Font Off Introduction The Font Off program helps you maintain your Windows TrueType fonts. If you are like a lot of people you have accumulated several hundred true type fonts. "I never know when I am going to need them". They are taking up a lot of valuable hard drive space and slowing down Windows. You may be using one of the common font manager programs to remove the font from Windows (so Windows is not so slow). Although these programs remove the font from Windows they leave the font's file(s) in the hard drive - still taking up space but not being useful. Font Off works differently. In addition to removing the font from Windows, Font Off removes the font from your Windows System directory and stores it in another directory. Since this directory can be on any DOS drive media, you can move the fonts to another hard drive (or network drive), floppies or other removable media. When you need the font you simply reverse the process and reinstall it to Windows. Font Off will not install new fonts to windows, it only maintains your existing fonts. You must therefore use the font installer that often comes with new fonts, or use the Windows font manager to install new fonts. Once the font is installed in Windows you can use Font Off to move it off line until it is needed. Font Off Evaluation You are granted a 15 day evaluation period to try Font Off. If you use it after this evaluation period you must register it. Please see the on-line help system for details about the license agreement and the registration process. Additional Information * If a program was running while you were installing fonts, the program may not know about the new fonts. Exit the program and restart it. * If a program was running while you were removing fonts, the program may not know you have removed a font. If you try to use the fonts unpredictable results may occur. * In addition to the newly loaded fonts being immediately available to Windows, the WIN.INI file is automatically updated by Font Off. The next time you start windows you will also have access to the new fonts. * The True Type font must have a matching .FOT file in order for Font Off to work properly. Some font managers do not properly maintain the FOT file (Font Off does). If you receive errors when removing a font it is probably because the FOT file is not present. Use Font Off to restore the font to Windows and then use the Windows Font Manager to reinstall the font again. You can then safely remove it with Font Off. * Font Off does checks for available disk space when removing or installing fonts. If you run out of space Font Off will notify you and stop moving fonts. * Font Off will not copy a font file (FOT or TTF) if the same file already exist in the target directory. This saves time as the system will not bother copying over an existing off line font if you are removing a font you have previously saved. If you need to update an existing font's file you should install the new font using Windows Font Manager, delete the FOT and TTF files from the off line storage directory, and remove the font using Font Off. * We recommend that you back up the Windows system and off line font storage directories regularly. * The Font Off program uses the Windows INI file conventions for storing information about off line files (and when updating WIN.INI). These INI files are limited to 64K. You therefore have a limit on the number of fonts you can store in the same off line storage location (or have installed in Windows at any one time). This limit is based only on the INI information which must be maintained, not the size of the font files themselves. * The Font Off program will only store fonts in a subdirectory. You can not store fonts to an off line root directory. * The format of the [Fonts] section on WIN.INI is important. Some font managers will store the full path to the font file (when it is never needed as Windows always finds fonts in it's system directory.) Font Off will not process fonts which have this path information. Save space in WIN.INI and FONTOFF.INI by removing this path information. A sample [Fonts] section on WIN.INI might look like this: [Fonts] V5 Lucida Sans 10,12,14,18,24=V5SP.FON V6 Lucida Sans 10,12,14,18,24=V6SP.FON Arial (TrueType)=ARIAL.FOT Arial Bold (TrueType)=ARIALBD.FOT Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)=ARIALBI.FOT Arial Italic (TrueType)=ARIALI.FOT Notice that no drive or directory information is incuded after the equal sign. Upgrading from Version 1.0 EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from version 1.0 of Font Off you MUST follow the following procedure in order to use the new version. Extensive changes to the storage location of off-line fonts has been made. In version 1.0 we stored all off line fonts in one directory. This works perfectly, but get 100 or so fonts in the same directory (that's 200 files) and DOS chokes. The speed to select the directory and move fonts can be significant. To reduce this problem considerably we have changed the location of font storage. Instead of storing all fonts in the same directory as the FONTOFF.INI file we now store all fonts in subdirectories of this directory. The subdirectories are named "A" - "Z" and "OTHER". A font file's storage directory is automatically determined by Font Off based on the first letter of the font file name (not font name). Fonts which do not begin with letters between "A" and "Z" are stored in the "OTHER" directory. Font Off maintains the proper storage location of your fonts automatically. If this is the first