is stored on a pixel by pixel basis in memory. memory size With laser printers, a reference to the amount of memory available for download fonts or graphic images which are to be printed. Normally laser printers come with 512K and can be expanded to 1MB. microjustification A technique used in printing where very small amounts of spacing (i.e. less than whole blanks) are added between words and between letters to attain block justification. Because of the minimal size of spacing it is not normally detected by the casual observer. monitor The screen display unit used with a computer. There are various sizes of monitors, usually 12" or 14", and various colours, either a colour monitor or a monochrome one which may have lettering in green, amber, white or black on a white background. Of late full-length (A4 size) monitors have become common for PCs but their maximal use depends on whether the software one uses can display more than 25 lines on the screen at any one time. most significant bit The bit of a binary number which is leftwardmost and thus represents the greatest of the digits of the number. mouse An electronic pointing device which is common in graphic software (such as much of that produced by Microsoft). The mouse is an addition which uses the serial port and is intended to increase comfort when entering commands. There is nothing which the mouse can realise which is not already covered by the keys of the keyboard. non-graphic Refers to a mode of operation of a programme where is does not use bit-mapping for screen display but the characters from the character generator on the video card of the PC. non-impact printer A type of printer which does not involve the paper, which is printed, being hit by some mechanical part of the printer. This type of printer is consequently very quiet compared with impact printers. The two most common kinds of non-impact printers are inkjet printers and laser-beam printers; the two most common impact printers are dot matrix printers and daisy wheel printers; the last type can be additionally classified as a solid-font printer. off-line Not in a state ready to receive and process data. Refers to printers and other peripheral devices. Old English A typeface which is characterised by ornate lettering which in a way resembles that used in the early days of printing. It is not a character set for the stage of the development of the English language referred to by linguists as Old English (which predates printing anyway). on-line In a state ready to receive and process data. operating system A set of programme files which are loaded by the computer on starting and which represent the software part of that information which the computer requires to be able to function at all, e.g. to load other programmes, to read and save files, to deal with the keyboard and the screen, etc. Note that the operating system, abbreviated to DOS, uses part of system memory so that in a computer with 640K you do not have 640K free for application programmes but under 600K after the system has been loaded. orientation Refers to the angle at which characters stand with reference to the direction of printing. With laser printers, the paper tray can only be loaded in one direction in the slot provided for it (compare this with dot matrix and daisy wheel printers where (given platens wide enough) a page can be fed sideways into the printer). To allow sideways printing laser printers allow the user to specify sideways printing (landscape) if he/she so desires. overprinting A technique of printing where the print head either does not advance one step or goes back one step so that two characters are printed at the same position on paper. This can be useful to produce letters with accents or other diacritics when these are not available as separate characters in a font. page eject A programme command which causes the printer to advance paper to the top margin of the next sheet. paper feed Any one of a number of mechanisms for feeding paper into a printer. Common types are tractor feeders for continuous paper and cut sheet feeders for stacks of pre-cut, standard-size sheets of paper. paper jam A self-explanatory term. What one must bear in mind is that with it you must turn off the printer immediately and that then any download previously loaded is lost and must be sent to the printer afresh. parallel Refers to a technique for sending data from the computer to the printer where several items of information can be sent in parallel. There is a special port for this, frequently on the Hercules graphic card. The opposite of serial. parallel port See port. path command A DOS command which specifies what subdirectories can be accessed in the search for files which match commands entered from the keyboard; DOS always searches the active directory first and then the directories in the path command in the order in which they are specified, usually in the file autoexec.bat. perforation skip A printer command or programme function which causes a certain number of line feeds to be issued so that the platen advances continuous paper a fixed amount, namely from the end of one page through the inter-page perforation to the beginning of the next. Pica The most common pitch type on dot matrix printers (also the factory setting for pitch) which consists of 10 characters per inch. It is also a unit of horizontal measurement referring to 1/10th. of an inch. Originally a typesetter's term. pitch The number of characters per inch printed; common