************************************************************ * README FILE FOR FontFolder 2.1 * ************************************************************ FILES FOR FONTFOLDER VERSION 2.1 DISKETTE VERSION The diskette for FontFolder Version 2.1 should contain the following files: CATALOG.TXT Used to customize font catalog printing CHARBOX.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing EMTEC.TXT EmTec ordering information and order form FFCLEAN.EXE FontFolder Cleanup module (new with 2.1) FFPRNMOD.EXE FontFolder print module - not directly executable FILE_ID.DIZ Brief description in DIZ format FONTFOLD.EXE FontFolder program file FONTFOLD.HLP FontFolder Help file FONTFOLD.NEW Brief description of new and changed features of Version 2.1 LICENSE.TXT FontFolder License file and registration information LINE.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing PGRAPH.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing README.TXT This file In addition, the diskette should contain the file FNTFLIB.ZIP described in the following On-line Version list, and the file OS2FNFAQ.INF which is a VIEWable copy of the current version of OS/2 Fonts Frequently Asked Questions. ON-LINE VERSION On-line users should look for the following files. FNTF21.ZIP is required while FNTFLIB.ZIP is optional. FNTF21.ZIP Contains the files named above. Please use this file if you upload FontFolder to a bulletin board or on-line service. FNTFLIB.ZIP Contains the FontFolder pre-registered libraries for popular font CDROM's as shown below. BST500.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the Bitstream 500 Font CDROM (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. COR25.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the CorelDraw 2.5 for OS/2 CDROM. (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. HB1093.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the October, 1993 Hobbes OS/2 CDROM. (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. EX2000.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the Expert Software 2000 Fantastic Fonts CDROM. (includes libraries for entire CDROM and also by-subdirectory libraries and text documentation files. ZIP format. My thanks to Larry Ebbit for creating this library and for giving me permission to ship it with FontFolder. FNTFSTAR.ZIP Pre-registered library for the fonts on the StarMedia CDROM shipped with StarOffice. GENERAL This README file gives basic information for installing and starting FontFolder for the first time. For more detailed instructions on using FontFolder, consult the on-line Help. NEW FONTFOLDER USERS FontFolder does not at this time have an installation program. To install FontFolder create a directory for FontFolder and copy the following files to this directory: FONTFOLD.EXE FFCLEAN.EXE (new with Version 2.1) FFPRNMOD.EXE CATALOG.TXT CHARBOX.TXT LINE.TXT PGRAPH.TXT In addition copy FONTFOLD.HLP either to this same directory or to any directory listed in the SET HELP= entry in CONFIG.SYS. To create a Program Object for FontFolder on your desktop, open the Templates folder and drag a Program Object from the Program Template to your desktop. Give the Program Object the name you want to appear under the FontFolder icon, and when the Settings Notebook appears, fill in the Path and Filename field with the fully qualified path to the FONTFOLD.EXE file based on the directory where you have placed this file, e.g. C:\FONTFOLD\FONTFOLD.EXE. Close the Settings Notebook. When you start FontFolder the first time it will ask you to make some choices of directory locations for its files, and ask you to confirm the drive letters it has determined for your removable drives and for your CDROM drives if you have any. This information will be saved so you will not have to repeat this in the future when you start FontFolder. After starting FontFolder for the first time, bring up the Help and read the sections on FontFolder Overview, Installing FontFolder and Using FontFolder for basic familiarization with the program. Help is also available for all menu items; hit F1 when the menu item is selected. USERS UPGRADING FROM AN EARLIER VERSION OF FONTFOLDER ****************************************************************** IT IS IMPORTANT TO TAKE THE FOLLOWING STEPS WHEN UPGRADING FROM AN EARLIER VERSION OF FONTFOLDER, BE SURE AND READ AND CARRY OUT ALL THE STEPS BEFORE STARTING FONTFOLDER 2.1 FOR THE FIRST TIME. ****************************************************************** 1) Create a directory for FontFolder 2.1 and copy the following files to this directory: FONTFOLD.EXE FONTFOLD.HLP FFCLEAN.EXE (new with Version 2.1) FFPRNMOD.EXE CATALOG.TXT CHARBOX.TXT LINE.TXT PGRAPH.TXT Alternatively, you can copy these files in to your existing FontFolder directory. If you do, be sure to back up the FONTFOLD.EXE and FONTFOLD.HLP files first so you can restore them in needed. Also, if you have customized any of the .TXT files, don't copy these new ones over them. 2) If you are setting up FontFolder 2.1 in a different directory than you used for your