Printer's Apprentice - A font manager for Windows. Version History Latest version can always be found on http://www.loseyourmind.com Direct download: http://www.loseyourmind.com/zipfiles/prnapp75.zip Purchase Printer's Apprentice via secure web page: http://www.regsoft.net/purchase.php3?productid=51726 Purchase Printer's Apprentice via phone: http://www.regsoft.net/purchase.php3?productid=51726&ordertypeid=6 Printer's Apprentice FAQ http://www.loseyourmind.com/pa75faq.asp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Printer's Apprentice 7.58 - 05/04/2006 - Added ability to print line numbers on font catalogs. This is enabled via a new switch in the PA.INI file. To enable line numbers, use this entry: [Inventory] PrintLineNumbers=1 - Added "Select Printer" to the File menu - Eliminated the floppy drive check that resulted in the "floppy grind" noise on startup - The screen font is now "Tahoma" by default. This can be changed by editing an entry to the PA.INI file [PA] FormFont=Fontname - Minor cosmetic tweaks throughout the system - Fixed a bug that would cause the "Print All Fonts In Folders" option to crash before the dialog box opened. Printer's Apprentice 7.57 - 09/21/04 - Printer's Apprentice determines what OS you are running on and uses an interface based on the OS. Menus, toolbars, icons, etc. either use the XP style or the traditional style. You can also change the UI setting via the Options dialog box. - Added horizontal splitters so the panels on the Uninstalled tab, Both tab and Font Groups sections can be resized. The splitters have "gripper" bars to indicate where resizing is enabled. - The Options dialog box has been completely redesigned. The dialog box is also now resizable. - Redesigned the Font Information tab for easier reading. Text is now black on a white background. - The progress dialog box used when reading a folder full of now has a Cancel button. - When reading folders of font files, additional feedback is provided. - Great improvements to the printing engine. We ran "torture" tests on a variety of commercially available font CDs to make sure Printer's Apprentice could print the entire contents of these CDs without error. - Core routines for reading TTF/OTF files are greatly improved. - If the Installed Fonts list has the focus, pressing the DEL key now triggers the "Uninstall Fonts" dialog box. - If the Uninstalled Fonts list or Font Groups list has the focus, pressing the DEL key now triggers the "Uninstall Fonts" dialog box. - The Notes dialog box is now resizable and has a "gripper" in the lower right hand corner. - Uninstall operations are faster. - Added an option to turn the font information tooltip on or off. - Added Support for reading installed TrueType Collection (TTC) fonts, mainly used in Far Eastern versions of Windows. These fonts can also be uninstalled. - When printing font catalogs, the Print dialog now shows more feedback with "Printing font xx of yy" messages. - There is now a checkbox option for not printing the "Font group and folder titles" when printing from the "Print All Fonts In Path" or "Print Font Groups" menus. This new option can be found at the bottom of the Font Catalogs tab of the Options dialog box. (Tools > Options). - Fonts added to the GDI temporarily for rendering (previewing uninstalled fonts for example) are now *not* visible in other applications. (Win2000/XP only) - Updated the default sample paragraphs. The original sample paragraph was from the introduction to the Windows 95 User Guide. To me, that seems a bit dated. So now the default text is some standard "Lorem Ipsum" text generated using the tool at http://www.lipsum.com. - Fixed a major issue with using the "Uninstall All Fonts In Group" entry on the font group context menu (right click). It was not uninstalling Type 1 fonts. - Fixed a startup problem. If the root of your Font Groups folder contained any fonts, you would see a "Reading fonts..." popup message flash by very quickly. This has been resolved. - Fixed some issues with the Registry entry written when installing OpenType fonts. - Fixed issues with the drive labels in the Font Files tab. - Fixed some nagging bugs with the mousepointer cursor. - Fixed a bug that could cause the application to crash when switching to the Keyboard tab. - When browsing OpenType fonts via the Font Files tab, a problem prevented the font name from being displayed in the font list. This has been fixed. - Fixed a bug in the Sample Text tab - carriage returns embedded in this text are now saved and restored correctly from the PA.INI file the next time you start PA. - Fixed messages on the Uninstall fonts dialog when copying/moving fonts to a font group. Regardless of whether you were copying or moving the fonts, the status message always read "xx fonts will be uninstalled." This message was incorrect and has been fixed. - Fixed some bugs in the font file renaming functions. Type 1 and OpenType font files can now be renamed. - Fixed an issue with deleting font groups. If you right clicked on a font group whose folder had the "read only" flag set, Printer's Apprentice would not delete it. This has been fixed. - When using the "File|Print All Fonts In Folder" option, fixed an issue that mangled font names with special characters in their names, such as TM, in the Print dialog box. - Fixed a problem in the font copy routine that resulted in a "0 fonts copied" message. - Fixed a problem in the printing engine - if a bold/italic/etc font was selected before printing, the regular (non-bold, non-italic) version of the font would not be printed correctly. - Minor changes to the Help file. (Someday this will get a total overhaul.) Printer's Aprentice 7.56 - 10/06/03 - Added new tooltip balloon that provides additional information about a font file. The tooltip is activated when you hover the mouse over an item in the Installed Fonts list, Uninstalled Fonts list, or the font list below the Font Group listing. - Fixed a problem with the Font Information tab. If no font was currently selected, it was still displaying data. This is fixed. It is now cleared if no font is selected. - If no font is selected, Printer's Apprentice displays a small, yellow message that reads "No font is currently selected." On occasion, this message box would appear not centered on the screen. This has been fixed. - Fixed a problem with the message box at the end of uninstall operations. It now reports the number of fonts uninstalled, copied or moved with improved reliability. (Under some circumstances, it would report "0 fonts uninstalled.") - Updated our mailing address throughout the program and documentation. Printer's Apprentice 7.55 - 5/12/03 - Better support for word wrapping Font Information tab. - Fixed a