ULTRAFONT An EGA/VGA Screen Font Editor Copyright (c) 1990,1991 Release 3.0 November 30, 1991 By: Kurt Pettersen TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- Limit of Liability............................................3 Distribution Notice...........................................3 What is ULTRAFONT.............................................3 Features..................................................3 System Requirements.......................................3 Purchasing ULTRAFONT..........................................4 Contacting the Author.........................................4 Using ULTRAFONT...............................................4 How does it work..........................................4 Loading ULTRAFONT.........................................4 Alpha Mode................................................5 Alpha Menu............................................5 Load Font.............................................5 Save Font.............................................5 Copy Characters to Buffer.............................5 Copy Characters from Buffer...........................5 Goto ASCII code.......................................5 Copy Character........................................5 Copy a Range of Characters............................6 Shell to DOS..........................................6 Quit the Program......................................6 Change to Edit Mode...................................6 Edit Mode.................................................6 Edit Menu.............................................6 Clear Window..........................................6 Fill Window...........................................6 Delete Commands.......................................7 Delete Row........................................7 Delete Column.....................................7 Delete Row (up)...................................7 Delete Row (down).................................7 Delete Column (right).............................7 Delete Column (left)..............................7 Update Character Set..................................7 Change to Alpha Mode..................................7 Toggle Pixels.........................................7 Files Included............................................8 Why I Wrote ULTRAFONT.....................................8 User Requirements.........................................9 Thank You's...............................................9 LIMIT OF LIABILITY: ULTRAFONT is distibuted as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied. The author will assume no liability for damages either from the direct use of this product or as a consequence of the use of this product. DISTRIBUTION NOTICE: ULTRAFONT is released as Shareware. Shareware is "try it before you buy it" software. You are allowed to try ULTRAFONT for 30 days. After this trial period you are required to register ( pay for ) your copy of ULTRAFONT. Registering the Shareware programs you use helps small companies and programmers turn out better and higher quality software at lower costs. Failure to register your Shareware programs discourages the development of useful programs. When you register this evaluation copy you will receive the most up to date version of ULTRAFONT unless the version that you have is the most recent. You are hereby granted a license to use and distribute this evaluation copy of ULTRAFONT. You must distribute ULTRAFONT with it's entire documentation. You may not charge for ULTRAFONT in any way, except for the medium in which it is distributed and the handling of such medium. Any other use or distribution of ULTRAFONT is expressly forbidden without written consent of the author. WHAT IS ULTRAFONT? ULTRAFONT is a program that allows you to create your own fonts to use in the DOS environment, other software, and even in your own programs! ULTRAFONT requires an EGA or VGA card. These graphics cards allow user programmable fonts. With ULTRAFONT you can spice up your display with any font imaginable! How about using your favorite word processor with your own script font? With ULTRAFONT this is easy. FEATURES: * Easy one key editing functions * Shell to DOS at any time. * Copy Characters between Fonts. * Runs in Graphics Mode. * Ability to see changes immediately. * Comes with a Font Loader. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: * IBM PC XT or COMP. ( AT 286 at 16Mhz or greater really helps! ) * EGA or VGA Graphics Card and Color Monitor * 640K RAM ( Arrays take up alot of space! ) PURCHASING ULTRAFONT: Included in the archive is a file named ORDER.FRM. Fill out and print this file or make your own. Just fold the form into a letter sized envelope and drop it in the mail. Registration of ULTRAFONT is $15. When you register ULTRAFONT you will recieve the latest version unless the version that you have is the most recent, within a week. The exception to this is if we are anticipating a new release. In the case of a new release, we will hold the registration up to two weeks. CONTACTING THE AUTHOR: The author of ULTRAFONT is Kurt Pettersen from Boise, Idaho. If you have any questions, comments, or critisizms about ULTRAFONT in general you may contact him at the following: Kurt Pettersen Ultra Software 8733 W. Lancelot Boise, ID 83704 (208) 322-8022 LOADING ULTRAFONT: Since all EGA and VGA graphics cards support user programmable fonts, now you can create and display any font you desire. ULTRAFONT allows you to create and modify any font that you can imagine. And when you have created a font, you can use the fontload program to load your font. Your font will now be displayed instead the standard drab default font. And the font you have created with ULTRAFONT will remain even when you run most of your favorite software. ULTRAFONT INSTRUCTIONS: When you run ULTRAFONT, the program will first load the default character set into memory and then transform the ASCII codes into graphics. This font must exist to load. Then it will display all of the 256 characters as they appear in the font at the bottom of the screen. The characters appear in yellow. A red underline character at ASCII #0 is the cursor. ALPHA MODE When you are in Alpha Mode, you can use the cursor keys to move the cursor around the ASCII codes. At the top left of the screen is the edit box. This is where you will edit your characters. The top right of the screen shows you what the character will look like while you change it. Next to that is the ASCII code of the character you are changing. In the middle are the two menus that you will work from. When the program starts you will be in Alphamode. The following are the commands from that menu. ALPHA MODE F1 - Load font F6 - Copy Character F2 - Save Font F7 - Copy Range F3 - Copy Range to Buffer F8 - Shell to DOS F4 - Copy Range From Buffer F9 - Quit to DOS F5 - Goto ASCII # F10- Edit Mode F1 - Load Font. This command will allow you to load one of the fonts that comes with ULTRAFONT, or one of your own fonts, to modify. The program will prompt you for a file name. You must enter the complete filename with extension. All font files must have the .FNT extension to work with FONTLOAD. If you enter a filename that does not exist, you will be told and returned to the ALPHA menu. F2 - Save Font. This command allows you to save your font. Again you will be prompted for a filename. If you enter a filename that already exists, you will be given the choice to overwrite that file or not. F3 - Copy Range to Buffer. This unique feature will allow you to transfer characters between font files. You will first be prompted for the beginning ASCII # for the range you want to copy. Then the program will prompt you for the number of characters to copy into the buffer. If you enter a number that will carry over the 256th ASCII code( ASCII #255 ), the program will tell you that your copy is out of range and you will be sent back to the menu. F4 - Copy Range From Buffer. This option will copy characters that you have already copied into the buffer into the present font. You will be prompted for the ASCII # where you want the characters to be placed. If the range will go over the end of the font file, the program will let you know and return you to the menu. F5 - Goto ASCII #. This command allows you to quickly goto the ASCII character that you want to modify. The program will prompt you for the ASCII number. It is asking for a number between 0 and 255. F6 - Copy character. This command will allow you to copy a character from one location to another. The program will first prompt you for the character to copy, then the location to put it. You must enter the ASCII code for the character, not the letter. F7 - Copy Range. This command will copy a range of characters from one location in the loaded font file to another in the same font file. You will be prompted for the ASCII # of the first character in the range you want to copy. Then you will be asked for the number of characters that you want to copy. Then you will be asked for the ASCII # of the location for the copy. There is no limit to the number of characters in the range to copy. If the destination range will go beyond the 256th ASCII code, you will be told and returned to the main menu. F8 - Shell to DOS. This command will let you shell to DOS. You can use this command to view directories, copy files, or any other valid DOS command. You can even run other programs if they are small enough. You must enter EXIT to resume Ultrafont. F9 - Quit to DOS. This command will quit the program. You must have the character set saved before you exit or all of your changes will be lost. F10 - Change to Edit Mode. This command changes you to edit mode. Edit Mode is described after Alpha Mode. When you change to Edit Mode, the character that the cursor is under will be the character that appears in the edit box for you to modify. You will then be given a new menu of choices for editing. EDIT MODE When you change to edit mode, a few things become apparent. First the character that the cursor was under appears in the large edit box in the upper left hand corner. Also, the character appears in the small box in the upper right corner with its ASCII code next to it. A cursor will appear in the upper left corner of the edit box. In edit mode, the space bar will toggle pixels on and off. The small box in the upper right corner with the character in it is to show you what the character will actually look like on the screen as you modify it in the edit box. Any changes that you make to the character in the edit box will be reflected in the smaller box. The changes you make will only take effect in the font file if you use the Update Alpha command. This command will be explained below. The instructions for the Edit menu are as follows: EDIT MODE F1 - Clear Window F6 - Fill Window F2 - Delete Row (up) F7 - Delete Row F3 - Delete Row (down) F8 - Delete Column F4 - Delete Col.(right) F9 - Update Alpha F5 - Delete Col.