time you are using Font Off you need do nothing more. If, however, you are upgrading from version 1.0 you MUST copy the fonts into the appropriate directories. You may do this manually or use the .BAT file listed below to do it automatically. If you choose to do it automatically you must insure that you have enough hard drive space available to store double the current space for font groups (all A's are one group, B's are another). You need to copy the following text to a batch file and execute the batch file from the directory that contains your fonts AND FONTOFF.INI. Another option is to use version 1.0 of Font Off to restore all off-line fonts to Windows, and the use the new version to remove them and store them off-line again. Since the off-line location of the font files has changed you will need to delete the off-line fonts just before you re-remove them from Windows. We STRONGLY suggest that you backup your off line fonts before running the update batch file. Batch file to convert from 1.0 automatically: @echo off cls echo This batch file MUST be run from the directory echo that contains your offline fonts and the file echo FONTOFF.INI. This process will require extra echo disk space and can be time consuming. echo. echo Press CTRL-C to abort or pause cls echo Creating directories md a md b md c md d md e md f md g md h md i md j md k md l md m md n md o md p md q md r md s md t md u md v md w md x md y md z md other cls copy a*.* a del a*.* copy b*.* b del b*.* copy c*.* c del c*.* copy d*.* d del d*.* copy e*.* e del e*.* copy f*.* f del f*.* copy g*.* g del g*.* copy h*.* h del h*.* copy i*.* i del i*.* copy j*.* j del j*.* copy k*.* k del k*.* copy l*.* l del l*.* copy m*.* m del m*.* copy n*.* n del n*.* copy o*.* o del o*.* copy p*.* p del p*.* copy q*.* q del q*.* copy r*.* r del r*.* copy s*.* s del s*.* copy t*.* t del t*.* copy u*.* u del u*.* copy v*.* v del v*.* copy w*.* w del w*.* copy z*.* z del x*.* copy y*.* y del y*.* copy z*.* z del z*.* copy *.* other echo. echo. echo. echo Respond "Y" to the next question. echo. echo. del *.* echo. echo. copy f\fontoff.ini del f\fontoff.ini echo. echo. echo Update from version 1.0 Complete! echo. echo. Once you run this batch file you can resume using the new version of Font Off. If you have alot of off-line fonts you should notice a nice speed increase. Initial Installation This program is provided in one of two forms. It is either part of the TARDIS Applications diskette or can be downloaded individually from CompuServe or other BBS systems. Diskette If the program is provided on diskette and you have used the diskette's install program, the software has already been installed and program manager icons created. You can begin using it immediately. Please see the section "Running for the first time." Download If you downloaded this file you should follow the instructions below. The program is provided as a self-extracting executable file. Just follow the instructions below to install the program on your hard drive. You MUST already have a copy of the Visual Basic 3.0 runtime DLL VBRUN300.DLL. It must be installed in your Windows \SYSTEM directory. If you do not have this file you can download it from the Microsoft Visual Basic forum on CompuServe. This file is not included with Font Off. 1.Choose a drive and directory on which you want to install Font Off. If the directory does not exist you must create it now. 2.Copy the Font Off self extracting executable (FOFF.EXE) into the directory. 3.Make a backup of this file for safe keeping. You will delete this file later. 4.Change to the Font Off directory. 5.Type the command FOFF. This uncompresses the files into the current directory. 6.Delete the file FOFF.EXE. It is no longer used. Make sure you make a backup per step 3 above. 7.Check the directory for any files with a .DLL or .VBX extension. If any files matching this description exist they should be copied to your Windows \SYSTEM directory and then deleted from the Font Off directory. 8.Create a Program Manager icon for Font Off and link it to the EXE file FONTOFF.EXE. 9.Please see the section "Running for the first time." Running for the First Time 1.Start the program by double clicking the new Font Off icon in Program Manager. 2.Since this is the first time you are running this program you are prompted for your Company Name, Your Name, Phone Number, and optionally your CIS ID (not password). This information is saved for future reference. The serial number is assigned and the registration reminder screen displays. (This screen will never display after you register the program). 3.To access the on-line help system (which contains important information about the operation and license agreement for Font Off), click on the "About TARDIS" icon, and then click on the question mark icon. 4.A file with the .REG extension is created in the same directory as Font Off. This file contains your name and phone number and is used during the registration process. It contains important information and should not be deleted. 5.Installation is complete. Contacting TARDIS DP Consultants Should you have any questions or comments about this TARDIS DP Consultants program you can reach us at: CompuServe ID 73337,2472 Mail Address: TARDIS DP Consultants Department 45 6 Sedley Ct. Greensboro, NC 27455 Remember, you are granted a 15 day evaluation period to try Font Off. If you use it after this evaluation period you must register it. Please see the on-line help system for details about the license agreement and the registration process.