WOAFON12.ZIP: Larger fonts for Windows DOS boxes in SVGA modes
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Lots of people have been complaining about the small fonts they get
when they are running windowed DOS sessions within Windows 3.0 (386enh).
This is especially the case with high resolutions like 1024x768.

This set of fonts provides a remedy. They are only slightly larger than
the Windows default fonts, but IMHO it makes a big difference.

LFL9X16.FON can be used for 80x25 DOS windows instead of EGA80WOA.FON.
It has a 9x16 pixels character box. Uppercase characters are typically
8x12 pixels, lowercase characters 7x9.

LFL9X16B.FON is a "bold" version of LFL9X16. Horizontal strokes are
2 pixels wide instead of 1.

LFL9X10.FON is intended for DOS windows with more than 25 lines, as a
replacement for CGA80WOA.FON. The character box is 9x10 pixels, uppercase
characters are typically 8x8 and lowercase characters 7x6.

LFL9X11.FON is essentially the same font as LFL9X10, but the line
spacing is 11 instead of 10 pixels.

To use these fonts:

  - Copy them into the directory where your Windows fonts reside
    (usually the SYSTEM subdirectory of the Windows directory).
  - Edit the file SYSTEM.INI, which is in your Windows directory. Look for
    the following lines within the [386enh] section:

    EGA80WOA.FON=EGA80WOA.FON
    EGA40WOA.FON=EGA40WOA.FON
    CGA80WOA.FON=CGA80WOA.FON
    CGA40WOA.FON=CGA40WOA.FON

    Replace these entries with (e.g.):

    EGA80WOA.FON=LFL9X16.FON
    EGA40WOA.FON=LFL9X16.FON
    CGA80WOA.FON=LFL9X10.FON
    CGA40WOA.FON=LFL9X10.FON

    (Yes, you have to overwrite the C/EGA40WOA entries as well, otherwise
    Windows will choose CGA40WOA instead of LFL9X10. I would be glad for
    an explanation for this strange behaviour.)


LFL10X12.FON is an even larger font. The character box is 10x12, uppercase
characters are typically 8x10 and lowercase 8x7.

LFL10X13.FON is again more or less the same font, but the character box
is 13 pixels high instead of 12.

These two fonts are intended to be used together with the standard Windows
font 8514OEM.FON, e.g.:

  EGA80WOA.FON=8514OEM.FON
  EGA40WOA.FON=8514OEM.FON
  CGA80WOA.FON=LFL10X12.FON
  CGA40WOA.FON=LFL10X12.FON

IMPORTANT: Windows 3.0 has a strange way of selecting fonts for its DOS boxes.
I haven't been able to figure out exactly what the rules are, but the
following is the case: If the font listed in the OEMFONTS.FON=... entry is
smaller than the EGA80WOA.FON=... font, Windows will ignore the latter
setting and use OEMFONTS.FON instead. That is,

  [boot] 
  ...
  OEMFONTS.FON=VGAOEM.FON
  ...
  [386enh]
  ...
  EGA80WOA.FON=LFL9X16.FON
  ...

WON'T WORK, because VGAOEM.FON is smaller than LFL9X16.FON.
Use 8514OEM.FON (or LFL9X16.FON or LFL9X16B.FON) instead of VGAOEM.FON.  

You can also try to replace the FIXEDFON.FON entry in SYSTEM.INI with
one of the LFL fonts. This will affect applications like Notepad,
WinQVT/Net (News Reader, Telnet with IBM character set) etc. But, the
ASCII characters above 128 dec (foreign letters etc.) will not display
correctly, because FIXEDFON.FON uses the "ANSI" codepage while OEM fonts
use the PC codepage 437.

You can also use these fonts in certain programs that allow you to select
the display font (e.g. some terminal emulators). You may have to install
them first with the control panel.
 

BTW, somebody @microsoft.com has hinted that Windows 3.1 might have a
Fonts.. entry in the system menu of its DOS boxes (like OS/2 2.0)...

LFL stands for Large Friendly Letters.


These fonts are free, you can do with them whatever you like;
but please don't try to make money with them.


Peter Karrer                                   pkarrer@bernina.ethz.ch

--------
History:
V 1.1: - Initial version
V 1.2: - Corrected the default character from 'a' to ' ' (8514OEM.FON which
         I used as a template for the LFL fonts has the same problem. To fix
         8514OEM.FON: debug 8514oem.fon<CR>e635 1f<CR>e6b1 1f<CR>w<CR>q<CR>).
       - Corrected the "Ascender Height" attribute of some of the fonts.
       - Corrected the character hex BF ("upper right corner" box char) which
         was positioned one pixel too high in 4 of the 6 fonts.
       - Redesigned LFL9X16 and LFL9X16B. Most lowercase characters are now
         7 pixels wide instead of 8. The characters looked just a bit too
         closely spaced to me; however, this might be different on other video
         cards and/or monitors. The old versions are therefore still included
         (V119X16.FON and V119X16B.fon). 
       - Partially rewrote this file.