(left) F10- Alpha Mode Toggles Pixels F1 - Clear Window. This command will clear the edit box of all pixels. This will give you a clean box to create a character. If you accidently clear the window, you can go back to Alpha mode, position the cursor under that character, and return to Edit mode. F6 - Fill Window. This command fills in all of the pixels in the window. If you hit this key accidentally, you can return to Alpha mode without updating, position the cursor on the same character, and then enter Edit mode again. DELETE COMMAND - Because a major part of editing fonts involves deleting columns and rows, I have included 6 different types of delete commands in the program. Each one works differently and are easy to learn. F7 - Delete Row. This command will clear the row of pixels that the cursor is on. It does not move any of the other rows. F8 - Delete Column. This command will clear the column of pixels that the cursor is on. It does not move any of the other columns. F2 - Delete Row (up). This command will clear the row of pixels that the cursor is on and pull up all of the rows under it. It will then insert a clear row at the bottom of the character. F3 - Delete Row (down). This command will clear the row of pixels that the cursor is on and pull all of the rows above it down. It will then insert a clear row at the top of the character. F4 - Delete Column (right). This command will clear the column that the cursor is on and then pull all of the columns to the right of it in. It will then insert a clear column on the right of the character. F5 - Delete Column (left). This command will clear the column that the cursor is on and then pull all of the columns to the left of it in. It will then insert a clear column on the left of the character. F9 - Update Alpha. When you have finished editing a character, use this command to make those changes permanent. This will update the character grid at the bottom of the screen to reflect the changes that you have made. If you go back to Alpha Mode before you have updated the font, your changes to that character will be lost. Also if you make changes and decide that you don't like them, you can go back to Alpha Mode without updating and your original character will remain with no changes. F10 - Alpha Mode. This command will return you to Alpha Mode. See the above command (Update Alpha) for specifics on character changes. Toggles Pixels. You use the space bar to toggle pixels on and off and the cursor keys on the number pad to move around the edit box. ******** IMPORTANT ********* Don't forget to use the Udate Alpha command when you have finished modifying a character. If you return to Alpha mode before you have updated the character, your changes for that character will be lost. You were forewarned! ******** IMPORTANT ********* FILES INCLUDED: The following files are included in the ULTRAFONT package: 1) ULTRAFNT.EXE - The main character set editor. 2) ULTRAFNT.TXT - This Documentation file. 3) FONTLOAD.TXT - Documentation for Fontload. 4) FONTLOAD.ASM - Asm. source code for Fontload. 5) FONTLOAD.COM - Character set loader. 6) HISTORY.DOC - Revision history of ULTRAFONT. 7) ORDER.FRM - Purchasing Order Form. The following files are the font files provided with the ULTRAFONT package: 1) BOLD.FNT 2) COMPUTER.FNT 3) MEDIEVAL.FNT 4) SCRIPT.FNT 5) SMCAPS.FNT 6) SUPER.FNT 7) THIN.FNT 8) THIN8X8.FNT 9) DEFAULT.FNT WHY I WROTE THIS PROGRAM: I wrote this program out of frustration. I had read in many books on graphics that the EGA and VGA cards had the ability to display user defined character sets. Some books said that only the first 128 characters could be displayed, and others that all 256 could be displayed. I could only find 2 programs that claimed to be editors. The first one was actually an editor for downloadable character sets for laser printers. They had tacked on a display character set editor that didn't even work. Both of the editors were written in text mode so you really couldn't tell what the characters would look like until you left the editor and tried out the new character set. Of course one of the editors didn't work right, so after spending hours designing the most incredible character set ever seen, the program barfed and all of my work was lost. But what really made me mad was the fact that since only EGA and VGA cards had this capability, why would you use text mode to edit the character sets in the first place? ULTRAFONT is designed to remedy the shortcomings of all character set editors that have come before it. It is written in graphics mode so you can immediately see the changes that you are making. It comes with Fontload so you can immediately use your character sets. And its shareware so you don't have to pay a fortune to use it. As an added feature, I've included the source code for Fontload ( Assembly source ) so if your curious, you can see how to load the fonts in your own programs. WHAT IS REQUIRED OF ME? There are only a few things that I require of you. They are as follows: 1) If you use ULTRAFONT, please compensate me for my effort. I am not asking a fortune. Only $15! You can just send me a check! That's not so bad is it? Just print out the file ORDER.FRM and fill it out, or make your own. My address is on the ORDER.FRM and at the bottom of this file. 2) If you don't use ULTRAFONT, pass it on to a friend ( or maybe 1000 friends? ) then delete the program. You shouldn't use it if you don't pay for it. Enough Said! 3) When you give ULTRAFONT to a friend or upload it to a BBS, please include all of the files! 4) And last but not least, if you want to use this in your own programs, fine! But if you offer those programs for sale, I would like to be notified. If you have any comments, suggestions, or just want to send me a check to register your copy of ULTRAFONT, you can reach me as follows: Kurt Pettersen ULTRA SOFTWARE 8733 W. Lancelot Boise, ID 83704 And remember, shareware will help keep prices for good software down only if everyone does their share! THANK YOU'S: First I must thank my wife Lynda for allowing me to spend all hours of the day and night pecking away at the keyboard. Also for pretending to understand what I am saying when I try to explain why a routine isn't working quite right but really having no clue as to what I am talking about! Love Ya! And to all my friends in Boise for graciously beta testing this thing! 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