pitches are Pica (=10 characters per inch), Elite (=12 characters per inch). Most printers also have a condensed and a headline mode. Pitch does not refer to the height of lettering which is fixed for dot matrix printers but variable for laser printers. pixel An individual dot of video representation. Screen display is similar to print-out on dot matrix printers inasmuch as it is arrived at by building characters out of combinations of single dots. In theory it is possible to address every pixel, i.e. every dot on the screen, individually; when a programme does this it is said to use bit-mapped graphics. platen The rubber roller of a printer which serves to move the paper through the printer and past the print head. plotter A peripheral output device which like a printer produces hardcopy but unlike a printer is primarily intended for graphic output. Plotters work by drawing geometrical shapes with one of a series of colour pens on a sheet of paper which has been laid out flat on a board over which an arm with the pens moves. point A unit of vertical measurement used by publishers and nowadays in printing with computers also. A single point is 1/72 of an inch. It can be taken roughly as a reference to the size of letters and occurs together with a reference to a typeface as in Times Roman 12, Helvetica 14, Letter Gothic 10, etc. port An output socket in a computer. It exists as hardware (the actual socket) and as software (as an output destination, e.g. LPT1, COM1, etc.). The present operating system for PCs has provision for three parallel and up to four serial ports (which is more than enough for the normal user). The parallel port is used for the printer normally and may either be attached directly to the motherboard of the computer or be on the video card (in the case of a graphics card like the Hercules card). The serial port is used for some types of printer and for communication purposes. Most PCs have a parallel port and frequently a serial one as well. portrait A direction of print (orientation) on laser printers in which printing is parallel to the shorter edge of the sheet of paper, i.e. this is the normal direction of printing as opposed to sideways printing known as landscape. PostScript A command language used for inputing text to typesetting machines. Some word processors (such as Microsoft Word) can create text files with the formatting information specified in this command language. Some laser printers (like the Apple laser printer) can process PostScript. Developed by the American firm Adobe. print scale A series of notches like those on a ruler, usually on the roller shaft of the printer, which represents a scale (in inches) which can be used as a guide to printing positions on paper. printer access cover A cover on the top of the printer which enables the user to access the carbon ribbon cartridge and sometimes the DIP switches as well. With most printers lifting the cover automatically triggers an off-line state so that printing is halted until the cover is closed again. printer codes Refers to some of the ASCII codes below $32 which are interpreted by the printer as commands and not as text to be printed. For example, ASCII $14 is interpreted by all printers in the Epson ESC P standard as a command for "go into headline mode until the next carriage return", and not as an instruction to print a symbol which looks like ASCII $14 in the IBM character set (two musical notes). printer driver A type of file within a word processor which one can frequently edit, load and run at will and which contains the commands necessary to ensure that the formatting information of a text file is realised as what one wishes with a certain printer, for instance that underlining on the screen appears as underlining on the printer. printer interface A device which is plugged between computer and some types of typewriter and allows them to be used as a printer. printer menu A list of the available printer drivers in a word processor. Normally there is an internal command in the word processor with which one obtains a display of the names of the printer drivers one of which can then be chosen for printing or to be associated with a certain text (for later printing). printer queueing The process of placing texts to be printed in a queue (in memory) so that they are printed in a certain order and so that one can continue editing text while the printer does its work. printer reset An aspect of the PC is that on power up it resets the printer if this is also on. By reset is meant that all the (software) settings which may have been made for the printer are erased; the effect is the same as turning the printer on and off again. Note that download symbols are also erased on printer reset, so if you require these you must send the font file to the printer again. Unfortunately some programmes also reset the printer, i.e. send the printer the command for reset before they start printing. This is disastrous for the user who wishes to use a download as the programme then wipes out any download (by resetting the printer) before it starts printing. Newer, more sophisticated word processors, do not reset the printer before printing. print-out A term referring to the output produced on a printer. proportional Refers to a type of printing where letters of varying width occupy space of varying width, i.e "m" occupies more space than does "i". Nearly all books are typeset in proportional pitch, but with the kinds of printers used with PCs (with the