problem where the software would crash on loading if the last time you exited the program, you had the Keyboard tab selected. Printer's Apprentice 7.54 - 1/9/03 - The application now "remembers" which tab was selected the last time you ran PA and restores it when you start the application. i.e. If you exited the app with the "Character Set" tab selected, it will be selected the next time you start PA. - Fixed a problem where Printer's Apprentice would crash on startup if fonts listed in the Windows Registry are not available. For example, if a font is listed in the Resgistry as being "x:\fonts\somefont.ttf", and X was a CD-ROM and the CD was not in the drive, then PA would crash on startup. This has been fixed. - Other minor bug fixes. Printer's Apprentice 7.53 - 11/15/02 - Updated the URLs in the paurl.ini file. I have deleted links to sites that are no longer active and updated others. - Added links to the Tools menu for http://www.fontface.com & the FontFace Free Font of the Day. Printer's Apprentice 7.52 - 10/10/02 - Fixed a bug that caused some fonts to not display correctly on the Sample Text tab. It looks like this was mainly on Windows 9x machines and not 2000 or XP boxes. - Help > Frequently Asked Questions menu item now opens the FAQ page on our web site. - Fixed a major problem that caused installed an "ATMLIB.DLL file not found" error if you tried to print a list of fonts that included one or more Type 1 fonts. Printer's Apprentice 7.5 - 10/8/02 - Public release Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #10 - 10/03/02 - Minor changes to help file and other documentation. - Additional changes to registration code validation routines. - Hopefully, last beta before release. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #9 - 9/30/02 - Fixed some problems with "unknown" fonts. Unknown fonts are those fonts that are installed or in memory, but Printer's Apprentice cannot determine their associated font type and font file name. Because of this, Printer's Apprentice cannot uninstall them. - If you changed the display options to show only "unknown" fonts and there was only one uknown font on your machine, PA would crash with an "index out of bounds" error or a GPF when you tried to uninstall the single font. The software not catches this and tells the user that it "can't uninstall fonts of an unknown type." - If you tried to uninstall unknown fonts and any number of other fonts, the uninstall dialog would show a listbox with blank entries in it along with the names of the other TT, T1 and OTF fonts you wanted to uninstall. The blank entries issue has been fixed. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #8 - 9/26/02 - Fixed a problem that, on startup, could cause the application to not display any fonts in the installed list. - Fixed a problem that would cause certain OpenType fonts to not uninstall using the File|Uninstall screen. The problem had to do with how the Registry entries were being removed. - Fixed a MAJOR problem where fonts were not being deleted from the windows\fonts folder when using the "Delete font files" from the File|Uninstall screen screen. - Fixed a problem that caused the Uninstall Fonts dialog to report a "This folder does not exist" if you try to uninstall a font to a folder that has the "system" attribute set. - Renamed the "Colors, etc" tab on the Options dialog box to "Interface." - Add a "Use XP Visual Styles" option to the Interface tab on the Options dialog box. This option is disabled if your computer is not running Windows XP. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #7 - 9/17/02 - Added additional restrictions in the evaluation version. (sorry!) - Fixed problem that caused the software to often crash when loading (on XP) when rereading the installed font list. - Additional fixes for displaying ATM fonts correctly. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #6 - 9/6/02 - Fixed a major problem that prevented fonts from displaying correctly. This version is better. - Fixed a GPF that occured when using the Options dialog to select which types of fonts you wished to see. Using the "Font Types" checkboxes, if you selected OpenType fonts, for example, and you had no OpenType fonts installed on your machine, the GPF would occur. However PA would start up with no problem after the GPF. This bug has been fixed. (thanks to S.A. Brown) - Fixed a bug that caused installed fonts tagged as "unknown" (with the small red question icon) to be displayed when only Type 1 fonts were selected to be displayed using the Options dialog. (thanks to S.A. Brown) - Added a checkbox for viewing "Unknown" fonts on the Options dialog. - Fixed a bug that prevented installed fonts marked as "unknown" to not draw correctly in the viewer windows. - Fixed a problem that caused uninstalled Unicode TrueType fonts to be reported as invalid when viewing them. (thanks to LK) - Fixed a problem that caused Unicode TrueType fonts to not be installed correctly. (thanks to LK) - Additional tweak that will result in fewer fonts being tagged as "unknown" in the installed list. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #5 - 9/4/02 - The printing engine has been greatly improved and should result in fewer pages being printed with "Arial" or a printer default font instead of the desired typeface. - Added a new catalog style - "Basic Catalog III". It is similar to the "Bar Divided Catalog" except it prints a thin line under the font information instead of a black bar. - The "Bar Divided Catalog" now prints the font type, font filename and file size based on the settings in the Options dialog. - Additional changes to make some really oddball fonts display correctly when they are selected from the installed list. - Added hotlinked icons for Visa/MC/Discover/AmEx/PayPal to the opening splash screen. - Fixed a problem that caused "Bold Italic" to be appended on the name of installed Type 1 fonts on Windows 9x systems. - Fixed a problem that made installed OpenType fonts show the Type 1 icon on Windows 9x systems. - Fixed a problem that prevented TrueType fonts named "Script" from being displayed using the vector Script font that ships with Windows. - When using the File|Print All Fons In Path command, the software now displays the number of fonts it is reading as it enumerates all the files in the selected folder and subfolders. Minor, but nice. - Fixed a problem in the "Type Gauge" font sample sheet that caused it to print across two pages on some printers. