FontShow Copyright 1991 - Harvey J. Kaye FontShow - Font Viewing and Cataloging for Microsoft Windows FontShow Version 3.1 Release notes ============================================================================== Documentation is supplied in Word for Windows and Windows Write formats. FONTSHOW.DOC - Word for Windows FONTSHOW.WRI - Windows Write Installation: Copy the FONTSHOW.EXE file to your harddrive, use the Program Manager File/New Function to add the file to your program manager screen. Copy the Fontshow.ini to the Windows main directory. If you do not locate it there, fontshow will create one there. Required files: VBRUN100.DLL and VBTOOLS.VBX. VBRUN100 is not included in this package, it is the visual basic runtime module. VBTOOLS.VBX is the Visual Basic Tools (VBTools) runtime module. Both these files should be placed in the Windows directory, or another directory early in the DOS Path. Place the files in the following locations: Fontshow.EXE - in any directory FontShow.INI - in the Windows directory FontShow.TXS - in the Windows directory, can be altered on the settings screen. VBRUN100.DLL - in the Windows Directory or path (not supplied) VBTOOLS.VBX - in the Windows Directory or path. FontShow.DOC - in any directory (Word for Windows Doc file) FontShow.WRI - in any directory (Windows Write Doc file) FontShow.TXT - in any directory (this file) FontShow also requires Microsoft Windows Verions 3.0 or later. Known Problems: A font titled RSGriffonDingbats has been know to cause a Unrecoverable Application Error (UAE) when printing a sample page. Initial investigation point at Adobe Type Manager as the problem, but this has yet to be confirmed. FontShow is shareware, a registration fee of $15 is required if you continue to use this program after an initial evaluation period (not to exceed 30 days) If after 30 days you decide to continue using FontShow, please forward a cheque or money order totalling $15 to: Harvey J. Kaye 633 Bay Street, Suite 1701, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA, M5G 2G4 Please forward any comments, suggestions, problems etc. to the above address. Thank-you for trying FontShow!! =============================================================================== Version 3.1 Changes: -------------------- 1) The "show" character printing in a black circle has been made an option. See the settings screen. Should save on ribbons, toner and Ink. 2) Bug correction: The font inventory would print in the title font and size if page numbers, date AND time printing were turned off. 3) Bug correction: The settings for Page numbers, date and time printing were not being saved correctly. Version 3.0 Changes: -------------------- 1) A new sample style has been added (#5) that will print a variety of text text sizes and styles. 2) The Text sample function has been implemented for all styles. If the "Print Text Sample" option is selected on the settings screen, fontshow will open and read the filename that is entered in the "Text Sample Filename" box. Please see the supplied file "FONTSHOW.TXS". Included in this file are instructions on how to alter the text that is displayed/printed from this file. There is a primitive "word-processing" function included, allowing you to alter the size, style, indentation, font, and letter spacing of the sample text, as well as allowing you to customize the text that is printed. 3) The option to override the sample characters printed in the font catalog is provided on the settings screen. 4) The font metrics screen has been updated to reflect the user selected text colours, and the print overlay bug on that screen has been corrected. 5) The ANSI map function has been changed to use the selected font for printing all output, rather than the title font. This speeds up printing dramatically. This function is overridden for any font known as a dingbat or symbol font. On the settings screen, there are 6 fields for "Dingbat" fonts. If the font selected for the ANSI map matches any of the characters in any of the Dingbat fields, that ANSI map will alternate from the title font to the selected font in the output. An example: 1- If the selected font is Helvetica, the entire map will be printed in Helvetica, because it does not contain Dingbat, Symbol, Carta etc. anywhere in the fontname. 2- If the selected font is BillsDingbats, the map will be printed with the title font for the ANSI codes and the sample character, and will print the sample character in BillsDingbats. This is because the fontname contains the characters string DINGBAT. (Got it?) 6) Several users have requested that the sample page and ANSI map functions be added to the font catalog function. This has been implemented. From the font catalog there are now 4 functions that will be performed on the selected fonts: 1) Print font inventory 2) Print font catalog 3) Print font samples 4) Print ANSI maps In option 3 you have the option of printing ANSI maps as well for all the selected fonts in one pass through the list. FontShow will estimate the time required (based on a 386-20) and give you the option to cancel the operation. 