How can I add an extra character or symbol to an existing ttf file?
Cerulean
to add one in and make it work. I use an old editor, Font Creator
Program 3, and it's quite intuitive but I've never known how to add a
character and then to get it to work with the right keystroke. Now,
admittedly, the last time I tried to do this was some years back and
don't remember the ins and outs only that after returning again and
again to the issue over a period of a few weeks, I never got it to
work.
Is there an easy way to do this? I use FixedSys for all my text files
but it doesn't have the TM symbol (Alt+153). I downloaded a ttf of
this file and thought I'd try to add it myself. It's for personal use
only and I'd like to know how to do this so that anytime I find a
character not in the font, I can add it myself. That would end a lot
of grief over black blocks in my text files (usually replaceable
hyphens and quotations marks, but occasionally there are symbols that
just aren't there like the TM one).
Thanks in advance. :)
Cerulean
Bill
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open both fonts in the font editor window. Select the character you
want to use and copy it (ctrl c), paste it (ctrl v) in position on the
font in which you are adding it. When you are finished adding
characters, save the "new" font, install it and you are all set.
Bill
Cerulean
Yes, I've tried that before but that has never worked. _If_ the
character is already there and I'm just overwriting the symbol, then
all is well. But if it's adding a completely new character/symbol,
then simple copy-pasting doesn't do it. It adds the character, yes,
but not how to access it.
Perhaps what I need to know is what the process is called ... it must
have a name. How do you associate a font character/symbol to a
keystroke from the keyboard? i.e., how does a font signal to the
computer that, for example, Alt+172 gives 1/4?
Once I know the term for doing that, then I could research this
process so that I can then really get into editing my fonts.
Pls and thanks. :)
Cerulean
wrote:
Found it! I googled and, for once, got lucky right away. In a forum,
there was a message titled "How to enable a glyph, so it can be used
as a character?" (http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?t=1603).
It shows my own editor, though a much more advanced version, with
screenshots. I'll study this. It should be straightforward once I
wade through the instructions.
I'm mapping a glyph to a character, apparently. Hmmm. Interesting.
So now I'm assuming I can copy-paste anything I want and then go into
the properties and do this mapping. If we can't find the
symbol/character we're looking for (I'm trying to add the TM symbol to
a font that doesn't have it), then we can go here, apparently:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/
Thanks. I suspect I'm on my way. Cheers. :)
Cerulean
wrote:
Awesome. A many years' long problem may be resolved. I've used
Metapad, a powerful freeware Notepad replacement program, for about 9
years now. But it's always defaulted to a programmers' preferred font
called Fixedsys font which I've gotten used to over the yeas. This
font looks and acts the same and is clear on all computers I've ever
worked on. But the Fixedsys font doesn't have many of the regular
extra symbols.
For the most part, I've worked around that. Fancy quotation marks, I
just would replace all the blocks that show up denoting the fancy
quotation marks with the plain, straight quotation marks. Long
hyphens? Replaced all those blocks with regular hyphens. So could
live with this font, by and large because its pros outweighed the
cons, mostly. However, things like the Trademark symbol and such,
you can't get around.
I found a freeware version of the Fixedsys.fon and I'm going to be
modifying it as I go along. Soon I'll have the ease of the Fixedsys
font with one that supports all characters (glyphs?). So sometime
soon, I'll be able to save any webpage text, etc., without fiddling.
Thanks for helping me get to what seems the right solution. :)
Cerulean
wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:09:21 -0500, Cerulean <Spam...@NOTallowed.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:35:24 -0700 (PDT), Bill
>><billsr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Oct 18, 7:01�am, Cerulean <Spamm...@NOTallowed.com> wrote:
>>>> I've edited fonts before, so I'm okay with that but I don't know how
>>>> to add one in and make it work. �I use an old editor, Font Creator
>>>> Program 3, and it's quite intuitive but I've never known how to add a
[Snip]
>Found it! I googled and, for once, got lucky right away. In a forum,
>there was a message titled "How to enable a glyph, so it can be used
>as a character?" (http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?t=1603).
>It shows my own editor, though a much more advanced version, with
>screenshots. I'll study this. It should be straightforward once I
>wade through the instructions.
