[33mWHAT IS AN AMIGA FONT? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FONT: A SET OF LETTERS, NUMBERS, AND SYMBOLS THAT SHARE THE SAME BASIC DESIGN[0m A Font is one single set of characters which may include Upper Case (capital letters), Lower Case (small letters), punctuation marks, numerals, symbols, accents, and even foreign language characters. All characters of a Font have the same height. Another word for Font is "typeface". An Amiga disk Font comes in three components. First, there is a data file which contains a bitmap of the individual characters of the Font as they will appear on the video screen. The Font data file name is always a number that represents the pixel height of the font; so Topaz 12 is a set of characters which are twelve or less pixels tall. The Font name is "12" and the name Topaz is the name of the font family. A Font family usually includes varying sizes of a similar Font style. The second component of an Amiga disk Font is a special file named FONTNAME.FONT that is called the Font header. The header file tells the Amiga where the Fonts are located on the disk, and the sizes of the individual Fonts. The Font header file serves two important purposes for software applications that use Fonts as a pointer and as an index. As a pointer, the Font header file simply points to the Font family directory. As an index the Font header file serves to keep an accurate list of what Fonts are actually in the Font directory and some attributes of the Fonts found there. The header file must be located on the same directory level as the Font family directory name. The Font header file is not displayed in the file display area of the file requester because it is not a Font and cannot be loaded for editing. It can be seen using CLI. Here's a listing of a Font directory as it would appear from CLI: 1> Dir Fonts ruby (dir) [33m <-[0m opal (dir) [33m \[0m sapphire (dir) [33m \[0m diamond (dir) [33m --------------- Font Collection Subdirectories [0m garnet (dir) [33m /[0m emerald (dir) [33m /[0m topaz (dir) [33m <-[0m diamond.font emerald.font garnet.font opal.font ruby.font sapphire.font[33m <--- Font Header File [0m topaz.font Here's what is inside a Font Collection Subdirectory: 1> Dir Fonts/emerald 17 20[33m <--------- Individual Font[0m [33m****** USING COLORFONTS WITH AMIGA SOFTWARE ******[0m In order to use the Calligrapher's ColorFonts with Amiga Software, the software must be capable of loading standard 2-color Amiga Fonts and displaying color. As of this writing, the current version of WorkBench is not capable of immediately interpreting the information contained in a ColorFont file. This means that unless the program being used specifically supports ColorFonts, the font will not be displayed with its correct Color. The way to remedy this is to use the included ColorText program on your Calligrapher Disk. ColorText intercepts calls to the Amiga Font routines and replaces them with special software that enables ColorFonts. Since the ColorText program resides in the background, it will not interfere with other software on the system. ColorText must be run before the application using the ColorFonts. To enable ColorText, just click on the ColorText icon from the Workbench. The title bar will show that is is activated (run from CLI, just type RUN ColorText). There is usually not much room on the distribution diskettes of Calligrapher for large ColorFonts, but Fonts can be located on any diskette. The CLI command, ASSIGN FONTS: is used to inform Amiga software that the Fonts are located elsewhere. A software utility is included on the Calligrapher diskette called FontAssign. FontAssign allows the ASSIGN command to be issued from the Workbench , instead of CLI. [33mNOTE: Make sure that the ASSIGN program is included in the C directory [33m of the disk that the FontAssign utility is located.[0m Use the FontAssign utility before loading the software application that will use the Fonts. Just click on the FontAssign icon to activate the program. Click in the HELP box for a brief description of the utility. To assign a Font directory click into the lowest box in the FontAssign window. Type the path and directory name of the Fonts directory. Typical path names are DF1:, RAM:FONTS, DF1:FONTS or DF1:COLORFONTS. [33m DO NOT SELECT A SINGLE FONT DIRECTORY SUCH AS: DF1:FONTS/TOPAZ [33m [33mNOTE: An alternative is to name a diskette with the name FONTS. Place the [33m Font directories and the FontName.Font files in the root directory [33m instead of the Fonts directory. When an application looks for the [33m Fonts, it will find them on the root directory of the disk named [33m FONTS before it finds the subdirectory FONTS on its own disk. This [33m eliminates the need to use the ASSIGN command. [33m [33mUSING COLORTEXT WITH DELUXEPAINT II [33m~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[0m It is highly recommended to have at least 1 Meg of RAM on the Amiga to fully utilize ColorFonts and DeluxePaint. ColorFonts can take up a lot of memory (a 30 point ColorFont can use 50K Bytes of RAM). If there is not enough memory on the Amiga, a System message "Couldn't open Font" will be displayed when trying to load a ColorFont. Memory can be saved by selecting Lo-Res and 16 colors. If the "Couldn't open Font" message is displayed, it helps to first load a small topaz Font and then a larger ColorFont. NOTE: The colors of a ColorFont may look strange. The DPaint color palette may not be correct for the Font being used. When creating Fonts it is recommended that a Brush be saved from the Calligrapher with the same color palette information that is used in the Font. This is extremely important to remember because the Foint contains only 16 of a possible 4096 colors. To convert the palette in DPaint to the Brush's, first load the Brush, then select USE BRUSH PALETTE from the COLOR CONTROL menu selection. The Calligrapher is able to convert an IFF Brush created in DPaint into a Font character. Loading Brushers from DeluxePaint for use in the Calligrapher can be a problem because Lo-Res uses 32 colors and the Calligrapher only uses 16. If a Brush is loaded into the Calligrapher with 32 colors, only the first 16 will be used. To convert a 32 color image to a 16 color image, first load the 32 color image. Grab the Brush that will be used in the Calligrapher. Clear the screen to remove any other colors not used in the Brush. Place the Brush on the screen and select SCREEN FORMAT. Modify the numbers of colors on the screen from 32 to 16. The palette will be reconstructed to best reflect the colors on the screen. The new Brush can then be saved and used in the Calligrapher.