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #4 - 8/21/2002 - Printer's Apprentice 7.5 is now compatable with the "Visual Styles" features in Windows XP. This means it will now use the new user interface controls available in XP such as the silver command buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc. - The Help|Fonts on the Web dialog box now has the white banner across the top, making it more consistent with our other dialog boxes. - A bug that caused Arial, Times New Roman and Courier New variations to not display on certain systems. (Who wants to see those boring fonts anyway?! ;) - Fixed a bug where the font file size on the Font Information tab was not being updated while browsing a folder of uninstalled fonts. - Fixed a bug that could cause the system to GPF when a poorly formatted TrueType font was read in on the uninstalled tab. - If you tried to delete an uninstalled font that was marked as read only, the system would still say it was deleted, even thought it was not really deleted. This has now been fixed. PA can now delete uninstalled fonts that have the readonly attribute. The delete function now also removes the associated PFM file if the font is a Type 1 font. - Printer's Apprentice now displays the "no font currently selected" message if you delete all the fonts in a directory. - Fixed some issues in the installed font routine that would cause two installed fonts with the same name, but different formats and filename, to not show up properly in the installed list. For example, carta.ttf and carta.pfb. - Additional changes to support Windows 9x platform machines. - OpenType fonts installed on a Windows 9x machine via Adobe Type Manager are now displayed. - Changing the "Display ASCII code in grid" option in the Tools|Options dialog now correctly toggles the ASCII value on and off on the Character Set tab. - If you click a folder or font group, the focus now jumps down below to the font list so you can use the keyboard to view the uninstalled fonts. - Fixed a problem in the Type 1 routines that would code some Type 1 font files not show up when reading a folder of uninstalled fonts. - Fixed a problem where the logging checkbox options where not being saved to the INI file when the Install dialog was closed. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #3 020724 - Fixed a problem where, on some systems, the program would lock up in a loop while reading the font list during startup. - Lots of under the hood cleanup in relation to enumerating the fonts that are installed on a system. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #2 020723 - Improved detection of Type 1 support and Adobe Type Manager installation. For the time being, Type 1 support is only available on the Windows NT4, 2000 and XP platforms. - Features related to launching Adobe Type Manager are now enabled or disabled based on whether or not you have ATM installed. - If you select a folder that does not have any fonts in it, PA now displays a little "no font is selected" message instead of the last selected font. - If you select an invalid font, PA now displays a little "invalid font" message instead of the last selected font. - The "Sample Text" tab now displays font variations more reliably. - You can now deselect a character in the Character Set grid by clicking on it a second time. - Fixed an obscure bug on the Uninstalled tab. If you created a folder under another folder, then clicked the parent folder, two folders with the same name would be added to the folder list. - Improved the detection of the "printer's apprentice\groups" folder. Better wording on the error message displayed if the groups folder does not exist. - Added code so that Help|LYM On the Web|Submit Technical Support Request goes to the correct PA 7.5 beta contact form on the web. - On the Tools|Options, Paragraph Text tab, the text boxes have been expanded to match the width of the window. - Code in About box now detects Windows Me & Windows 98 SE. - The ordering information in the help file has been clarified and cleaned up a bit. Links to web resources in the help file now work. - Fixed a problem where some TrueType fonts would display with a blank entry in the font name column on the Uninstalled tab. - The font lists now use a single blue TT icon for TrueType fonts. - Eliminated duplicate link to readme.txt in the Start menu. - Fixed a bug where the program would crash if you selected a folder while another folder was being scanned for fonts. Printer's Apprentice 7.50 beta #1 020716 - Added support for viewing and printing installed and uninstalled OpenType (OTF) fonts. - Added support for viewing and printing installed and uninstalled Adobe Type 1 fonts. - OpenType and Type 1 fonts can now be installed, uninstalled and managed using the font grouping tools in Printer's Apprentice. - File copy and move operations now work with both OpenType and Type 1 fonts. - Many operations create log files in the Printer's Apprentice\log folder. Log files are created if the "Create log files" option is selected in the Options dialog box. - The Font Install and Uninstall dialog boxes are now resizable. This make it easier to view the details about registry changes. - The Font Install and Uninstall dialog box have options to create and view a log file. The log file outlines all the details of the font install & uninstall procedure. If selected, the Show Log checkbox will open the log when the installation routines are complete. The logs are opened with Notepad or whatever program is associate with .TXT files. - Many dialog boxes have cleaner, updated user interfaces. - The Print and Print Font Group dialog boxes are now resizable and show you a list of what fonts will be printed. - Added "System Information" tab to the About dialog box. - The uninstalled tab now uses Windows 2000 style icons for the folders. - The system font "Marlett" no longer shows up in the installed font list. This is a very important system font and is probably best to hide it until I add more code to prevent the user from inadvertently uninstalling or deleting this font. - The format of the text file created by the "Save Font List As Text File" function has been cleaned up a bit. Printer's Apprentice 7.22 - In some cases, the font groups folder in the Options dialog is blank after a fresh install. This bug has been fixed. Printer's Apprentice 7.21 - 2/12/2002 - Fixed some more ATM related code. - Fixed a bug that caused PA to not detect Windows XP correctly. Printer's Apprentice 7.20 - 12/31/2001 - Fixed a bug in the Options dialog. If you changed any of the text on the Quotes tab, the new text would not be immediately displayed in the Sample Text drop down list boxes on the Font Catalogs and Sample Sheets tabs. - When you press an alphanumeric key, the Single Character view (in main window) will jump to that character. The function now ignores keypresses that include the CTRL key. - This version ships with ShowATM=1 in the PA.INI. This forces