Okay, I've got it now. I ended up being able to add characters by
inserting a glyph (simple copy-pasting didn't always create a new
one). Then with that new blank glyph selected, I went back to the
font that had the character I wanted and _then_ copied that glyph to
the clipboard and then went back to the target font and pasted the
character into the new, blank glyph.
>I'm mapping a glyph to a character, apparently. Hmmm. Interesting.
>
>So now I'm assuming I can copy-paste anything I want and then go into
>the properties and do this mapping. If we can't find the
>symbol/character we're looking for (I'm trying to add the TM symbol to
>a font that doesn't have it), then we can go here, apparently:
>http://www.unicode.org/charts/
This turned out to be easier than I would have thought. I found that
the information is located in the properties of the source glyph
itself to begin with. The trick was figuring out which "Block" the
"Character" I was looking for was under. The Trademark symbol has the
value of $2122 which led me to the category: "$2100 to $214F -
Letterlike Symbols". Once I clicked on that "Block" in my font editor
I could find and assign the Trademark symbol to my new Fixedsys.ttf
equivalent glyph.
This is going to be great. I have, I believe, achieved the end result
I've always wanted. I have the my preferred font yet it will no
longer be deficient; it will eventually have all the extra symbols
needed for everyday use.
Thanks. I learned a lot through this exercise.
Cheers.
tlvp
Fantastic! Just be aware that you and you alone will see what that personalized font provides.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
Cerulean
<tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:59:34 -0400, Cerulean <Spam...@notallowed.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:19:12 -0500, Cerulean <Spam...@NOTallowed.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:09:21 -0500, Cerulean <Spam...@NOTallowed.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:35:24 -0700 (PDT), Bill
>>>> <billsr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Oct 18, 7:01 am, Cerulean <Spamm...@NOTallowed.com> wrote:
>>>>>> I've edited fonts before, so I'm okay with that but I don't know how
>>>>>> to add one in and make it work. I use an old editor, Font Creator
>>>>>> Program 3, and it's quite intuitive but I've never known how to add a
>>
>> [Snip]
>> This is going to be great. I have, I believe, achieved the end result
>> I've always wanted. I have the my preferred font yet it will no
>> longer be deficient; it will eventually have all the extra symbols
>> needed for everyday use.
>>
>> Thanks. I learned a lot through this exercise.
>>
>> Cheers.
>
>Fantastic! Just be aware that you and you alone will see what that personalized font provides.
>
>Cheers, -- tlvp
Thanks!
But I figured that since I've mapped the extra glyph according to the
source font, I'm guessing the mapping must be standard, no? And any
files I share will most likely be opened up in Notepad which will
likely show all those "extra" symbols the traditional Fixedsys does
not which I am going to modify to support.
I started a test text file with these "extra" symbols typed in. Once
I have a few more in, I'll take it to work and then see if the right
glyphs are used. Good point re that but I suspect it'll be alright.
As long as what I'm mapping the glyphs to is universal, and I don't
see why not, there should be no problems.
However, famous last words ... I'll test this out in next day or so.
<g>
Character
Cerulean -
What I don't understand is WHY you're using that old, ugly, bit-map
font (even as a TT version). There are plenty of full functioned,
monospaced, scalable fonts available, such as Letter Gothic, Andale
Mono, StringLiteral, Inconsolata, and others. They all have fairly
complete character sets, probably including all that you're missing.
Unless you're adding some unique personal symbols.
Is the TT version you're using of your own making, or are you using
the free one available here:
http://fixedsys.moviecorner.de/?p=download&l=1
- Character
tlvp
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:44:40 -0400, tlvp
> <tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fantastic! Just be aware that you and you alone will see what that personalized font provides.
>>
> Thanks!
>
> But I figured that since I've mapped the extra glyph according to the
> source font, I'm guessing the mapping must be standard, no? And any
> files I share will most likely be opened up in Notepad which will
> likely show all those "extra" symbols the traditional Fixedsys does
> not which I am going to modify to support.
Unless the system on which you open such a file up in Notepad
has *your* doctored font in its Fonts folder, all a user will
see is what that system's UN-doctored version of that font has
available.
Might be a different story if using Word and font-embedding, or
PDF and font-embedding, but otherwise ... .
> I started a test text file with these "extra" symbols typed in. Once
> I have a few more in, I'll take it to work and then see if the right
> glyphs are used. Good point re that but I suspect it'll be alright.
