Xerox ElixirFont for AFP User Guide

E

ElixirFont

for AFP™

User Guide

June 1999

Version 4.00

Elixir Technologies Corporation
P.O. Box 1559
Ojai, CA 93024

Copyright © 1999 by Elixir Technologies Corporation.
All rights reserved.

June 1999
Version 4.00
Printed in the United States of America

Trademarks and Service Marks/Company:
Elixir/Elixir Technologies Corporation

HP, PCL, LaserJet+/Hewlett Packard Company
IBM, Personal Computer, AT, PS/2, AFP, and all other
IBM products mentioned in this publication are trade­marks of International Business Machines.
MS-DOS, Microsoft Mouse, Windows/Microsoft Cor­poration
LapLink/Travelling Software, Inc.

All other product names and trade names used herein
are trademarks of their respective owners.

Copyright protection claimed includes all forms and
matters of copyrightable material and information now
allowed by statutory or judicial law or hereinafter
granted, including without limitation, material gener­ated from the software programs which is displayed
on the screen such as icons, screen display looks,
etc.

Changes are periodically made to this document.
Changes, technical inaccuracies, and typographic er­rors will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Table of contents

1. Introduction 1-1

Customer support 1-2
Elixir training 1-2
ElixirFont environment 1-2
Who should use this guide 1-3
Conventions 1-3

Display conventions 1-3

Typographical conventions 1-3
On-line Help 1-4
Organization of this Guide 1-6
Installation 1-7
Starting ElixirFont 1-8
Exiting ElixirFont 1-10

2. ElixirFont basics 2-1

Main screen components 2-1
ElixirFont menu bar 2-2

File menu 2-3

System menu 2-4

Window menu 2-5

Help menu 2-5
Toolbox 2-5

Tools 2-6

Toolbox options 2-7
Character Set window menu bar 2-8

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Charset menu 2-8
Edit menu 2-9
Font menu 2-9
Char menu 2-10
Transforms menu 2-10

Code Page window menu bar 2-11

CodePage menu 2-11
CodePoint menu 2-12
View menu 2-12

3. Font structure 3-1

AFP font structure 3-1

Type family 3-1
Typeface 3-2
Type font 3-2

AFP font types 3-2

Unbounded Box fonts 3-3
Bounded Box fonts 3-3

AFP font components 3-3

Character set 3-3
Code page 3-4
Coded font 3-4

AFP font characteristics 3-5

Inline (Print) direction 3-5
Character baseline 3-6
Character rotation 3-7
Toned-Pel box 3-8
Printing adjacent characters 3-8
Raster-Pattern box 3-10
Ascenders and descenders 3-11
Baseline positioning 3-11
Kerning 3-12
Summary: Character placement 3-13

Bounded-box 3-13

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Unbounded-box 3-14

AFP font naming conventions 3-14

Bounded-box naming convention 3-14

Unbounded-box naming convention 3-14

Code Page naming convention 3-15
Elixir font structure 3-16
Elixir font converted from a non-AFP source 3-16
Elixir font converted from an AFP source 3-17

PC-mapped Elixir fonts 3-17

Full character set Elixir fonts 3-18
Elixir character set and font differences 3-19

4. Loading fonts and code pages 4-1

Loading an Elixir-format character set 4-1
Loading a non-AFP font 4-3

Reformatting to a character set 4-5

Loading as a non-AFP font 4-7
Creating new character sets 4-8

Creating a new PC-mapped font 4-9

Adding a bitmap to a cell 4-10

Creating a new AFP character set 4-10
Loading a Code Page 4-12
Editing a code page 4-15

5. Editing non-AFP fonts 5-1

Font basics 5-1
ElixirFont tools 5-3

Select tool 5-3

Edit tool 5-4

Edit Window menu bar 5-5
Edit Window Toolbar 5-6

Edit tool options 5-7
Transform tool 5-9
Kill tool 5-10
Character Properties tool 5-10

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copy tool 5-12
Swap tool 5-12
Merge tool 5-13
Sample tool 5-15
Font Properties tool <Ctrl> + <F2> 5-16

Header submenus 5-17

6. Transforming non-AFP fonts 6-1

Transformation tool options 6-3

Resize 6-4
Rotate 6-5
Shift 6-6
Slant 6-7
Darken 6-8
Lighten 6-9
Underline 6-10
Reverse 6-11
Filter 6-12
Outline 6-13
Halftone 6-15
Mirror 6-17

7. Editing Elixir-formatcharacter sets 7-1

Character set basics 7-1
Editing Elixir fonts 7-2
ElixirFont tools 7-2

Select tool 7-3
Edit tool 7-4

Edit Window menu bar 7-5
Edit Window Toolbar 7-6

Edit tool options 7-7
Transform tool 7-9
Kill tool 7-10
Character Properties tool 7-10
Copy tool 7-12