exception of laser printers) proportional spacing is problematic as text centering and tabled layout is not made to accomodate the varying widths of proportional pitch. Qwerty A way of referring to how the alphanumeric keys are arranged on the keyboard. The qwerty arrangement is that for English; qwertz is that for German, for example, where the positions of z and y are interchanged, among other things. random-access memory (RAM) An abbreviation for "random access memory" as opposed to "read only memory" (abbreviated as ROM, see relevant entry). What is meant here is that the memory can be used again and again, i.e. it is memory which can be read and written to at will. ready light One of the lights on the control panel of the printer which shows that the printer is on-line; it is turned off when the printer is put into an off-line state. redirecting The rechanneling of output from one device to another which is not its normal destination. For example if a programme normally prints to the parallel port, programme output can nonetheless be redirected to the serial port by a special DOS command (the "mode" command). resident Refers to a programme which is loaded and maintained in system memory even if another programme is loaded after it. Resident application software can usually be activated by some specified combination of keystrokes which cause the resident programme to take over the user interface temporarily until released into the background again. reverse line feed A printer command which instead of advancing paper by one line retracts it by the same amount. It is used with some printers to realise subscripts and superscripts. right offset The number of empty dot columns to the right of a download character. The absolute right position is determined by the character cell width. Values of between 1 and 3 are typical for proportional character sets for laser printers. With fixed pitch character sets the right margin is calculated by subtracting the so-called ink width of the character (the number of dot columns filled) from the cell width and dividing this by two (one half being the left margin and one half the right). roller knob A large knob usually on the right-hand side of the printer which allows one under certain circumstances (when the printer is turned off or turned on but off-line) to rotate the platen. roller shaft A thin shaft with two or more rubber rollers which presses against the platen and holds the paper in position for printing. Roman As a separate term it refers to the normal weight of a typeface. Along with this there are usually bold and italic styles. Roman usually implies a seriffed style, certainly when it is used in combination with the term Times. Roman 8 A symbol set which is the standard for the Hewlett Packard laser printers. It differs from the IBM character set in having no block graphics symbols (but these are contained in the Line Draw symbol set). However, it contains a variety of additional symbols for European languages (like Icelandic) which in turn are not present in the IBM character set. sans serif A typeface which does not have tiny embellishments at the edges of printed letters. Helvetica and Letter Gothic are examples of sans serif fonts. scan code When one presses a key of the keyboard the computer receives a number from 1 through 83. This is called a scan code. Precisely what this code realises on the screen depends on the way it is translated. Note that when a key is pressed a scan code is sent to the computer; when the same key is released the same code + 128 is sent to the computer to inform it that the key has been released. The addition of 128 to a value is achieved by changing the value of the eighth bit of a byte from 0 to 1. The 83 scan values of the keyboard are accompanied by information on the shift state of the keyboard (see explanation in text of book). By this is meant whether one of the following keys (or a combination of them) is depressed at the same time as a scan code is sent to the computer: key, key, key, and keys together, and keys, etc. The computer also checks to see if the key is depressed in which case it substracts 32 from those scan codes which are translated as ASCII $97 through $122. scanner A peripheral device used to read printed text into the computer. There are basically two types of scanner: those which translate the information won from the printed page into a graphical image and those which convert it into ASCII code. The latter type is of greater value obviously as it allows the editing of scanned text afterwards. The term optical character recognition (OCR) is used to refer to the process which the scanner carries out and to a typeface which has forms of letters which are easy for a scanner to recognise. screen attribute Refers to the way a character is displayed on the screen. Examples of attributes are high video, inverse video, blinking, underlined. Italics, boldface, sub- and superscripts are not attributes which are available on the DOS level or in programmes used in a non-graphic mode; these must be attained by running a programme in a graphics mode. screen The front surface of the monitor made of glass at the back of which the symbols are displayed by bombarding the light-sensitive inner surface with an electron beam from a "gun" at the back of the tube. script See cursive. scrolling Leafing through text either backwards or forwards is achieved by the text running up off the screen or down off the screen depending on direction. This