> As long as what I'm mapping the glyphs to is universal, and I don't
> see why not, there should be no problems.
>
> However, famous last words ... I'll test this out in next day or so.
> <g>
I'll be surprised if your test proves satisfactory, so let me know.
Cerulean
<tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:11:09 -0400, Cerulean <Spam...@notallowed.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:44:40 -0400, tlvp
>> <tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Fantastic! Just be aware that you and you alone will see what that personalized font provides.
>>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> But I figured that since I've mapped the extra glyph according to the
>> source font, I'm guessing the mapping must be standard, no? And any
>> files I share will most likely be opened up in Notepad which will
>> likely show all those "extra" symbols the traditional Fixedsys does
>> not which I am going to modify to support.
>
>Unless the system on which you open such a file up in Notepad
>has *your* doctored font in its Fonts folder, all a user will
>see is what that system's UN-doctored version of that font has
>available.
No, working just fine so far! Metapad is my text editor of choice and
has been for about 9-10 years now. I've been doing contract work for
20 years with contracts as short as 4 hours to over 2 years and
everything in between. In the last 9 years, I've used Metapad
exclusively, made much easier in last few years since I started
carrying around my programs and such on a USB flash drive vs. the old
floppies I used to use (Metapad being about the only program I used to
carry around in floppy days since it's so powerful but very tiny!).
No matter where I went, Metapad always has had clearest and best views
all across many computers and monitors and systems. I now know it's
because of the font, Fixedsys. I guess that's why this old standby is
a programmer's favourite (must be why it's the default in Metapad).
I've already tested this. My doctored font is so that _I_, when using
Metapad, can keep my Fixedsys font but still get the symbols it lacks.
When you open those files in Notepad, those symbols are there. In
regular Metapad defaulted to the regular Fixedsys on any computer,
those symbols show up as black blocks. When I change the font to my
doctored Fixedsys, just like in Notepad, the symbols are no longer
blocks, they appear as the correct symbols.
I don't understand the confusion but that's how it's been working. As
long as I map correctly, don't see why it should ever be otherwise -
and, so far, everything working just fine.
>Might be a different story if using Word and font-embedding, or
>PDF and font-embedding, but otherwise ... .
>
>> I started a test text file with these "extra" symbols typed in. Once
>> I have a few more in, I'll take it to work and then see if the right
>> glyphs are used. Good point re that but I suspect it'll be alright.
>> As long as what I'm mapping the glyphs to is universal, and I don't
>> see why not, there should be no problems.
>>
>> However, famous last words ... I'll test this out in next day or so.
>> <g>
>
>I'll be surprised if your test proves satisfactory, so let me know.
Yes, works just great.
Thanks. :)
>Cheers, -- tlvp
Cerulean
wrote:
<chuckle> Well, that's okay. YOU don't have to understand <g>.
>font (even as a TT version). There are plenty of full functioned,
>monospaced, scalable fonts available, such as Letter Gothic, Andale
>Mono, StringLiteral, Inconsolata, and others. They all have fairly
Yup, I tried them all. That's the way I went first. Yuck. None had
the clarity and consistency of Fixedsys. Also, monospaced they might
be but results were inconsistent and ugly! That's what all other
fonts I'd ever tried throughout the years always did. Whether in
Notepad or other text editors (I have about 10 other editors that I
use though Metapad is the general one I use the most), none gave me
the same consistency in output. I never knew until I looked last week
that it was all about this Fixedsys font. Imagine using something for
9 years and not knowing that as a fundamental reason for its
consistency and reliability in look! And it's always clear no matter
what size of the font I choose, what type of screen or the size of
screen. And output to the printer is always consistent no matter what
printer brand, drivers, etc. Can't beat that. This solution is best.
And it's working like a charm so far.
>complete character sets, probably including all that you're missing.
>Unless you're adding some unique personal symbols.
>
>Is the TT version you're using of your own making, or are you using
>the free one available here:
>http://fixedsys.moviecorner.de/?p=download&l=1
>
> - Character
I'm very pleased with this process. I have the power and tiny size of
the Metapad app without sacrificing the symbols that the old,
undoctored version of the font doesn't have. Awesome.
