I am having a problem with fonts on a Pocket PC. When I copy a Greek and Hebrew font into the /Windows/Fonts/ directory Pocket Word will default to the Hebrew font? Also Visual CE will grab the Greek font and use it for the default. This doesn’t work since I cannot read Greek or Hebrew. The fonts were freeware fonts (SLgreek.ttf and SLhebrew.ttf) and I thought I should be able to change something in the font definition to make the font less attractive to Pocket Word and Visual CE. Does anyone know what parameters in the font definition could be changed without affecting the look of the font so these applications would not default to these fonts? As you can tell from my font question I really need help since I am a real newbie when it comes to fonts.
Where are all the font wizards?
Hello SunWon
If you’re going to beg, you’ll get me! I have no experience on the Pocket PC, Visual CE and little on fonts that conflict.
You can allow FCP to properly install the fonts which gives you some editing on the process in case there is an error of some sort. Simply copying the fonts into the directory isn’t enough. They have to be “installed” – see alternately Control Panel/Fonts/File/Install New Fonts.
When I run into this kinda problem I change the internal name on the font with FCP and install again. Naming conflicts affect things. Obviously the .ttf file name should be unique.
Free fonts can be your problem. In free fonts I have found quality to be a variable and adherance to fonting rules a variable also. They can be alll over the place and sometimes hard to debug. You can use FCP to autoname a font as a test.
Try your procedure with known good commercial fonts (like those loaded with the operating system). Make a copy to some other directory, change the names and try your procedure. (Always keep pristine versions of your original fonts, you never know).
In Win95 it used to be that some applications would use the physically first entry in WIN.INI/Fonts. No fun to debug.
I would guess, from your note, it is the installation business, although I am surprised if the action is to accept the copied font and to use them – versus not showing them at all.
Maybe someone else knows.
Font lizard DP
Hi Font lizard,
Thanks for your help.
All of the information I can find says to install the font into the font directory and Pocket PC will find and use the font.
I’ll look in the registry to see if it is listed as the first font. Win.ini is long gone in Pocket PC.
Basically from reading all of the developer materials an application request a font with certain attributes and the OS gives the application the closest font the OS can find. I think my problem is understanding why a Hebrew or Greek font would be closer in attributes than the courier or tahoma fonts?
Any other ideas out there?
SunWon
The best place to ask any questions about Word is the newsgroup
news:microsoft.public.word.general
http://groups.google.com/groups?group=microsoft.public.word.general
Or this PocketPC related newsgroup
http://groups.google.com/groups?group=microsoft.public.pocketpc.multimedia
Let us know your results.
Thank you, I’ll give that a try.
SunWon
Hi Again SunWon …
It’s possible the applications read the PANOSE info for the font characteristics. Since the free fonts are famously faulty, the PANOSE is probably defaults (0) which could make it a fit to everything. It matters not what the glyphs look like.
You can use FCP to change the PANOSE variables (Format/Settings/Classification). They probably are “Any” (0) so change Family kind or Serif Style and install and see. Might change something.
I’m surprised there is nothing about the font “install” act. In every MS O/S I’ve seen, “copy” is not “install”, but I don’t know Pocket PC.
More luck,
Dick
Hi Dick,
Thanks for the reply. I’ll give that a try.
Maybe this will help from the developer help files.
"The CreateFontIndirect function creates a logical font with the characteristics specified in the LOGFONT structure. When this font is selected by using the SelectObject function, GDI’s font mapper attempts to match the logical font with an existing physical font. If it fails to find an exact match, it provides an alternative whose characteristics match as many of the requested characteristics as possible. "
Here is the LOGFONT structure,
typedef struct tagLOGFONT {
LONG lfHeight;
LONG lfWidth;
LONG lfEscapement;
LONG lfOrientation;
LONG lfWeight;
BYTE lfItalic;
BYTE lfUnderline;
BYTE lfStrikeOut;
BYTE lfCharSet;
BYTE lfOutPrecision ;
BYTE lfClipPrecision ;
BYTE lfQuality ;
BYTE lfPitchAndFamily ;
TCHAR lfFaceName[LF_FACESIZE] ; }
LOGFONT;
I know this is all rather technical but now you can see what the OS has to use in choosing the font. I thouht the charset was the key but couldn’t figure out how to set the charset for a font?
SunWon