earlier version, make a backup of the FONTFOLD.INI, and all MLIBnnn.FF2 and FNTPKnnn.FP2 files associated with your 1.2 version of FontFolder. The locations of these files is set by the Path entries you have made in your FontFolder Settings. Make sure to get the files corresponding to these path settings so that you have the current versions of these files. Once you have made backups of these files, copy the MLIBnnn.FF2 and FNTPKnnn.FP2 files to your 2.1 directory. While it is possible to copy your existing FONTFOLD.INI file to your 2.1 directory and modify it appropriately, it is easy to make a mistake here, so I do not recommend it. If you do not copy FONTFOLD.INI, you will lose any customization such as window size and placement, but you will not lose the ability to use your libraries and fontpacks. 3) If you decide to copy FONTFOLD.INI to your 2.1 directory, make sure that the FIRST thing you do upon starting FontFolder 2.1 is to go to the Settings and modify the Path to the FontFolder INI file and the Path to FontFolder Data Files to point to your 2.1 directory instead of your 2.0 directory. You MUST do this before you save any library or close FontFolder to keep from having your 2.0 INI and data files overwritten with 2.1 versions. As noted below, you should leave the path to your FFCACHE file set to point to the same location as in FontFolder 2.0. 4) If you are using CDROM fonts or fonts on a network, start version 2.0 of FontFolder, open the Settings to the Paths page, and make a note of what is entered in the Path to Font Cache field. It will most likely point to a FFCACHE subdirectory of your FontFolder 2.0 directory. When you first start version 2.1, set your Path to Font Cache in version 2.1 to point to this 2.0 location so that both versions of FontFolder use the same Font Cache location when they install and remove CDROM or network fonts in OS/2. Once you are satisfied with the operation of FontFolder 2.1 and want to remove FontFolder 2.0 from your system, follow the instructions in the NOTE immediately below to move your Font Cache location before erasing your FontFolder 2.0 directory. NOTE: If you regularly install a new version of FontFolder in a different directory than your old version, you should consider establishing a permanent location for your FFCACHE directory separate from your FontFolder directory. The FFCACHE directory holds the font files for CDROM and network fonts currently installed in OS/2. If you accidentally erase this FFCACHE directory (for instance as part of moving to a new release of FontFolder) while OS/2 is still using it for fonts, you will lose the use of these fonts. If you establish a second FFCACHE directory as part of a new installation of FontFolder while still using the old FFCACHE directory, FontFolder will become confused in its font management. To safely establish a new FFCACHE location without losing access to your installed fonts: 1) First set the FontFolder 2.1 Path to Font Cache to point to your old FFCACHE directory (use Settings from the menus). Close the Settings so that this path can take effect. This is necessary to have step 2 below be effective. 2) Once you have the path to the FontFolder cache properly set per Step 1, reopen the Settings and change the Path to Font Cache to point to the new location where you want the FFACHE directory to be located. Version 2.1 has code to manage the copying of your FFCACHE font files and the updating of the references to these fonts in OS2.INI. 3) All font cache fonts are now usable, but you should not erase the old FFCACHE directory until after you reboot OS/2. OS/2 has some internal tables in memory that FontFolder can not access, and these tables will contain the old FFCACHE location and will use the old FFCACHE to access the font files until after you reboot. 5) IT IS NOW SAFE TO START VERSION 2.1 OF FONTFOLDER Once you have completed the items above, it is safe to start FontFolder 2.1. As soon as it has started, go to the Settings and make the Path changes noted above. If you are upgrading from version 1.1 or earlier, FontFolder needs to make some changes in your setup. A series of dialogs will lead you through these changes. The format of the data files changed between version 1.1 and Version 1.2 so if you are upgrading from Version 1.1 or earlier FontFolder will convert your data files the first time you start Version 2.1. If you have installed version 2.1 in the same directory as your previous version of FontFolder, FontFolder will backup your present data files before converting them to the new format. The backup files will have the extension OLD. The conversion is a one-time process. When you start FontFolder in the future it will use the new data files. Also if you are upgrading from version 1.1 or earlier and have a CDROM drive, it will still be listed as a removable drive as it was in your previous version of FontFolder. If you want to take advantage of the version 2.1 capability to use fonts directly from a CDROM drive without you having to copy them to your hard drive, you should make the