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New fonts for windowed mode (CP 850)



Raster (or bitmap) screen fonts are a delicate matter. It's necessary to
build every font individually, depending on the available matrix for the
used resolution. My purpose was to obtain fonts for standard XyWrite
that fill the whole screen at 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024. For that
purpose, I have to use a 10x21 matrix in 800x600 mode and a 13x26/12x27
matrix in 1024x786 (different graphics drivers and op sys can modify the
display, so your results may vary slightly). The smaller the matrix,
then more difficult the task of combining readability and design (I
always inspire my versions in classical type1 or truetype monospaced
fonts). No comparison with the result I can obtain in 1280x1024
resolution (16x34 matrix in 28 lines mode, 16x38 matrix in 25 lines
mode). So, I am offering a couple of fonts for both lower resolutions
because fonts also depend on personal taste. The attached screen images
will help users to choose.
The fonts are for windowed mode in CP850 (XYWrite4 default). So, it's
necessary to install the fonts to make them available to Windows (via
Control Panel/Fonts/Install new font) and, afterwards, to set
accordingly the XyWrite Properties in your PIF or LNK file, via
Properties/Screen and set "Window", not "Full Screen"; then, in
Properties/Font, choose the font of your preference by selecting the
proper matrix (10x21 in 800x600, 12x27 in 1024x768, 16x34 in 1280x1024).
Anyhow, here are the new fonts. I would like to receive feed back to
improve them: possible mistakes, ugly characters, possible improvements
for horizontal spacing of characters, etc.

This file is also included in the ZIP package: README.TXT.
Additional remarks
--- 800x600 ---
The fonts fill the whole screen if you are using system SMALL fonts (as
set in Control Panel/Display/Configuration). As they use the same
matrix, they can't be installed at the same time. I didn't apply the
trick described by Robert Holmgren
(http://xywrite.org/msg01725.htm) because it doesn't work
in W95/W98 environments and even makes the font unrecognizable for the
system.

10_21XYM.FON: Lighter version.
10_21_XY.FON: Heavier version.
--- 1024x768 ---
The fonts can be installed at the same time: they have different names
for the system and different sizes. I offer two different designs.
13_26_XY.FON: The font fills the whole screen if you're using system
LARGE fonts but the result is very very slightly bigger horizontally
than the desktop. So, a bar appears at the bottom of the screen that's
in fact useless because you're seeing the whole screen. I am unable to
solve this problem, as far as I know, because it's impossible to match
the number of horizontal pixels exactly, either using a 12 (a bit short)
or 13 matrix (a bit large).
12_27_XY.FON: The font fills the whole screen either if you're using
system SMALL or LARGE fonts in the vertical dimension but a very small
part of the background remains visible on the right border of the screen
(see my former remark). If you use the utility freely available from
Sieber's page (http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/consoleblackfill.zip),
it's perfectly possible to have a completely black background every time
you start (or switch to) XyWrite or another DOS application. If you
decide to use this font, you can start XyWrite via a batch file with a
line dedicated to start the Sieber's utility. So, it wouldn't be
necessary to start the utility every time. It's even possible to trick
the Windows registry to start the Sieber's utility at startup.

--- 1280x1024 ---
I am also including a font for 1280x1024 mode, 28 lines (16x34 matrix):
16_34_XY.FON (Robert: update your old version). It fills the whole
screen if you're using system LARGE fonts. Obviously, it's possible to
use the font in 25 lines mode but, in this case, the XyWrite window
excedes the desktop. This font is also available for ansified XyWrite
but, as I am the only user of this program in the world, I haven't
included it.

I hope this helps.
Manuel Castelao

Attachment: newfonts.zip
Description: Zip archive