Printer's Apprentice to show Adobe Type 1 fonts by default. - Removed code that would disable the "ATM Path" text field and "Show Adobe Type 1 fonts" checkbox if Adobe Type Manager was not installed. On some systems, my routines for detecting ATM installtion is not working properly. - On the Options dialog, the Open File dialog box that opens when you click the ATM Path "..." button was not properly display only EXE files. This has been fixed. The Open File dialog is also now modal. Printer's Apprentice 7.19 - 11/13/2001 - Fixed detection code for Adobe Type Manager. If ATM is installed, it is now correctly detected. (A typo in the previous version, amoung other things, prevented the detection from working correctly.) - Added code to detect if we are running under Windows XP. This is in here so future PA versions can take advantage of XP features. Printer's Apprentice 7.18 - 10/08/2001 - Added code to startup to detect if the PA.INI file is missing. If the PA.INI file is missing, the software will now show an alert message and the end. - Added code to prevent sudden freezes, crashes, unloading, etc when resizing the font lists on the right side and group list on the left side of the main screen. - Fixed bugs in the "quotes" feature (sample text strings used on the printed page) that affected both the sample sheets and catalogs. In some cases, when using a quote, it would not print or it would print a different quote than what was specified. - Replaced the generic "header" option for printed sample sheets with left & right footers. This is actually more descriptive of what happens on the printed page. - Added additional error checking code in order to prevent the software from sometimes freezing on startup. - All printed catalogs and sample sheets now have a printed watermark if the software is in evaluation mode. - A new screen now appears when exiting the software when it is in evaluation mode. - Removed the option to Check Components on Startup. The Desaware Version Stamper tools are no longer used to check OCX & DLL files, so this checkbox on the Options screen should have been removed a long time ago. - Added improved checking for Adobe Type Manager installation under Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000. - If ATM is not installed, the ATM Path field on the Options screen will display an "Adobe Type Manager not installed" message. Printer's Apprentice 7.17 - 07/09/2001 - Added a Four Column catalog layout - You can now set the size of the on screen Character Set grid. It can by 2x2 cells all the way up to 10x10 cells. Additional settings for the grid are also available on the Options dialog. - In catalogs and sample sheets, you can now use the font name itself for the sample text. This has been a requested over and over again and I'm pleased to have finally integrated the function into the product. Note that the Six Up Catalog and Bar Divided catalog do not use the user defined sample text - they are hard coded to use a long AaBbCcDdEetc string. - On the font catalogs, if you change the Options to not print any of the font details (name, file size, etc), then the line spacing adjusts itself automatically. You can now fit over 300 fonts on the Three Column catalog if you print at 8 points and elect *not* to print any of the font details. - Changes to Three Up catalog: The line of 72 point text now uses the selected sample string instead of the "AaBbCcXxYyZz" text. This was done for consistence. Also, the Normal, Bold, Italic, BoldItalic indicators were broken. These now detect the available styles and print accordingly. The Three Up catalog now also prints a line of 16 point text in each section. - More code trimming. I eliminated the need for the dwcbk32.ocx and dwspy36.dll files. For those who understand API calls, these provided callback capabilities for early versions of VB. VB now provides hooks for native callbacks via the AddressOf operator so the OCX and DLL files are no longer needed. - Fixed a bug that would make the Sample Text tab sometimes not display italic fonts correctly. - Improved and reorganized screen resizing code. - Added an option so PA does not verify the paper size before printing. Some print drivers (HP 932c?) do not report the paper size correctly back to PA. If your PA.INI has the following entry under the [PA] section, then PA will not check for 8.5x11 or A4 paper. VerifyPaperSize = 0 Setting the VerifyPaperSize = 1 will enable the strict paper size checking and will PA print only on 8.5x11 or A4. Printer's Apprentice 7.16 - 03/23/2001 - Eliminated the need for comdlg32.ocx. This shaves about 140k off the installed footprint of the app. However, this lead to one problem. The File|Printer Setup dialog was generated with assistance from comdlg32.ocx. I could not get my API based Printer Setup dialog working reliably. So, for the time being, the File|Printer Setup menu item has been removed. The work-around is to simply use the Windows Control Panel to setup your printer before you use Printer's Apprentice. In the interest of shipping a leaner (code-wise) product, I think the removal of the Printer Setup menu item is justified. - Fixed a flaw in the watermark that prints on pages when the software is in unregistered mode. - Fixed a few display buggies in the main window status bar. Sometimes the status bar would display "1 font selected" even if there were no fonts displayed. Printer's Apprentice 7.15 - 3/16/2001 - Previous versions required that a printer be installed in order to use the software. THis restriction has been removed. - If you don't have a printer installed, PA gently reminds you of this fact if you do try to print. Printer's Apprentice 7.14 - 03/07/2001 - Added a status bar at the bottom that shows the number of fonts in a list and the number of fonts selected. - Other minor cosmetic fixes have been applied. Some 3D effects on the main window have been removed, the sizer bar between the Installed List and font window is wider, etc. - When selected, some menu items were not showing help text in the status bar (on the main window). - Trimmed out some unused subroutines and other code bloat. - Added additional error checking code in the startup routines. Hopefully this will avoid some of the "Invalid Property" and "Index Out of Bounds" errors that have been popping up. - Fixed a problem on the TrueType information tab. The Trademark & Copyright information was not being displayed correctly. Thanks to Rich Kamionek for pointing this out to me. - If you are running Windows NT/2000, the Adobe toolbar icon is now displayed only if you have ATM installed. Windows NT and 2000 have native Type 1 support built in, but the ATM icon was displaying. - The Registry (Tools | Font Registry menu) now