appropriate changes to your drive letter settings when the dialog presenting these settings is displayed. Once you have made your changes to this dialog, click on OK, and FontFolder will proceed to convert your data files as described above. If you stored the FONTFOLD.INI file in a directory different from the one containing FONTFOLD.EXE in your previous version, you can do a similar thing for version 2.1. If you want to maintain a working copy of your old version while testing version 2.1, use a different directory to keep the FONTFOLD.INI files separate. The two versions use different entries in OS2.INI, so they will not conflict. Read the FONTFOLD.NEW file for an overview of the new features available in Version 2.1. More detailed information on the features is available in the on-line Help. ******************************************************************** THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SHOULD BE READ BY BOTH NEW USERS AND THOSE UPGRADING FROM A VERSION OF FONTFOLDER EARLIER THAN VERSION 2.0. IF YOU ARE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 2.0, THERE IS NO NEW INFORMATION IN THIS SECTION. ******************************************************************** PROBLEMS ON FONTFOLDER STARTUP: When you start FontFolder the first time you may find that it complains about a number of fonts that you have already "installed" in OS/2 through the OS/2 Font Pallete. This can be for a number of reasons outlined below, all of which represent legitimate problems that FontFolder is attempting to deal with. (Of course it may also be true that FontFolder is incorrectly objecting to a legitimately installed font. If that appears to be the case, please bring the situation to my attention via one of the routes described at the end of this ReadMe file.) Situations where FontFolder will object to an already "installed" font: 1. The OS/2 Font Pallete is unfortunately not too discriminating in what it will "install" in OS/2. There are examples of font AFM files that are totally unreadable because of garbage in the file. The Font Pallete will "install" these files, although they are unusable and show up in the Font Pallete list as blank lines. FontFolder will reject a file if the OS/2 api that is used to query font information can't at least return a name for the font (the blank line in the Font Pallete occurs because no font name was returned for the file). 2. Users have been known to install a font in OS/2 and then later move the OFM and PFB files for this font to a different directory or even erase them, without first un-installing the font from OS/2. However, OS/2 keeps a record in OS2.INI of where it thinks the files are for installed fonts, and when it can't find them there on bootup, things get quite confusing. The user finds that a previously installed font "no longer works", but when they try to re-install it they find they can't because OS/2 insists it is already installed. FontFolder checks the listings in OS2.INI and verifies that both a PFB file and an OFM file exist where OS2.INI claims they are located. In both of the above cases, FontFolder a) does not show the font in the installed fonts list, and b) puts up a message box alerting the user to the problem and offering to remove the entry for this font from OS2.INI. You should note what font files FontFolder can't find, and then accept the offer to clean up OS2.INI. If the problem is simply that the font files have been moved, you can then go and find out where the font files are currently located (if they still exist) and register the fonts with the Library from the correct location. KNOWN PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS: 1. There are "bad fonts" out there. A "bad font" is defined here as any font that either won't install in OS/2, or when installed won't display or even worse sends the system in to some sort of never-never land. My experience is about 1-2% fall in to this "bad font" category. This does not necessarily mean that something is wrong with the font, just that the font and OS/2 do not get along. In versions of OS/2 prior to Warp, "bad fonts" are almost always caused by a bug in OS/2's PMATM.DLL that occurs with certain "complex" fonts, rather than as a result of anything being wrong with the font files themselves. FontFolder screens out some but not all "bad fonts" that the OS/2 Font Pallete lets pass. Viewing these "bad fonts" in the Font Information window can cause a variety of things to happen, from the harmless case of nothing appearing in the sample window, to a SYS 3175 error, to a total lockup of the machine that requires a reboot. I so far have found no way to protect against the total lockup. Needless to say, if a font causes this to happen, remove it from the Library. 