Fontkit Plus 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Font editor and fonts for the Atari ST ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fontkit Plus 3 is a sophisticated font editor which can be used to design or modify a variety of fonts including - GEM fonts (GDOS fonts) - Signum fonts - ST screen fonts - Downloadable printer fonts - DEGAS fonts - RSC images Fontkit Plus 3 allows you to perform a variety of font-related tasks quickly and easily. You can create new fonts from scratch, or modify already existing fonts - this can be done easily by someone with no real artistic ability: Fontkit Plus provides global options for producing a variety of display fonts such as contoured fonts or patterned fonts. Other facilities include a toolbox (with drawing tools, block tools, drawing nibs, and a zoom option) and scaling facilities for scaling existing fonts to new point sizes or device resolutions - so you can produce matching screen fonts from printer fonts, or change laser fonts into 9-pin fonts (etc.). Fontkit Plus 3 can also import Calamus, Macintosh, and Signum font in GEM-font format, and export GEM fonts as Signum fonts (Calamus outline fonts can be converted into GEM fonts at any point size and resolution). Fontkit Plus 3 is accompanied by a number of other programs, including * Fontswitch 3 : this is a desk accessory which lets you replace the standard ST screen font with an alternative screen font of your choice, and can be used to download new printer fonts on to 9-pin and 24-pin Epson-compatible printers. Fontswitch also contains a keyboard utility for typing a variety of foreign languages and scripts such as French, Polish, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, or Syriac (etc.) alongside normal English characters (these can be printed with downloadable printer fonts). This includes an option for typing Hebrew and Syriac (etc.) from right to left. * Fontprint : this is a memory-resident program which emulates the downloading facilities of 9-pin or 24-pin printers, and allows NLQ downloadable fonts to by used with Epson-compatible printers which have limited (or non-existent) downloading facilities. This gives Signum-like print quality from standard text-based wordprocessors such as First Word. * Trimfont : this is a GEM-font manager which can be used to compress or uncompress GEM fonts, remove unwanted (e.g. foreign) characters to save memory space, and list or change ID numbers (useful for writing assign.sys files). Compressed fonts are typically less than half the size of uncompressed fonts: l2ct24.fnt compresses from 72k to less than 10k. * Fontxpander : this is a small memory-resident program which allows compressed GEM fonts to be used with standard GDOS programs such as Timeworks Publisher, Calligrapher, and Wordflair. Compressed fonts are automatically uncompressed as they are loaded - useful as a way of maximizing disk space on hard disks or other work disks. Fontkit Plus 3 is supplied on 3 double-sided disks and contains a varied collection of fonts, with additional fonts available in the ST Club Fontpac series. The package also includes a 280-page ringbound manual. ************************************************************************ * * * Fontkit Plus 3 is published and distributed by * * * * The ST Club * * 2 Broadway * * Nottingham * * NG1 1PS Tel 0602 410241 * * * * The current price (20th October 1991) is œ19.95. * * * ************************************************************************ Using the Fontkit Plus demo program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This disk contains a demo version of Fontkit Plus 3, which is identical to the full version except that you cannot save files to disk, and there are no conversion modules for importing and exporting Signum fonts, or for importing Calamus and Macintosh fonts. The full version is also supplied with other additional programs (including Fontswitch and Fontprint), includes a much larger collection of fonts, and is accompanied by a 280-page printed manual. In the absence of a manual, here are a few hints to explain features that might not otherwise be obvious: 1) Non-GEM fonts are mostly distinguished from GEM fonts by having the extension FON (GEM fonts and DEGAS fonts have the file extension FNT). They are further subdivided into screen fonts (in the STFONTS folder) and downloadable printer fonts (in the EPFONTS folder). 2) Fontkit Plus uses filename prefixes to distinguish between different types of screen and printer fonts. These are: A1 8x16 screen fonts A2 8x8 screen fonts A3 6x6 screen fonts B1 Brother M1409 9-pin NLQ printer fonts J1 Juki 5500 9-pin NLQ printer fonts K1 Taxan Kaga 9-pin NLQ printer fonts Q1 Proportional 24-pin NLQ printer fonts Q2 Monospaced 24-pin NLQ printer fonts S1 Star NL/LC10 9-pin NLQ printer fonts X3 Draft 9-pin printer fonts 3) Screen fonts can be installed in place of the standard ST screen fonts using the Fontswitch accessory which accompanies the full version of Fontkit Plus, and they can then be used with any GEM or TOS program which normally uses the standard ST screen fonts. 4) 24-pin printer fonts can be downloaded onto any Epson-compatible 24-pin printer (use the 'print font' option in the Options menu), but check your printer manual for details of dip switch or memory settings which are required for downloading fonts. You should also check your manual to see if your printer imposes restrictions on the number of characters which can be downloaded. 5) 9-pin NLQ printer fonts can be downloaded onto the specified printers, but Brother, Juki, and Kaga printers require a RAM upgrade before they will accept downloaded NLQ fonts. Check your printer manual for details of dip switch or memory settings, and on whether your printer imposes restrictions on the number of characters which can be downloaded. 6) 9-pin draft fonts can be downloaded onto most Epson-compatible 9-pin printers (the Panasonic KXP 1081 is unfortunately an exception), but some printer impose unacceptable limits on the number of characters which can be downloaded. Check your printer manual on this, and for details of dip switch or memory settings which are required for downloading fonts. ******************************************************************** * * * The Fontprint program which is supplied with Fontkit Plus 3 * * allows NLQ downloadable fonts to be used with *ANY* Epson- * * compatible printer, including printers which cannot normally * * download NLQ fonts. This works in conjunction with standard * * text-based wordprocessors, and can be used with Juki NLQ fonts * * which have a higher resolution than standard NLQ fonts. * * * ******************************************************************** 7) GEM fonts can be printed with the 'print font' option so long as GDOS is loaded and a GDOS printer driver is available on disk. You must also have more than 512k of memory - on an unexpanded 520ST you can display GEM fonts on screen, but there is not enough memory for the GDOS printer driver after GDOS and Fontkit Plus have been loaded. GEM fonts can be used with virtually any type of printer in conjunction with a GDOS program such as Calligrapher, Microsoft Write, Wordflair, Wordup, and Timeworks Publisher, and there are some non-GDOS programs, such as Fleet Street Publisher, That's Write and Write On, which also use GEM fonts. These programs give excellent print quality but take longer to print than normal wordprocessors: That's Write and Write On are faster than most GDOS programs, and can also use built-in printer fonts and downloaded fonts. 8) The drawing toolbox in Fontkit Plus is accessed by pressing the right mouse button. When drawing a shape you should press and release the left mouse button to begin drawing, and then press and release it a second time to end drawing. You can move shapes while you are drawing them by pressing and releasing the right mouse button.