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Swap tool 7-13
Merge tool 7-13
Sample tool 7-16
Font Properties tool <Ctrl> + <F2> 7-18

Header submenus 7-19

8. Transforming Elixir-format character sets 8-1

Transformation tool options 8-3

Resize 8-4
Rotate 8-5
Shift 8-6
Slant 8-7
Darken 8-8
Lighten 8-9
Underline 8-10
Underlining the entire character set 8-11
Reverse 8-13
Reversing the entire character set 8-13
Filter 8-16
Outline 8-17
Halftone 8-19
Mirror 8-21

A. Keyboard shortcuts A-1

Glossary GLOSSARY-1

Index INDEX-1

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE vii

1. Introduction

This User Guide describes ElixirFont for AFP™, a so­phisticated bitmap character set editor that allows you
to create and edit character sets in what-you-see-is­what-you-get (WYSIWYG) format.

With ElixirFont, you can perform the following opera­tions to fonts:

edit individual characters in a font by providing
tools to manipulate each character bitmap

apply transformations to one, all, or a sequence
of characters in a font, enabling you to embolden,
italicize, underline and perform other
transformations

display and change character or font properties
such as kerning, baseline offset, orientation, etc.

The current release of ElixirFont fully supports charac­ter set editing and creation for conversion to and from
AFP bounded-box and unbounded-box fonts, double­byte fonts, and HP fonts.

In conjunction with the Elixir Desktop and Converters
for AFP, fonts can easily be imported and converted
to Elixir's generic font format, edited, and reconverted
back to their original or other formats.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 1-1

INTRODUCTION

Customer support

Elixir customer support centers provide telephone
technical assistance for Elixir users during business
hours.

If you have purchased your Elixir product directly from
Elixir Technologies then contact one of the support
center hotlines.

See the Elixir Getting Started Guide for information
about contacting your support center.

Elixir training

Elixir Technologies Corporation offers training for the
full range of our Windows-based family of products.
For more information, contact:

Elixir Learning
[phone] ext. 6

ElixirFont environment

ElixirFont is designed to work with the Elixir Desktop
for AFP, a Windows-based desktop. The Elixir Desk­top simplifies file conversions and management by
providing icons which you can manipulate with simple
mouse drag-and-drop techniques (see the Elixir Desk-
top and Converters for AFP User's Guide for more
information).

Other Elixir products that you can use with ElixirFont
are:

ElixirImage for AFP, a Windows-based bitmap
graphics editor you can use to tile Elixir-format
images into Elixir-format fonts (see the Elix-
irImage for AFP User's Guide for more
information).

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ElixirForm for AFP, a forms creation package that
enables users to create and edit boilerplate forms
using standard OGL form elements (see the Elix-
irForm for AFP User's Guide for more
information).

Who should use this guide

This guide is intended for users familiar with AFP
character sets and with AFP page printing resources.

Knowledge of Windows and DOS, specifically naviga­tion through directory and subdirectory structures and
file operations is also required.

Conventions

This section describes display and typographical con­ventions used in this guide.

INTRODUCTION

Display conventions

ElixirFont adheres to Microsoft Windows conventions
for using menus, menu commands, dialog boxes,
command buttons, icons and a mouse. See your
Windows manual for more information.

Typographical conventions

The following typographical conventions are used
throughout this guide.

Keystrokes are shown enclosed in < > (angle
brackets). For example, <Enter>.

Key combinations are denoted by a plus sign be­tween keys. For example, <Shift> + <F1> indi­cates to simultaneously press the <Shift> and the
<F1> keys.

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INTRODUCTION

Menu titles are shown in bold. Menu options are
enclosed in [ ] (square brackets). For example,

Pull down the File menu and select [New Font].
Commands, options, actions, and parameters

that require description are shown in bold fol­lowed on the next line by the description. For ex­ample:

Delete

Deletes the selected characters.
Steps in a procedure are shown in numbered bold

paragraphs. For example

1. Pull down the Window menu and select [Tile].

Comments relating to a step (such as this para­graph) are shown in regular text following the bold
paragraph.

On-line Help

Elixir software uses the Microsoft Windows Help pro­gram to provide on-line Help for all functions.

For more information about Windows Help, select the
[How to Use Help] option in the Help menu, or see
your Microsoft Windows documentation.

The Help files included with your Elixir software in­clude graphics created using screen drivers with large
fonts. If you use a screen driver with small fonts, the
Help file graphics may not display clearly. For opti­mum graphics display, use a screen driver with large
fonts.