Thanks everyone <g>.
tlvp
Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file with
Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your doctored
Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a system
that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available, you can open
that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect? My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
Character
< snipped ... >
> Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file
> with Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your doctored
> Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a
> system that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available,
> you can open that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect?
> My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
>
> Cheers, -- tlvp
No trick at all. The recipients are using a different font that
already HAS the characters that Cerulean has laboriously added to
Fixedsys. As I read the thread, Cerulean is only adding standard
characters/glyphs such as the trademark symbol. If you look at your
own computer, you probably don't have any copy of Fixedsys installed,
whether the original bitmap or a truetype version.
- Character
Cerulean
<tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I think the problem here is you've misunderstood. Somehow I didn't
get the message across properly, I guess.
The problem is that the Fixedsys on all computers is missing glyphs,
correct? Well, I added a couple of those glyphs to the Fixedsys I
found on the net. And I'll continue to do so. The Metapad text file
is just a text file. It has the characters not available in the
regular Fixedsys so that when I substitute my "doctored" Fixedsys and
point Metapad to it, I know I'm on track when rather than black blocks
the new glyphs appear instead.
I honestly don't know where the miscommunication came from but that's
all I can figure out has happened. It's clear to me but then I'm not
a fontographer (or whatever the term is), I'm just a power user.
Doubtless it comes from my not knowing the terminology or something.
Again, as long as I map the added glyphs correctly, no reason to
suppose the font wouldn't work. And that turned out to be the case.
Now had I mapped incorrectly, since I'm a newbie that could have
happened easily, then I'm sure I would have gotten some interesting
results. But I have the benefit of the clearest font I know of with
the extra glyphs it was missing. I'll have to point Metapad to this
font each time I change computers, but it doesn't matter. With its'
Richedit support and other features, Metapad makes any little extra
work no problem as it provides features that other text editors don't,
and all in a tiny package.
Anyway, all's well that ends well, which is ultimately what counts, I
believe. <g>
Cerulean
wrote:
Hi! Yes, that's it.
Actually, since I've been doing contract work for last 20 years and
have used Metapad for about 9-10 of those years, there hasn't been a
single computer that doesn't have it (so far). And since 2000, we've
seen Windows 98, 2000, XP, NT and I've always used Metapad. Since
it's such a very tiny size it fit on the floppies I used to carry
around. In last 4 years, I've used USB flash drives with a launcher
so even easier <g>. I'm guessing the author of Metapad is a
programmer who uses this font as I recently found out that I'm not the
only one who strongly favours it even though I'm no programmer <g>. I
came across references on the net of my grief when trying out anything
other than that font. I didn't even know what it was called until I
started this thread! I got fed up with the missing glyphs. Up until
then, I'd always just replaced the fancy quotation marks with regular
ones, etc., etc. But this web text snippet that I picked up that days
a few weeks back had a few symbols I couldn't replace and ended up
with black blocks all over the place for once! That's when I decided
to tackled this problem once and for all. And the solution is working
marvellously so far. I'll be adding more glyphs to my doctored
Fixedsys as I go along but it already works better as it stands.
Thanks to everyone's help in pointing me in the right direction. I
found the answer myself this time around but it really helped to have
this ng to help me figure terminology and other things out. Cheers.
tlvp
> tlvp wrote:
>
> < snipped ... >
>
>
>> Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file
>> with Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your doctored
>> Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a
>> system that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available,
> > you can open that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect?
> > My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
>>
>> Cheers, -- tlvp
>
> No trick at all. The recipients are using a different font that
> already HAS the characters that Cerulean has laboriously added to
> Fixedsys.
Ah! Will Notepad/Wordpad/Metapad ignore the font the original file specified,
and use whatever the local installation deems is default font file? OK, then.
> ... As I read the thread, Cerulean is only adding standard
> characters/glyphs such as the trademark symbol. If you look at your
> own computer, you probably don't have any copy of Fixedsys installed,
True, on the Vista system, where I seem to have no bitmap fonts at all
(least-wise none in C:\Windows\Fonts\ ).
But I'm pretty sure I remember both System and FixedSys as bitmap fonts
in XP or its predecessors, down as far as Win31.
> ... whether the original bitmap or a truetype version.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
>
> - Character
Character
OK - just for the record.