defaults to being sorted by font name. - The "Print All Fonts In Path"/"Print Font Groups" dialog is now modal. It also displays the correct number of fonts to be printed. (It was off by one.) - When accessing the Options dialog box from the "Print All Fonts In Path" screen, the correct tab is now preselected. - When accessing the Options dialog box from the "Print" dialog, the correct tab is now preselected. - The Six Up Catalog was not properly printing the font file name based on the Options "Print Full File Path" setting. This has been fixed. Thanks to Gary Varner for pointing this out. - When printing the Six Up Catalog, the progress bar on the Print dialog was not being updated correctly. Printer's Apprentice 7.13 - 10/23/2000 - This version has been rebuilt with Visual Studio Service Pack 4. - Fixed a problem with multiple select and drag operations in the fonts listboxes on the main screen. It was often difficult to select multiple fonts then drag them to Font Groups or another folder. - Adobe Type 1 fonts under Windows 2000 are now recognized. - On the Font Information tab, the software now displays a red Adobe icon if a Type 1 font is selected. - Found and fixed a coding problem that could cause a 'mystery' GPF on startup. - Added additional code to detect problamatic fonts. A font called "Mr. Larry Tate" has no characters in it and caused PA to crash when it was read. Thanks to Rich K. for sending me information on this. - Added additional error checking code on startup. - Added verification code to detect non-TrueType fonts that may have a .TTF extension. - Added code to detect if the PAPARA1.TXT and PAPARA2.TXT files have been deleted. - On the Font Information tab, the font vendor text was not being updated correctly. This has been fixed. - Web links within the software have been updated to reflect changes in our web site structure. - Improved code for determining the Windows OS version that is currently running. - Fixed a problem where the character on the "Single Character" tab would not properly center itself when the main window was resized. - The Keyboard tab colors now reflect the colors set in the Options dialog. - This version ships with the Component Checker off by default. Printer's Apprentice 7.12 - 2/22/2000 - Quick fix to the install program - it was not creating the groups directory properly. - Bug fix - After changing the "Show Full Path" on the Options dialog, the installed fonts list now immediatly refreshes to reflect the change. Printer's Apprentice 7.12 - 2/16/2000 - As you can see, we are always trying to improve the software. There are lots of issues addressed with this release. - New Feature - Added links to our new web-based technical support request and Frequently Asked Questions pages on the Web. - New Feature - Added small ANSI numbers to the character set display on the main window. - New Feature - Added additional fields to the TrueType Information tab. It now displays font author, company and description in addition to the fields that were already there. Also, data no longer displays random question marks. - New Feature - Added a new Font Information sample sheet. This prints the data embedded in a TTF file and displayed on the TrueType Information tab. - New Feature - New in Options dialog box - You can now select the color used to draw text in the viewer window. You can also set the background color. - New Feature - The "Font Registry" dialog, has some new features - If a Registry entry points to a file that no longer exists, the software displays a small red symbol next to the name. The Repair button lets you select a TrueType font file to associate with a broken Registry link. The Delete button removes the invalid Registry entry. - New Feature - Added toolbar icons for the Font Registry tool and Font Properties dialog. - New Feature - Added sound effects when you click a column header to sort it. - Enhancement - This version no longer requires the THREED.OCX file. If you have it in your system folder and you know that no other apps use it, you can delete it. - Enhancement - Added better support for UNC naming conventions. It is now possible to use a Microsoft-style share on a network as the font groups folder. You could setup a share, \\machine\fontgroups for example, and then set the font groups folder to point to that share in the Options dialog. Make sure this share has full read/write access for anyone who will be connecting to it. - Enhancement - Changed the wording on the splash screen. It originally read "Reading xx fonts from your system." It now reads "Reading xx font families from your system." The original wording was causing confusion. When loading, PA is actually reading the font families (i.e. Arial), not individual fonts (i.e. Arial Bold). - Bug Fix - PA would crash if "Arial" was not installed on the system. This font was used for the small title bars in the app. This application now uses a system API call to determine the font used for small palette windows. - Bug fix: If you used Shift-Click to select multiple installed fonts and dragged them to a group, without releasing the shift key, the main window would no longer draw the selected font. This has been fixed. Thanks to TN for bringing this to our attention. - Bug Fix: On some systems with many, many drives, Printer's Apprentice would not recognize the some of the drives. Thanks to Raymond_SF for bringing this to our attention. - Bug Fix: Added improved refresh code for the drives on the Uninstalled tab. When a floppy/cd-rom/zip drive is changed, the list of folders for the drive is now refreshed. Thanks to SB for pointing this out. - Bug Fix - Enlarged the size of the Uninstall dialog box. The original size was clipping off some lines of text. - Bug Fix - Minor speed improvements in paint speed when resizing the main window. - Bug fix - it is now easier to "grab" and resize the window containing the installed/uninstalled/both lists. - Bug fix - if you had the debugging option enabled, then edited the notes for a font group, Printer's Apprentice would crash on exit. This has been fixed. - Bug fix - if you tried to delete an empty font group that had notes attached to it, the software would let you know the folder was not empty, even though it looked like there were no fonts in it. Under the hood, the notes are stored in a notes.txt file. I added code to automatically delete the notes file if it exists, then the font group folder will be sucessfully deleted. - Bug fix - sometimes FOT files would not get deleted when uninstalling fonts. This has been fixed. Printer's Apprentice 7.11 - 7/6/99 - Component Checker dialog now has links to online FAQ for help with debugging OCX/DLL conflicts. OCX/DLL conflict report also has improved