You can display on-line Help in the following ways:

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INTRODUCTION

Bubble Help

Click on an icon with the right mouse button to view its
properties (if applicable) or to display "bubble help."
Bubble help is a short description of the icon function
that displays in a bubble extending from the icon.

Quick Help

Enable the quick function by selecting the quick help
option in the Usage Switches (or Preferences -- for
ElixirImage) dialog box. When you move the screen
pointer over an icon on the screen, a short description
of the icon function displays in the message area of
the screen. During certain operations a message
about the function you are performing also displays in
the message area. To see these operational mes­sages, disable quick help.

Context sensitive Help

To use this function, click on an icon and press <F1>.
If available, the appropriate Help topic displays. If no
specific topic is available, the Help table of contents
displays.

Help menu

Select [Help] from the top pull-down menu and choose
one of the displayed topics.

Dialog box Help

Click on the [Help] button in a dialog box to view an
associated Help topic. Under Windows 95 and Win­dows NT, right-click on a dialog box option to display
an associated Help topic.

Help pop-ups and jumps

Within Help topic text, words or phrases underlined in
green are pop-ups or jumps. When you click on a
pop-up topic, a box displays within the current Help
topic with additional information. When you click on a
jump, a different, associated Help topic displays.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 1-5

INTRODUCTION

Help hypergraphics

Hypergraphics are special graphics within Help files
that contain "hot spots". Hot spots are either pop-up
topics or jumps. Hypergraphics in Elixir Help are most
commonly dialog boxes with option hot spots (pop-up
definitions), toolboxes with tool hot spots (topic
jumps), and menus with option hot spots (topic jumps
or pop-up definitions).

Move the cursor over a hypergraphic until a hand dis­plays, then click on this hot spot to display a pop-up
topic, or a "jump". To close a pop-up topic, click the
mouse button. To return to the original Help topic
from a jump, click on <Back> in the Help file menu.

Organization of this Guide

This guide includes the following:

an overview of AFP font structure
how ElixirFont handles fonts converted from AFP

and non-AFP formats

ElixirFont features and how to use them.
This User Guide is organized as follows:
Chapter 1, "Introduction," provides an overview of

ElixirFont and describes how to install and start Elixir­Font. It also gives additional information about the
contents of this manual.

Chapter 2, "ElixirFont basics," describes the layout
and components that make up the ElixirFont main
screen.

Chapter 3, "Font structure," describes the AFP and
Elixir-format font structure, and the AFP terminology
used throughout this guide. If you are not familiar with
font structures and, specifically, AFP character sets,
we strongly recommend that you read this chapter.

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INTRODUCTION

Chapter 4, "Loading fonts and code pages," de­scribes how to create a new character set, load an ex­isting font, and load and edit a code page.

Chapter 5, "Editing non-AFP fonts," describes how
you can edit fonts originating from non-AFP sources.

Chapter 6, "Transforming non-AFP fonts," describes
how to apply a variety of transformations to individual
characters and to the entire font.

Chapter 7, "Editing Elixir-format character sets," de­scribes how to edit character header values and char­acter bitmaps, and how to merge, sample, copy, and
delete characters from an Elixir-format character set.

Chapter 8. "Transforming Elixir-format character sets,"
describes how to apply a variety of transformations to
individual characters and to the entire character set.

Glossary.
Index.

Installation

See the Elixir for AFP Getting Started Guide for instal­lation information.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 1-7

INTRODUCTION

Starting ElixirFont

You can only start ElixirFont from the Elixir Desktop.
To start ElixirFont from the Elixir Desktop, open

(double-click on) the ElixirFont icon at the right of the
Desktop.

The ElixirFont main screen displays.

Figure 1-1. ElixirFont main screen

Alternatively, with the Elixir Desktop displayed:

1. Open the Elixir Fonts folder.

2. Make sure you selected the [Show Charset]

option (as shown below) or the [Show Coded

Fonts] option in the Filter menu.

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INTRODUCTION

Figure 1-2. Elixir Fonts folder

3. Open (double-click on) any .HDR font file.

The ElixirFont Character Set window displays the font
loaded.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 1-9

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1-3. Loaded font in ElixirFont

Exiting ElixirFont

To exit ElixirFont, double-click on the Exit button at
the top left of the main screen.

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2. ElixirFont basics

This chapter describes the layout and components
that make up the ElixirFont main screen.

Main screen components

The ElixirFont main screen contains the following
components:

ElixirFont menu bar
Toolbox
Character Set window menu bar
Code Page window menu bar.