2. OS/2 does not allow FontFolder to remove any font from memory that was not installed by FontFolder in the current session. FontFolder always updates the OS2.INI file and shows the font as removed, but if you check the Font Palette or look in the font list presented by your application, you will see that the font is still there. It will be gone the next time you reboot. This is not a problem if you don't change fonts frequently since any font removed by FontFolder will be gone the next time you reboot. However, if you work with large numbers of fonts during a single session, you may end of with very large numbers of fonts installed in OS/2, with performance and even perhaps error problems. The way to avoid this is to only keep a minimum number of fonts, the ones you use all the time, loaded in OS/2 at startup. Then start FontFolder and keep it open during the entire session if you are going to work with large numbers (100's) of fonts during the session. FontFolder can be minimized when you are not using it, but don't close it. This way, FontFolder can completely remove any font it installed (as long as you aren't currently using the font in an open application). Before closing FontFolder, clean up your installed font list by removing all the fonts other than your basic font set. (HINT: Define a FontPack to be your basic set of fonts. Then just before closing FontFolder, remove everything extra and install this FontPack. That will guarantee that you always have the correct base set installed on bootup). 3. It is easy to browse large numbers of fonts in the Font Information window with version 2.1 of FontFolder. In versions of OS/2 prior to Warp this can quickly consume large amounts of memory, causing problems if you are short of swap file space. Look in the online Help Index for "browsing fonts" and read this section to understand what the memory requirements are when browsing fonts. This problem has been fixed in Warp. 4. OS/2 has a memory leak connected with printing font samples that works out to approximately 7.5 KB of lost memory for every font printed. This may not sound like much, but if you print a Font Catalog for the Bitstream 500 Font CDROM, you will lose access to 3.75 Megabytes of your virtual memory, i.e. your swap file will be 3.75 Megabytes closer to being full than it would be otherwise. This effect is cumulative, i.e. if you print the same Font Catalog a second time you will lose another 3.75 Megabytes of memory. This memory can not be recovered except by rebooting OS/2. IBM has confirmed that this leak is in OS/2, and I am in the process of opening an APAR, but there is no short term solution or workaround. Until a fix is available, if you are printing large numbers of fonts, you will need to pay attention to your swap file size. 5. The OMNI driver has multiple problems that prevent FontFolder from tracking print jobs in the OS/2 Print Spooler. FontFolder must be able to track print jobs to know when it is safe to uninstall fonts that have been temporarily installed for the purpose of printing. IBM has confirmed the problems and APARS are being opened against them. In the mean time I have implemented a workaround that requires the users of the OMNI driver to manually inform FontFolder when the last job has printed. 6. The Postscript driver that shipped with Warp has a setting under Job Properties/Options called "Report Downloaded Fonts". This option MUST be checked in order to be able to reliably print the entire range of fonts with FontFolder. This is not necessary (actually it appears the setting has been totally disabled) in the current version (30.442) of the driver. ********************************************************************* REGISTERING FONTFOLDER: FontFolder is shareware. Once you have used it for a period of time you should register it if you plan to continue to use it. FontFolder can be registered either as a full version with access to all facilities, or as a "Lite" version, which has access to all facilities except for printing. Registered users of FontFolder 2.0 may upgrade to the corresponding version of FontFolder 2.1 without charge. Users of 1.x versions of FontFolder have free access to FontFolder 2.1 Lite. To use printing they must upgrade their registration to the full version of FontFolder 2.1. See the LICENSE.TXT file or look in the On-line Help Index under Registration Information for the details of registering. Registration Fees: New User Registration for FontFolder 2.1 $30 New User Registration for FontFolder 2.1 Lite $20 Upgrade from Version 1.x or FontFolder 2.1 Lite $10 ********************************************************************* FONTFOLDER SUPPORT: FontFolder is supported on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Section 1 (GO OS2SHARE), by Compuserve e-mail to [75013,1701], and by Internet e-mail to 75013.1701@compuserve.com or ccullum@ibm.net. I also monitor the Internet newsgroups comp.os.os2.app and comp.os.os2.utilities on a daily basis. Notice of new releases of FontFolder will be posted on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Section 1 and in the Internet newsgroup comp.os.os2.announce. The latest versions of FontFolder can always be found on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Lib 1, and on ftp-os2.nmsu.edu. they will have a filename of FNTFnn.ZIP where nn is the version number. Cliff Cullum 4/27/96