action is known as scrolling. It is also possible to have horizontal scrolling if a line is longer than 80 lines. serial port See port. serif A tiny embellishment at the end of a letter (typically a small horizontal dash at the ends of vertical lines). Serifs are supposed to improve the readability of the printed page. setup A number of parameters which are specified either on starting the computer or on starting a programme and which specify one's choice in a set of options. Shift-key One of the status keys which causes all letters to be entered as capitals and all digits to change to the symbols which lie above them on the same keys. Note the difference between the key and the key: the latter locks, whereas the former must be held down to take effect; the latter does not alter the characters generated when the number keys are pressed while the former does (the latest multifunction keyboard by IBM does change the value of number keys when the is depressed). slanted See italic. slot A long socket on the motherboard of the PC into which a peripheral card can be inserted. The socket contains the contacts which are connected with the parallel bus by means of which the peripheral card is connected with the bus system of the computer. Note that the slots in the PC are shorter than in the AT (due to the smaller width of the parallel bus in the PC). PC peripheral cards do not always fit into the AT because of their shape; however, two of the eight expansion slots in the AT have the same shape as the PC (with a narrower bus) and can be used to add cards originally intended only for the PC. The new generation of IBM personal computers have a different bus system (known as MCA, micro channel architecture) into which the older expansion cards do not fit). soft font A font for a laser printer which exists in the form of a disk file and which can be downloaded to the printer with the DOS copy command. It must conform to the Hewlett Packard format for download files for it to be accepted by the laser printer. software The opposite of hardware. In brief the programmes you use on a computer. solid font printer A printer in which the characters of a font are to be found in unalterable form, e.g. on the wheel of a daisy wheel printer. spline A regular curve in a letter or logo, for instance the letter c consists of a single spline. An important quality of logo editors is the ability to produce elegant splines. spooling The reservation of a section of memory (or the provision of additional memory) to accodomate data which is to be transferred to the printer but which the printer cannot accept all at once due to the discrepancy between programme output and speed of printing. stem The main upright stroke around which a letter is built, e.g. the vertical stroke in d, k, t, etc. strikethrough A technique in printing where each character is printed with a horizontal bar through it, this giving the impression, with a whole line, that it has been crossed out. stroke weight The thickness with which letters are printed. A term which is only used with laser printers as it is only with these that the parameters can be varied. It ranges from heavy bold type through normal weight (Roman) to light weight with a negative value for stroke weight. style A term to refer to whether printing is upright or slanted (italic). subdirectory On a disk a directory which is located below the root directory. On hard disks there are usually several subdirectories. symbol set A collection of symbols which are grouped together and used in a fixed combination for a certain font. Typical examples are Roman 8, IBM, US ASCII with laser printers. template A skeleton file which has certain parameters set but does not contain any data. Frequently used as a starting point or input for processing data. teletype Refers to the series of different types of teleprinter devices. These are typewriter-like devices at one end of a telegraph line. They include tape punchers, page printers, transmitters of various kinds, etc. In a list of printer drivers in a word processor or an item of integrated software, the term "teletype" usually refers to the simplest type of printer driver, i.e. with no printer attributes, no different fonts, etc. terminating character A reserved character (such as ) which serves the function of marking the end of an input, a character string, etc. for the operating system or occasionally for a programme or even the print 1IV Font Documentation 10. Preamble Included in the LinguaFont set are 16 foreign language fonts, a large selection of typeface fonts and a phonetic font. They are all defined for 24 needle dot matrix printers and for laser printers. Should a font be designed for a dot matrix printer then it can be converted from this format to the laser printer format with Upgrade and can be edited manually with LaserEd to obtain the correct proportions on a laser printer. The printer fonts are also offered as screen fonts. More than with the former, the screen fonts must be edited (i.e. rearranged) by users of LinguaFont as the ASCII values the special symbols have been assigned to are not necessarily those which users of a particular font will want. You can remedy this quite easily. Copy the particular font to a new file and load both the original and the copy with VideoEd. You can now move characters from the source (original) font to the new (target) font at will. The above remarks apply even more to keyboards: there is no way the present author can know in advance what keys users would like to have set to what values for a particular font. You can determine your own keyboard settings quickly and easily with SetKey, see above for a description of its operation. 