Start the ElixirFont application by double-clicking on
the ElixirFont icon. The main screen displays.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-1

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Toolbox

Character Set Window

Character Set Window

Menu Bar

Main Menu Bar

Code Page Window

Menu Bar

Code Page Window

Figure 2-1. ElixirFont main screen

ElixirFont menu bar

The ElixirFont menu bar controls:

loading and saving character sets, coded fonts,

and code pages

usage switches

window display

access to Help files.

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File menu

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Figure 2-2. ElixirFont menu bar

The File menu allows you to:

load and save character sets, coded fonts, and
code pages

exit ElixirFont.

Open Coded Font

Displays the Load Coded Font dialog box listing .CDF
files. Select a coded font and click on [OK].

Open Charset

Displays the Load Charset dialog box listing .HDR
files. Select a character set and click on [OK].

Open Code Page

Displays the Load Code Page dialog box listing .COD
files. Select a code page and click on [OK].

Save Coded Font

Allows you to save the .CDF file with the names of the
currently loaded character set and code page.

Save Charset as

Allows you to save an edited character set under a
new name or an existing name (overwrites old file).

Save Code Page as

Allows you to save an edited .COD code page file un­der a new name or an existing name (overwrites old
file).

Exit <Alt + F4>

Exits ElixirFont and returns you to the Desktop.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-3

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

System menu

The

System

menu allows you to:

set usage switches

reset to defaults

save customized configurations.

Usage Switches

Displays the Usage Switches dialog box with the fol­lowing options:

Figure 2-3. Usage Switches

dialog box

Save State on Exit

Select to save your customized settings. Unse-

lected returns settings to ElixirFont defaults.

Show Quick Help

Select to display short descriptions in the area un-

der the ElixirFont menu bar.

Always bring Toolbox to top

Select to have the Toolbox always display on top

of any window (no need to tile windows to access

Toolbox).

Convert non-AFP font to Charset on load

Select to load and reformat fonts as an Elixir-

format character set. Unselected loads the font

as a non-AFP font.

Highlight chars in the Code Page

Select to display all fonts referenced in the code

page as a different color in the Character Set

window.

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Window menu

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Select Charset with Code Point

Reserved for future use.

Reset to Defaults

Resets all configuration parameters to the ElixirFont
default values.

Save Configuration

Saves your customized settings rather than resetting
to ElixirFont defaults.

Help menu

Toolbox

The

Window

dow displays. You can:

tile all displayed windows
toggle the display on or off for the Character Set,

Code Page, and Toolbox windows.

The Help menu allows you to access the on-line help
files for ElixirFont. See the "Introduction" chapter for
information about how to use on-line help.

The left side of the screen shows the Toolbox which
contains buttons you can select to view, edit, and ma­nipulate individual characters or the entire font.

menu controls the way each editing win-

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-5

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Tools

At the top of the Toolbox are the tools you can select.
These display in two rows as shown in the following
figure.

Select

Edit Bitmap

Transform (selected)

Kill

Character

Properties

Font
Properties

Sample

Merge

Swap

Copy

Figure 2-4. ElixirFont tools

2-6 ELIXIR TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION

Toolbox options

Undo last operation

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

This section describes ElixirFont tools and their
functions.

Select a tool to display options for that tool at the bot­tom of the Toolbox. Most tools also contain the op­tions shown below.

Tools

Suspend current
conversion

Apply current tool
or conversion

In this area, diff­erent options
display depending
on the tool you select

Options

Figure 2-5. Toolbox example

The middle buttons allow you to undo the last opera­tion, suspend the current conversion, or to apply the
current tool or conversion.

If you suspend the current conversion, the undo op­eration may not be available.

The area below the buttons contains different options
depending on the selected tool.

The ElixirFont tools are described in more detail in the
following chapters of this guide.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-7

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Character Set window menu bar

You use the Character Set window menu bar for cre­ating, editing, and saving character sets with selected
coded fonts.

Figure 2-6. Character Set window menu bar

Charset menu

The options in the
open, and save a coded font, and merge character
sets together.

New Charset

Allows you to create a new character set through use
of several dialog boxes requesting information about
your new character set. Once you have entered the
required information, the new character set displays.

Open Charset

Displays the Load Charset dialog box listing .HDR
files. Select a character set and click on [OK].

Open Coded Font

Displays the Load Coded Font dialog box listing .CDF
files. Select a coded font and click on [OK].

Save Charset

Allows you to save a character set.

Save Charset as

Allows you to save an edited character set under a
new name or an existing name (overwrites old file).

Save Coded Font

Allows you to save the .CDF file with the same name.