7) Titles and margins for printed and displayed output have been standardized to allow for three-hold punching etc. 8) The show character on the font samples now prints in white inside a solid black circle. This was done just for "style". This will be optional in future releases. This does, however, give you an idea of a font's character alignment and such, some fonts will print in slightly higher or lower positing in the circle, which is scaled to the font's average height or width depending on which is greater. One exception is the CARTA font. The height of the Carta font is so large that it prints a circle over 4 inches in diameter. For this reason the circle is scaled back to the actual character size for the Carta font only. If this is required for any other unusual font, let me know. 9) Printing of the show character can be suppressed by setting its size on the settings screen to 0 10) The print buttons have been altered to a 3D picture of a printer, and the display buttons have been altered to a 3D picture of a screen. 11) Other minor visual changes. The startup screen now shows a stop sign, if you want to stop, click on the stop sign. ALT-S still performs that function. The color scheme has been standardized. Version 2.1 Changes: -------------------- 1) A new control has been added to the main menu, "Settings" This will allow the user to control the font and size for titles, and the character used on the sample page as the "Show" character. I call the large "A" in the upper right corner the "Show" character, for lack of a better name. If any of you think of a better name, let me know! For best print performance, pick a font that is resident in your printer for titles. In addition, control is provided over which font sizes are printed on the sample page. There is also a check box for "Text Sample" This is not yet implemented. It will, in a future release, print a sample of text printed with the selected font (a paragraph of text, including bold, italic, bolditalic and underline. The settings information is stored in file FONTSHOW.INI which must be located in the Windows directory. You can update this file directly, however be careful as there is little validation code implemented yet and you may cause FontShow to crash! 2) Control is provided, also from the "Settings" screen, to adjust the screen colors. This version does not allow you to save the colors, just to change them. I have, however, toned down the colours a bit. (Stay tuned for the next version) 3) The sample page screen has been altered quite a bit, it now prints directly to the window, rather than a text box. This displays a little quicker and also will display more text when maximized, rather than having to re-display the sample. In addition, there is a new button "Display". Font sample 1 is selected as default, and in order to display the sample on screen, click on "Display". Print continues to operate as before. In addition, the frame that holds the controls "hides" when a screen display is requested. To bring it back, just click anywhere on the Sample window. You can re-hide it again if you want by clicking on the "Hide" Button. The title size is now adjusted from the settings screen, and the text of the title can be updated by clicking the "set title" button 4) Fontshow now requests printer fonts instead of screen fonts. Fontshow can not display some printer resident fonts. If you request display of a resident font you will receive a display error message. The font can still be printed and inventoried, you just can't display it on screen. That is a Windows and/or font manager restriction unfortunately. Future releases will allow user control over which fonts to retrieve. With font managers such as ATM or Facelift, the list is virtually identical. 5) A primitive print cancel function has been added to the font catalog. When a print is started, a cancel checkbox is visible in the status window. Click on that and Fontshow will not generate any more output. However any output that has been sent to Windows must still be printed. I'm working on this one, but the Windows API calls in this area are trickier than I first thought. Bear with me on this one. 6) An other button has been added on the main window. "Display font metrics" click this button and FontShow will pop up a window displaying the metrics of the selected font. Infomation displayed includes, Average Width, Maximum Width, Character height, Internal Leading and so on. Not all the fields are fully implemented as documentation is sparse on that function, but it will improve in future releases. 7) Other miscellaneous bug and glitch fixes and "visual" adjustments. Bug Fixes: Many users reported an error message when printing "Invalid Property Value" was caused by my (incorrect) assumption that all users would have a font "Helvetica". This has been corrected, should the error occur FontShow will substitute the Windows font "Modern". However an even better solution is to update the Settings window with the preferred font which is used for titles and headers in all printed output. History: Version 1.0 Beta release Version 2.0 First public release Version 2.1 Second public release Version 3.0 Current as of Sept 2, 1991 Version 3.0a Current as of Sept 2, 1991 (corrected inventory and settings bug) Version 3.1 Current as of Sept 3, 1991 (added option for Show character print)