20.1. Comments on individual fonts Russian. This is a normal Russian font as required for writing contemporary standard Russian. Extended Cyrillic. Most languages of the former Soviet Union are written in a form of the Cyrillic alphabet with a number of additional characters. The basic guideline has been to take existing Russian letters and alter them by using diacritics. See the documentation below for details. Baltic. Of the many languages of the former Soviet republics, the three Baltic languages, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian have always been written with the Latin alphabet. The additional symbols needed for these languages have been gained by adding diacritics to various Latin letters. These symbols are to be found in the present font. Modern Greek. Here only those symbols necessary for Modern Greek are contained. Specifically very few letters have diacritics. For a wider range of symbols and diacritics see the font Classical Greek. Balkan. This font contains symbols needed for both Serbo-Croatian (only those symbols based on letters of the Latin alphabet) and Rumanian. Romance. Only those symbols needed for Romance languages which are not present in the IBM PC character set have been included here. The same applies to the Scandinavian font. Medieval. This font contains the normal letters of the English alphabet but with somewhat unusual forms seen from a present-day standpoint. Technically the font is termed a half uncial type and goes back to a particular manuscript tradition in England and Ireland in the early Middle Ages. History of English. Quite a different matter is involved here. The current font contains the special characters and phonetic symbols which one needs for a linguistic description of English in its various historic stages (notably Old and Middle English). A sample text (the beginning of the Old English epic Beowulf) is included as illustrative material. Phonetic. For the present font the International Phonetic Alphabet (1989 revision) has been used. Not all the symbols have been included, however. For example the range of clicks is not complete. The interested user will have to complement the set if he/she wishes. Below there is a description of the symbols to be found in the set. Hebrew. The current font consists of a basic set of Hebrew characters. The diacritics which are infixed into or subscripted to the former must be added to the symbols in question by users themselves. Bear in mind that there are in principle two possibilities here: (i) either you design a separate character for every combination of basic character and diacritic or (ii) you design the diacritics separately and use a string consisting of basic character, backspace and diacritic when printing. Arabic. Because of the size of the Arabic alphabet it has been necessary to distribute it over two fonts. Full documentation of these two character sets is given below. Sanskrit. This font is based on the Devanagari script of Sanskrit. There is no distinction between upper- and lowercase. The script consists of 33 consonants and 9 vowels. Note. Most of the following fonts have been created in a Letter Gothic style, a few are available in a Courier style. The former is a 12 characters per inch font and the latter 10 characters per inch in width. This fact is of importance when designing characters. Those fonts which require fairly wide characters should be created in a Courier style as the character box in LaserEd is wider than for a Letter Gothic style font. The width of a character in LaserEd is measured in units of 1/300th. of an inch, i.e. a single dot for the laser printer. With a Courier style font each character is 30 dots wide (300 / 10 = 30) whereas a Letter Gothic font has characters which are 25 dots wide (300 / 12 = 25). Character width is a parameter which can be changed in the font header which is displayed automatically by LaserEd when you load a font from the desktop of that programme. Bear in mind that if the characters in a font do not agree with the parameters set for the font in the font header then the result is that the characters in question are not printed. An example of this would be defining characters with a greater width than the maximum allowable width for the font as specified in the header. Another common error is to define a character with a greater baseline distance than that which is legal for a particular font. To avoid the disconcerting experience of not obtaining characters you defined with LaserEd on paper when you attempt to print them, avail of the option Check Font Integrity in LaserEd. 20.2. List of supplied fonts On the fonts diskette of the LinguaFont package there are sixteen language fonts to be found in the subdirectory \LASER. In the case of the Arabic font two files were necessary to accodomate all the required symbols (see documentation below). There are three files for Russian which differ in pitch and typeface. 