Fonts

This chapter deals with installing and selecting fonts for use with JWPce.

  • Fonts Introduction
  • Installing Additional Fonts
  • Choosing an ASCII Font
  • Choosing a Japanese Display Font
  • Choosing a Japanese Printer Font

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  • Fonts Introduction

    Fonts are always an important issue for word processors. For a Japanese word processor, it becomes even more complicated. JWPce uses three distinct fonts:

    JWPce supports bitmapped and TrueType fonts. The standard Japanese fonts distributed with JWPce are bitmapped. They have the advantage of requiring little storage space (compared to most Japanese TrueType fonts), and they can be rendered to the screen very quickly. A bitmapped font is stored as a series of pictures, one for each character. The JWPce distribution includes up to three bitmapped fonts:

    font namefile sizefont description
    k16x16.f00220 KB16x16 bitmapped kanji font
    k24x24.f00561 KB24x24 bitmapped kanji font
    k48x48.f002,247 KB48x48 bitmapped kanji font

    TrueType fonts are not stored as pictures, but rather as instructions for drawing the characters (lines, arcs, fills, etc.). This allows TrueType fonts to be scaled to any size, but makes the font files much bigger. On some systems, these fonts render more slowly, and take up more runtime memory.

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    Installing Additional Fonts

    Installing Additional Bitmapped Fonts

    Bitmapped fonts from other sources can be used with JWPce. Generally, any font that can be used with JWP can be used with JWPce. (There are even font editors for making your own fonts.)

    To install a new bitmapped font, copy the font file into the same directory in which JWPce is located. JWPce will automatically recognize the file as being a font file if it ends with the extension ".f00" (that is F+zero+zero).

    Installing TrueType Fonts

    TrueType fonts are installed just like any other Windows font (generally in the system fonts directory). Currently I do not have a TrueType Japanese font that can be distributed with JWPce, so if you intend to use such fonts, you must obtain them from some other source.


    WARNING! At the time this manual was being written, most Windows CE machines that support TrueType fonts do not correctly indicate the font as supporting Japanese, so you may have to use the
    Show all fonts option.

    How to get Japanese TrueType fonts

    Due to copyright concerns, at this time I do not have a TrueType font that I can safely distribute with JWPce. (I tend to be very strict about these things.) I can, however, point out two good sources for TrueType Japanese fonts.

    The first source for Japanese TrueType fonts is Microsoft. Microsoft has made two nice TrueType fonts available in the Japanese support kit for Microsoft Office, and in the Japanese support kit for Internet Explorer. (For Office-97, the Japanese support kit was included on the Office CD. For Office-95, it had to be downloaded from Microsoft's web site. I do not know about Office-2000. The Japanese support kit for Internet Explorer can be downloaded from the Internet Explorer Support Site after getting Internet Explorer.)

    Other TrueType font(s) (as well as the Microsoft fonts) can be obtained from The Monash Nihongo ftp Archive (many many thanks to Jim Breen).


    Choosing an ASCII Font

    The ASCII font can be chosen on the Font/Format page of the Options dialog box (Utilities/Options... or Ctrl+O). The ASCII font control will only allow you to choose an English-based TrueType font. For the ASCII font, you choose only the font face. JWPce automatically matches this font to the size of the Japanese font used on the screen and for printing.

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    Choosing a Japanese Display Font

    The Japanese display font can be chosen on the Font/Format page of the Options dialog box (Utilities/Options... or Ctrl+O). The display font should be chosen to provide good readability on your screen, not to match the printer font size. For example, a 10 point font on a typical screen comes out to be about 8x8 pixels, and is completely unreadable. In any case, JWPce can still display the text formatted as it will appear on the printer.

    Most people will use the k16x16.f00 font for the display. If you have a very high resolution display you may consider the k24x24.f00 font.

    If you are using a TrueType font for the display, you will need to select the pixel height. Because TrueType fonts do not have a fixed height, you need to choose a display size. Normally we think of font sizes in terms of points or some other unit of length, however JWPce uses pixels as the unit of the display font. This was done to make sure you realize that the size of this font does not effect printing, and furthermore, screen resolutions are given in pixels.

    Choosing Fonts for Special Cases

    There are some cases when you may want to make unusual font choices, such as when you are using the BITMAP clipboard format. The resolution of the BITMAP copied to the clipboard depends on the resolution of the display font. If you want a high-resolution image, you should use a large display font and then reduce the size of the bitmap when used. This provides a higher resolution bitmap that will look much better when printed.

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    Choosing a Japanese Printer Font

    The Japanese printer font can be chosen on the Font/Format page of the Options dialog box (Utilities/Options... or Ctrl+O).

    First, enter a number for the Actual Printed font size (points); whichever font you choose will be scaled to this size. From this number JWPce determines almost all the printing parameters (including the size of the ASCII font, various spacing parameters, etc.).

    Second, choose the actual font that will be scaled to the size chosen above. Generally, the best approach is to allow JWPce to choose the font for you. This can be done by selecting the Auto option. In Auto mode, JWPce attempts to match the printer font to your display font. If you are using a TrueType font, the same font will be used for the printer. If you are using a bitmapped font, JWPce will choose a bitmapped font with higher resolution than the printer (or the best resolution available).


    WARNING! Vertical printing is only supported for TrueType fonts that contain a vertical glyph substitution table (this should be included in all fonts, but you never know). If you use a TrueType font without such a table, JWPce will default to using the bitmapped fonts for vertical printing.

    Choosing Fonts for Special Cases

    There are special cases where you may want or need to set the printer font by hand. First, if you are using a non-standard bitmapped font (not one of the three distributed with JWPce) and want to use that font for printing, you will need to select that font by hand, because JWPce does not know about other installed bitmapped fonts.

    Another case is for printing drafts. When printing drafts you can sometimes speed up the printing by choosing a lower resolution font (if at all and by how much depends on the printer and printer drivers you are using). Surprisingly, even the k16x16.f00 font provides quite readable output.

    Another case when one may want to consider not using Auto font selection is when you are using a bitmapped font for the display and want to use a TrueType font for printing. This may seem to be strange, but the bitmapped fronts have been optimized for display at their specific resolutions, and can sometimes look better on the screen than TrueType fonts.

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