Files generated by Metapad are just .txt. Unlike word processing or
publishing files, they contain no font information. Neither do they
have 'characters'. They have a series of codes like '21' which
represent characters - in this case the letter 'A'. The differences
between Metapad and Notepad include better functions and some
additional input and output options, but the resulting files are the
same.
It's not the FONT you created that works for your clients. It works
for YOU. What may surprise you is that if you used an un-altered
version of Fixedsys and typed in one of those non-existent characters,
Alt+0153 for � for example, you'd either not see it or see a black
box, but when you sent the file to your clients, they COULD, because
they're using fonts that already have it.
FixedSys is available for use on my XP system, but physically I can't
find it anywhere on my system or my wife's, and google didn't help either.
- Character
tlvp
Three separate concepts I need to keep separate for the sake of my understanding:
the Metapad editor software; your "doctored" Fixedsys font; and a text file.
You use the Metapad editor to open the text file:
*if* Metapad has the "doctored" Fixedsys accessible to it, it can correctly render
characters not dealt with in the "un-doctored" version of that font;
but if Metapad does *not* have the "doctored" Fixedsys accessible to it,
it can *still* render those characters correctly (or correctly enough)
if it's been pointed to some other font file that includes those characters?
Is that it? If so, that I can buy. But if all it's pointed to is an
undoctored version of Fixedsys, ... ???
Never mind, I think you and Character have made it less of a piece of magic
than it struck me at first glance.
Thanks; and cheers, -- tlvp
Character
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:32:17 -0400, Character <Ch...@cters.bold.italic>
> wrote:
>
>> tlvp wrote:
>>
>> < snipped ... >
>>
>>
>>> Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file
>>> with Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your
>>> doctored
>>> Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a
>>> system that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available,
>>
>> > you can open that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect?
>> > My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
>>
>>>
>>> Cheers, -- tlvp
>>
>>
>> No trick at all. The recipients are using a different font that
>> already HAS the characters that Cerulean has laboriously added to
>> Fixedsys.
>
>
> Ah! Will Notepad/Wordpad/Metapad ignore the font the original file
> specified,
> and use whatever the local installation deems is default font file? OK,
> then.
Neither Notepad nor Metapad have any idea what 'the original file'
specified. Text (.txt) files are exactly that - only text. If it only
contains the word 'Hello' it is exactly 5 bytes long. No room for
anything else. WordPad is a word processor, not a text editor,
although it can save its work as a text file. A Wordpad file saved as
.RTF containing only the word 'Hello; is 162 bytes long, and includes
a font name, margins, and some other esoterica.
>> ... As I read the thread, Cerulean is only adding standard
>> characters/glyphs such as the trademark symbol. If you look at your
>> own computer, you probably don't have any copy of Fixedsys installed,
>
> True, on the Vista system, where I seem to have no bitmap fonts at all
> (least-wise none in C:\Windows\Fonts\ ).
I also found that on XP, but they ARE there. In Vista, it may use
VGAsys, 8514sys, or something else instead, and use the registry to
substitute. I can open Notepad or Metapad and the fontlist includes
FixedSys and some other bitmap fonts that aren't in C:\windows\fonts.
> But I'm pretty sure I remember both System and FixedSys as bitmap fonts
> in XP or its predecessors, down as far as Win31.
- Ch.
Cerulean
<tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:32:17 -0400, Character <Ch...@cters.bold.italic> wrote:
>
>> tlvp wrote:
>>
>> < snipped ... >
>>
>>
>>> Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file
>>> with Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your doctored
>>> Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a
>>> system that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available,
>> > you can open that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect?
>> > My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
>>>
>>> Cheers, -- tlvp
>>
>> No trick at all. The recipients are using a different font that
>> already HAS the characters that Cerulean has laboriously added to
>> Fixedsys.
>
>Ah! Will Notepad/Wordpad/Metapad ignore the font the original file specified,
>and use whatever the local installation deems is default font file? OK, then.
Don't know about the others. I have used Metapad for years now and
don't use the rest. Metapad supports clickable links (due to
richedit) so folder links and URLs are clickable so it replaced
everything else pretty early on. Coupled with the fact that I use an
extension in Firefox called "SendTo" which easily captures web text,
and you see the power of the combination of features.