Charset

menu allow you to create,

Merge Charsets

Displays the Load Charset for Merge dialog box listing
the .HDR files. Select a character set to merge with
the currently displayed character set and click on
[OK].

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Edit menu

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Font menu

The

menu allows you to undo actions and delete

Edit

or select/unselect characters or entire character sets.

Undo

Undoes the last edit operation.

Delete

Allows you to delete selected characters

.

Select all

Allows you to select all characters in the character set.

Unselect all

Allows you to unselect all selected characters in the
character set.

The Font menu allows access to information about
the properties and statistics of a complete font and re­format of a non-AFP font. You can also view a sam­ple of how the font will print.

Properties

Displays the Font Properties dialog box which pro­vides values and parameters of the loaded character
set.

Statistics

Displays the Size of Elixir Format Font dialog box
which provides the size (bytes) of each component
(headers, bitmaps, etc.), and the total size of the
loaded character set.

Sample

Displays a sample pad showing the characters as they
will print on a page.

Reformat

Allows you to reformat a non-AFP font to AFP. Dis­abled if an AFP character set is loaded.

Convert

For future implementation.

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-9

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Char menu

Sort

Sorts characters by their GCID's.

The
an individual character.

Properties

Displays the Character and CodePoint Properties dia­log box which provides rotation, GCID, and character­istics of an individual font.

Copy

Allows you to copy a selected font to a new location.

Kill

Allows you to remove a selected character from a
character set.

Swap

Allows you to swap a selected character with another
character.

Load Image

Displays the Load Image dialog box which allows you
to load BMP, LP3, PCX, or TIF images. Size limit is
64K.

Transforms menu

The Transforms menu allows you to perform trans­formation options to selected characters or to a com­plete character set. See the chapters on transforming
for complete option descriptions.

menu provides properties and statistics of

Char

Code Page window menu bar

The Code Page window menu bar allows you to cre­ate, load, and save code pages, edit code points, and
control how the Code Page window displays.

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CodePage menu

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

Figure 2-7. Code Page window menu bar

The

CodePage

menu allows you to create, save, or

open an existing code page.

New Code Page

Displays the Code Page Properties dialog box which
provides options that include:

Code Page description
default character information
variable space character information.

Open Code Page

Displays the Load Code Page dialog box listing .COD
files. Select a code page and click on [OK].

Open Coded Font

Displays the Load Coded Font dialog box listing .CDF
files. Select a coded font and click on [OK].

Save Code Page

Allows you to save the loaded code page, overwriting
the original. No warning is given if you edited charac­ters within the code page.

Save Code Page as

Allows you to save an edited code page under a new
name or an existing name (overwrites old file).

Save Coded Font

Allows you to save the loaded coded font file, overwrit­ing the original. If you loaded a character set and
coded font individually, the program prompts you for
the name of the coded font, either creating a new file
or overwriting the existing file.

Properties

Displays the Code Page Properties dialog box con­taining the following:

Code Page description
default character information

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 2-11

ELIXIRFONT BASICS

CodePoint menu

variable space character information.

View menu

The

CodePoint

menu allows you to edit code points.

Properties

Displays the Code Point Properties dialog box which
provides GCID, hex/decimal, and flag information.

Copy

Allows you to copy selected code points.

Swap

Allows you to swap selected code points.

Delete

Allows you to remove a code point.

Undo

Undoes the last edit operation.

The View menu allows you to select the Code Page
window display:

Real Size

Displays the Code Page at actual size.

Fit to Window

Adjusts the display of the Code Page to fit in the Code
Page window.

By Column

Displays the Code Page by column.

By Row

Displays the Code Page by row.

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3. Font structure

This chapter describes AFP and Elixir font structures
and how ElixirFont handles fonts originating from AFP
and non-AFP sources. We strongly recommend that
you read this chapter, even if you are familiar with
AFP fonts. If you are not familiar with AFP fonts, you
should also read IBM's Host Font Data Stream Refer-
ence and About Type manuals.

ElixirFont uses a proprietary structure that enables
you to display and edit characters in a WYSIWYG for­mat.

Converters in the Elixir Desktop allow you to convert
fonts from AFP Bounded Box and Unbounded Box,
Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Bitstream Facelift outline
(contour) formats, to Elixir format fonts.

AFP font structure

To understand AFP fonts, you must have a basic un­derstanding of some general font-related definitions.
The following sections describe the components of a
type family, a term that encompasses all the charac­teristics of printed text.

Type family

A type family is a group of typefaces that have a com­mon basic design but can vary in size and style. Ex­amples of type families are:

Sonoran Sans Serif
Courier
ITC Avant Garde Gothic

ELIXIRFONT FOR AFP USER GUIDE 3-1