1) a ARABIC_1.LPF Arabic (Part 1 of Arabic font) b ARABIC_2.LPF Arabic (Part 2 of Arabic font) 2) BALKAN .LPF Balkan 3) BALTIC .LPF Baltic 4) CLASS_GR.LPF Classical Greek 5) CZECH .LPF Czech 6) EXT_CYR .LPF Extended Cyrillic 7) HEBREW .LPF Hebrew 8) HIST_ENG.LPF History of English 9) HUNGARIA.LPF Hungarian 10) MOD_GREK.LPF Modern Greek 11) POLISH .LPF Polish 12) ROMANCE .LPF Romance 13) a RUSS_COU.LPF Russian (Courier typeface font) b RUSS_16 .LPF Russian (Line Printer 16.6 cpi font) c RUSS_TMS.LPF Russian (Times Roman font) 14) SANSKRIT.LPF Sanskrit 15) SCANDIN .LPF Scandinavian 16) TURKISH .LPF Turkish In the same subdirectory there are four further fonts. The first two contain phonetic symbols. The latter two contain normal characters in a special form. 1) a PHONETIC.LPF Phonetic font in Letter Gothic typeface b PHON_TMS.LPF Phonetic font in Times Roman typeface 2) MEDIEVAL.LPF Half uncial typeface font 3) SMALLCAP.LPF Font consisting of small capitals Furthermore there are four subdirectories under \LASER. These contain various fonts in different typefaces and pitches, namely Courier, Helvetica, Letter Gothic and Times Roman. Bear in mind that Courier and Letter Gothic are non-proportional fonts with a pitch of 10 and 12 characters per inch respectively. Helvetica and Times Roman are proportional fonts with varying pitch. The essential differences is that Times Roman is a serifed font while Helvetica is not. LASER\COURIER 1) COUR_UPR.LPF Courier 10 cpi upright 2) COUR_BLD.LPF Courier 10 cpi bold 3) COUR_ITL.LPF Courier 10 cpi italic LASER\GOTHIC 1) LG_UPRT.LPF Letter Gothic 12 cpi upright 2) LG_BOLD.LPF Letter Gothic 12 cpi bold 3) LG_ITAL.LPF Letter Gothic 12 cpi italic 4) LG_TINY.LPF Letter Gothic 16.6 cpi condensed LASER\HELV 1) HELV10_U.LPF Helvetica 10 cpi upright 2) HELV10_B.LPF Helvetica 10 cpi bold 3) HELV10_I.LPF Helvetica 10 cpi italic 4) HELV12_U.LPF Helvetica 12 cpi upright 5) HELV12_B.LPF Helvetica 12 cpi bold 6) HELV12_I.LPF Helvetica 12 cpi italic LASER\TIMES 1) TMS10_U .LPF Times Roman 10 cpi upright 2) TMS10_B .LPF Times Roman 10 cpi bold 3) TMS10_I .LPF Times Roman 10 cpi italic 4) TMS12_U .LPF Times Roman 12 cpi upright 5) TMS12_B .LPF Times Roman 12 cpi bold 6) TMS12_I .LPF Times Roman 12 cpi italic Helvetica, being a serifless font, is suitable for headings or an emphatic printing style. Times Roman is the standard serifed typeface found in newspapers and many books. The fonts in these directories do not contain special symbols of the LinguaFont set, but can of course be edited with the software to include some. Recall that with proportional fonts (Helvetica and Times Roman) the widths of the symbols must be borne in mind to produce right justified printout (LaserEd stores the widths in a table file with the same name as the font being edited but with the extension .TBL). These two typefaces also use the so-called Roman 8 character set which is very different from the IBM PC set used by Letter Gothic and Courier fonts. 20.3. Adapting language fonts to one's own needs The language fonts contain various special symbols needed for the languages they refer to. Only those special symbols have been included in the language fonts which are not already in the upper ASCII area. Furthermore the symbols of each laser font begin at $33 which is the first ASCII symbol after blank ($32). If you wish to use any language font then you must first create a video font and assign the special symbols to certain values in the upper ASCII area which you do not normally need. You do this with the programme VideoEd. Once you have completed this step, take careful note of the numerical values you have redefined in the video font (jot these down on a sheet of paper). Now copy the plain laser printer font LG_UPRT.LPF to some temporary file, say TMP.LPF. Then you load the programme NewLas with the name of the special font which corresponds to the video font which you just edited. For argument's sake assume that you have created and/or edited a video font POLISH.VGA (for the VGA colour video adapter). You would then prepare the laser font by using NewLas with a call from the DOS command line as follows: newlas polish.lpf tmp.lpf You now copy the Polish symbols in the original laser font POLISH.LPF into the new temporary file TMP.LPF at the addresses of the Polish special symbols of the video font. Say you have defined the /w/ sound of Polish which is written as an L with a stroke through it at ASCII $227 in the video font, then you would copy the printer symbol from POLISH.LPF to $227 in the file TMP.LPF. This process can be greatly simplified by loading the Polish video font with LoadVideo or VideoPermanent and then copying the symbols from the laser font to your addresses in your video font by means of and (Copy via video character set, see description in relevant section on LaserEd above). When you have completed this procedure for the entire Polish font you have a temporary laser file TMP.LPF which you can rename so that the name indicates its contents, e.g. by calling it something like NEW_POL.LPF. This file now contains normal ASCII characters and the special symbols needed for Polish inserted at values which correspond numerically to those of the video font POLISH.VGA, i.e. there is a one-to-one correspondence between video and laser fonts so that printing in Polish should present no difficulties from within your word processing programme. For more details on this area of font management, see the relevant sections of the present documentation. Note. All video fonts are supplied in two forms. The first is the normal colour font for the VGA video adapter and has the extension .VGA. The second is for the Hercules Graphics Card Plus and has the extension .FNT. The latter font type can be converted to an EGA type font (with the extension .EGA) from the desktop of VideoEd if required.