Metapad has _always_ defaulted to Fixedsys and does ignore anything
else, that's why I never bothered looking to see what was determining
the font. Never knew it was an issue. I just got used to its clarity
and consistent appearance and printout on any system I was on. As I
mentioned, after 9 years of using it, I only just found out about the
existence of this Fixedsys thing when I started trying to see if I
could fix the missing glyphs issue.
Also, I tried many other so-called monospace fonts only to have the
results look horrible on the screen so doctoring a Fixedsys has been
the best way to go.
Fixedsys is the main default setting in Metapad. You can change it,
though, to point to a font on your system. That's what I will do in
any long-term contract. It's a one-time setting change for each new
system I'll go to, unless by some coincidence, I imagine, drive
letters happen to coincide for the USB flash drive.
Thanks. :oD
Cerulean
wrote:
>tlvp wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:32:17 -0400, Character <Ch...@cters.bold.italic>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> tlvp wrote:
>>>
>>> < snipped ... >
>>>
>>>
>>>> Wow! That's a surprise! Let me get it straight: you prepare a text file
>>>> with Metapad, using amongst other things characters available in your
>>>> doctored
>>>> Fixedsys font but not available in the undoctored one, and then, on a
>>>> system that does *not* have your doctored Fixedsys font file available,
>>>
>>> > you can open that file in Metapad and it all looks perfect?
>>> > My hat's off to you! Neat trick!
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, -- tlvp
>>>
>>>
>>> No trick at all. The recipients are using a different font that
>>> already HAS the characters that Cerulean has laboriously added to
>>> Fixedsys.
>>
>>
>> Ah! Will Notepad/Wordpad/Metapad ignore the font the original file
>> specified,
>> and use whatever the local installation deems is default font file? OK,
>> then.
>
>Neither Notepad nor Metapad have any idea what 'the original file'
That's what I thought but not being an expert, didn't know how to
explain. I have various other text editors in my arsenal (for
different reasons) but Metapad is my work horse. And any given text
file looks different in any different text editor. The only editor
that gives consistent results is Metapad. But it lacks a print
preview and headers and footers and an easy macro language (it's small
and really great but it doesn't have everything <g>) so I have other
editors to take over when that's needed - although these things I
rarely need, granted.
Cerulean
wrote:
>Alt+0153 for ™ for example, you'd either not see it or see a black
>box, but when you sent the file to your clients, they COULD, because
>they're using fonts that already have it.
>
>FixedSys is available for use on my XP system, but physically I can't
>find it anywhere on my system or my wife's, and google didn't help either.
>
>- Character
Yes, I know all this, thanks. Don't forget, I work contract work and
some aren't long enough to bother setting Metapad as my default
editor. In those cases, Notepad is the default and I saw early on
this phenomenon. Also, I have about 8-9 other text editors I use for
different reasons and the files that I have that Metapad couldn't see
certain characters in due to Fixedsys would show up in the others.
This whole exercise was to fix the problems inherent in Fixedsys, the
fact that it's missing a whole bunch of glyphs. Since Metapad is my
editor of choice for the most part, it seemed well past time to do
this. <g>
Thanks. :oD
Cerulean
<tPlOvUpB...@hotmail.com> wrote:
It doesn't. Fixedsys lacks many special character glyphs so all those
missing characters show up as black boxes.
Since the majority of my text files are text snippets copied from the
web due to a handy Firefox extension, a lot of characters on the web
are the "fancy" versions of simpler characters that Fixedsys does
have. For example, rather than the straight quotation marks, webpages
often have the fancy curly ones, em- and en- dashes Fixedsys doesn't
instead of regular single or double dashes that it does.
Interestingly enough, when you select a black box representing a
character Fixedsys doesn't render correclty, it _does_ show up as the
right character in the search and replace function in Metapad so since
most of the saved web text issues deal with quotation marks and
hyphens, I'd just search and replace for the simpler versions of those
symbols.
> if it's been pointed to some other font file that includes those characters?
Yes, if you point to something else, they then do show up. But the
output screen and print results have always been horrible. If you
work with text files as much as I do and you get used to Fixedsys,
nothing else compares to the clarity and consistency of it.
Since text files don't support any but the simplest formatting my text
files are spaced re the tabs and such with Fixedsys so all these files
are nice and tidy. But open them in something else and yuck! <g>