step-by-step help for fixing problems. - Fixed a bug in drag & drop code that produced GPFs. GPFs would occur when dragging files to an empty directory or group. - The ESC key now closes the Font Registry dialog box. The button order on this dialog has also changed per standard Windows conventions. - New PAURL.INI file. This file contains a list of font related and Windows shareware links. To access this list, start Printer's Apprentice and select "Fonts on the Web" from the Help menu. Printer's Apprentice 7.10 - 6/1/99 - Recompiled with lastest Microsoft DLL/OCX files included in Microsoft Visual Studio Service Pack 3.0. README.TXT file was updated with new DLL/OCX version numbers. - New PAURL.INI file. This file contains a list of font related and Windows shareware links. To access this list, start Printer's Apprentice and select "Fonts on the Web" from the Help menu. Printer's Apprentice 7.09 - 5/5/99 - ATM 4.0 FOR WINDOWS NT Support! Printer's Apprentice now has preliminary support for Postscript Type 1 font installed with Adobe Type Manager 4.0 for Windows NT. This has only been tested with the base fonts that ship with ATM. There may be some Type 1 fonts under NT that Printer's Apprentice has a problem with. If you run into problems, please let me know. Note that Printer's Apprentice cannot read _uninstalled_ Type 1 fonts on either NT or 95/98. Type 1 fonts must be installed with ATM to be viewed or printed. - Fixed a problem with PA sometimes not correctly uninstalling a font when the "Delete Font File" option was selected. - Fixed a problem with FOT files. If a TTF file is installed via a reference to an FOT file in the Registry, PA was not always succesful in actually uninstalling the font. Often the font file would be moved/copied, but the font entry would remain in memory. - When browsing uninstalled font folders, the arrow indicating sort order now displays properly. - New nifty feature! 1. Click the "Single Character" tab or "Character Set" tab. 2. Press keys on the keyboard. 3. The characters displayed will change as you press the keyboard. Printer's Apprentice 7.08 - 3/31/99 - Fixed a problem with "Print All Fonts In Path..." and "Print Font Group Catalog". These catalogs now sort properly by font name. Printer's Apprentice 7.07 - 3/25/99 - Fixed problems with sample sheets not following the settings specified on the Options dialog. - PA no longer relies on the DWEASY32.OCX for certain functions. If you are certain that no other applications use this file, you can remove it from your windows\system folder. - The setup program is now smart enough to recognize an existing, registered version of the software. If you install PA7 into an a directory with an existing registered version, you don't need to re-enter your registration code. Printer's Apprentice 7.06 - 2/28/99 - Fixed an that sometimes prevented fonts being moved correctly from font group to other folders. - The catalog and sample sheet settings on the Print dialog are now saved when you close the dialog and restored when you open it. - Fixed a bug that prevented the Two Column catalog from printing correctly. It would print one column on the first page and then the second column on the second page. Not good. - Fixed a bug that prevented the display from updating if you held down the shift key while dragging fonts from one folder to another. Printer's Apprentice 7.05 - 2/8/99 - Fixed an "Error #91 - Object or variable not set" bug that occured when selecting multiple fonts while the Character Set view is displayed. - Fixed some code that prevented certain installed fonts from being displayed. - The ANSI Chart and Character Set printouts now obey the Details settings on the Sample Sheets tab of the Options dialog. - Added an option to suppress page numbers on the font catalogs. - Fixed an "Error #380 Invalid Property Value" than occured if you tried to print a catalog with only one font selected. - Printer's Apprentice now works with the "Generic / Text Only" printer driver. Previous versions resulted in a nasty "Error '35600' index out of bounds" crash. Note that you cannot print TrueType or Adobe fonts with the generic text driver. - Fixed an "Error 9" that popped up if you clicked an installed font while the "Reading X fonts from your system" dialog was open. - Fixed a cosmetic bug on the "Fonts on the Web" dialog box. As you moved the mousepointer over the URLs, the URL text would not display correctly. Printer's Apprentice 7.04 - 1/25/99 - New Feature * You can now double click on a font in the installed, uninstalled or font group list and the program associated with TTF files will be lauched. Normally this is the fontview.exe program that ships with Windows. Thanks to AS for this suggestion. - Fixed a GPF or "This item's control has been deleted" error that would occur if you used the keyboard to traverse the directory in the uninstalled list quickly. - Fixed a typo in the "Bar Divided Catalog." One of the text strings was coming out on the page as "012345656789" with the 5 and 6 repeated. Thanks to LM for finding this. - Fixed a GPF/"Object Variable Not Set" that occured when dragging installed fonts to a directory. This typically happened when dragging to the root of a drive. - Fixed a GPF/"Subscript Out of Bounds" error that could occur when dragging fonts from the installed list to a group. This usually happened when dragging to a group that is not the currently selected group. Printer's Apprentice 7.03 - 1/14/99 - Fixed a "Path/File Access" error. This occured if you select an installed font that physically resides in font group and dragged it back to the same font group. This bug also occured when an installed font that physically resides in a folder and is dragged from the installed font list to that same folder. This nasty little bug could hang the computer, GPF or display the "Path/File Access" error dialog. Thanks to SF for pointing this one out. - Fixed a bug that created many, many zero byte .TMP files in your windows\temp directory. Thanks to SF on this one. - Fixed a bug that caused some installed fonts to not be displayed. - When dragging fonts from the installed list to a font group or directory, the selection is no longer set back to the top of the installed list. Thanks to SF for this usability idea. - Fixed a bug where Marlette was always initially selected when the software loaded. - Fixed a bug that caused a GPF or "Bad File Number" error with logging enabled and trying to print all fonts in a particular path. Thanks for GM for sending me the info on this one. - Added an option to display the full path name for fonts in the installed fonts list box on the main screen. Printer's Apprentice 7.02 - 1/9/99 - Fixed the GPF/crash that occured when you opened the Tools|Registry window and then closed the Registry dialog. - Made the "Fonts on the Web" dialog sizable. - Removed references to the printed Printer's Apprentice manual from the About dialog. PA 7.0 does not ship with a manual. - Corrected the copyright date in the splash screen. Printer's Apprentice 7.01 - 1/6/99 - Fixed a resizing bug in the main PA form. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 - 1/4/99 - Fixed a bug that prevented Regular (non italic / non bold) fonts from printing correctly. - Fixed a bug that made drag and drop sometimes not start. - Fixed a bug that caused fonts in groups not install or display properly once installed. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 - 1/1/99 - Added a new "Fonts on the Web" dialog box that displays an extensive list of font related resources on the Internet. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #14- 12/15/98 - Finally fixed overflow bug on startup with some systems. - Updated all our documentation with information about our new online order system. Check it out at the following URL: Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #13- 12/10/98 - Perhaps we have the startup overflow bug fixed with this version. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #12- 12/09/98 - More logging. Trying to debug Overflow error on startup. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #11- 12/08/98 - More logging. Trying to debug Overflow error on startup. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #10- 12/07/98 - Removed some dead code in the project. - Added even more logging features to the PA startup code. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #9- 12/07/98 - Added additional logging features to the PA startup code. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #8- 12/06/98 - Fixed the Three Up Catalog. It was not printing properly and the new %UserName and %Date function were not working. - The Six-Up catalog was not using the %UserName & %Date functions correctly. - Added additional logging features. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #7- 12/02/98 - Fixed several problems with the Two Catalog columns. In some cases the sample text would not print. Also, the new %Date and %UserName codes were not working. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #6- 12/01/98 - Added a "Yes To All" button to the File Replace confirmation dialog that pops up if a file already exists in a target folder. - Added "print codes" that can be used for headers and footers on the print outs. Right now PA only supports two codes: %Date - prints current date %UserName - prints the user name (from the Options dialog) - Added "Print" to several of the right-click, popup menus. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #5- 11/19/98 - Font catalogs can now be printed at 8 points. Great for lots of fonts on one page. Terrible for reading... - Added the ability to print all fonts in your font groups. This option is located on the File menu. Note, not all catalogs are available for this type of report. - Added the ability to print all fonts in a path. This option is located on the file menu. Note, not all catalogs are available for this type of report. - Fixed an 'Undefined Element' error message that popped up after accessing the printer setup. - This version was compiled with Visual Studio 6 and the recently released Service Pack 1 from Microsoft. Due to this change, the list of DLL/OCX files used by Printer's Apprentice has been updated. The list can be found at the end of the readme.txt file. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #4- 10/21/98 - Fixed a problem with GradientTitle.OCX. Even though the software no longer uses it, our component checking tool was still looking for it. This resulted in a dialog box being displayed each time the software was launched. - Eliminated dependencies on the following files: dwvercls.dll. - Updated ActiveX / DLL references in the readme.txt file. - On the suggestion of a beta tester, David Raz, I added the volume name to the list of drives in the uninstalled tab. In the interest of load time, we only grab the volume name for hard drives. - When reading a directory with a lot of uninstalled fonts, PA now actually displays an hourglass mouse icon. - Fixed a problem with copying from the uninstalled list to the group list. If the source drive in the in the uninstalled list was a read only device, the items were still removed from the list box. - Added a progress dialog box (with flying paper animation!) when copying or moving font files. - Added the name of the currently selected printer to the Printer button tooltip. This is a nice addition, requested by Bob Mateer. - Added option for supressing the file path in catalog printouts. - Fixed option for displaying or not displaying the font file type on the catalog printouts. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #3- 10/05/98 - This version was compiled with Microsoft's Visual Studio 98. Let's hope it cleans up some of the mystery GPF's, etc. - Eliminated dependencies on the following files: ccrpani.ocx comctl32.ocx gradienttitle.ocx ctl3d32.dll These files may be removed from your system folder if you are sure that no other applications use them. (PA 6.54 does use them). - The point size sliders now have a little tag that indicates the size over the mouse pointer as the slider is moved. - Added a Registry tool. This allows you to examine, print and save the font related entries from your Windows Registry. This new feature is located on the Tools menu. - Added an "Install..." option to the File|Font Groups sub menu. This installs just the selected fonts in a font group. - Fixed up an error is the list of OCX/DLL files shipped with the software. - Added a few tweaks that make the initial splash screen pop up more quickly. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA #2- 7/27/98 - File|Exit, Close button - I think I fixed the GPF that happened on some systems on shutdown of PA. Some of the software components were not loading in the proper sequence, causing meltdown. The GPF's no longer happens on my NT4 system, let me know if it still happens on yours. - Drag&Drop Fonts To A Font Group - Created a new dialog box that is displayed when completing a drag and drop operation from the Installed Fonts list to a font group. The other dialog was confusing and had some options that were not applicable for this function. We also updated the What's This? help for this new dialog. - Uninstall Dialog - Tab ordering has been fixed. "Next" is now the default button so you can press Enter to move from step to step. - Install Font Group - Cleared up some of the message boxes that came up if all the font in the group were already installed. - Options Dialog - Fixed bug where catalog point size option was not saved and restored properly. - Added Select All entry on the Edit menu. - Two Column Catalog I, II - Fixed a problem where the descriptions for the second column printed over the descriptions for the fonts in the first column. - Two Column Catalog II - Adjusted the vertical spacing between fonts, the information line and the next font. The spacing was really whacked. - Form sizing - The main PA form now has a minimum window size and cannot be sized smaller than this. - Font Reading - Installed fonts with two letter font names were not being picked up by PA. This has been fixed. - Documentation - Various enhancements and corrections to the help file and DLL/OCX version section of the readme.txt file. Printer's Apprentice 7.0 BETA - 7/13/98 - First release of overhauled PA 7.0. Too many new things to list. For a general list of new features, see the help file. Areas under contruction include help file and setup kit. Any suggestions on the help file are appreciated. Known bugs ---------- * GPF On Shutdown - Some NT 4.0 systems GPF when the X close button is clicked. Workaround: Use File|Exit to quit. * Can't Select By Dragging Mouse - In theory you should be able to select multiple fonts in any list by dragging the mouse. However, sometimes the file drag starts suddenly. Workaround: Use the keyboard with the CTRL and SHIFT keys to select multiple fonts. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 - 4/8/98 - Fixed a problem with the Keyboard chart and Catalog #2. With some print drivers, some lines where printing very faint. - Fixed a crooked line problem in Sample Sheet #1. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 - 3/16/98 - Fixed a problem with the printed ANSI chart that caused a horizontal line to extend out from the lower left corner of the bounding box. It was quite ugly. Thanks to DP for pointing this out. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 - 3/12/98 - Updated readme.txt file with list of OCX/DLL system files used by PA. The version numbers on a few files on the list were out of date and did not correspond with the files that we actually ship. - Updated Order Form in Help File with proper telephone number to call if you have a problem with your order. - Fixed a problem that happened if a printer was not installed. PA would crash. Now it displays a message box indicating that PA requires a print driver to run. - Fixed Options dialog box so Printer Reset text box would accept double digit numbers. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 - 2/4/98 - Fixed an "Invalid property value" error message that occured when selecting Keyboard from the Characters menu and an Adobe font is selected in the main window. Thanks to D. Bannister for alerting us to this. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 - 1/21/97 - Fixed a "Can't set printer orientation" bug when printing multiple keyboard layouts. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Released - 11/24/97 - Added more Windows 95 like icons to the font lists. - Added code to check for "File Not Found" error when an ATM font is selected. - This version has also been fully tested with Adobe Type Manager 4.0. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #7 - 11/11/97 - Fixed problem where the "Printer's Apprentice Component Checker" would pop up complaining about MHKEYST32.OCX. - Fixed "Run-time error 91" bug that occured when trying to uninstall fonts. - Significantly reduced EXE file size (we needed to do this in order to fit the application on two diskettes). Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #6 - 11/8/97 - Eliminated need for the MHKEYST32.OCX. This file no longer ships with Printer's Apprentice. - Fixed transparancy problem that resulted in a white block in the upper left hand corner of the Divided Bar Catalog. - Added newer style buttons to keyboard window. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #5 - 11/4/97 - Thanks to Steve S. for his help with the beta. Many of the items listed below were picked up by him. - Our contact email addresses have changed. All references in the software and documentation have been updated. Our new contact addresses are as follows: Sales and Information salesinfo@loseyourmind.com Technical Support helpdesk@loseyourmind.com - Somewhere along the way we broke some of the menu items under the Characters menu. These have been fixed and now work correctly when the Character Set tab is selected. - Many items on the Characters menu do not apply when the Paragraph or Font Information tabs are selected. We fixed the code so these menu items are disabled and enabled where appropriate. - Fixed a problem with the up/down arrow keys in the main window. If you scrolled up and down in the font list box, the arrow keys stopped working when a non-TrueType font was encountered. - Fixed many minor display bugs that pop up during screen resizing. - Fixed error "cannot open install.log" that occured when running the uninstaller from the Start menu. - More updates to the help file. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #4 - 11/1/97 - Our homepage URL changed. All references in the software and documentation has been changed to http://www.loseyourmind.com - Fixed error on start that said the STDOLE2.TLB file was not registered. - Fixed error "Control array element 4 eoes not exist." This error ocured on startup after exiting the program with the Font Information tab selected. - Minor fixes to the help file. - Fixed overflow error that occured if an uninstalled TTF file with an invalid header was selected. - Fixed "cannot open setup.log" error in setup program. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #3 - 10/28/97 - Fixed "35613 Imagelist must be initialized before it can be used" error that some users encountered on startup. It was a programming error on our end and took a while to debug. - Changed setup program log file name to SETUP.LOG. - Main window now has 3D "gripper" control on bottom right corner. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #2, - 10/22/97 - Added new font catalog, the "Divided Bar Catalog" (for DB in Victoria, Australia) - Added multi-column listview controls to the Print Uninstalled fonts and Install Fonts dialog boxes. - Made "Reading Fonts" operation more intelligent so it only scans if you have added or removed fonts. - More bug fixes - Setup program recompiled with Wise Setup 5.0 - Setup program is more intelligent about version checking - Added technology from Desaware, Inc. that lets Printer's Apprentice check for old versions of needed runtime Active X and DLL files. If an old OCX or DLL is found, it displays a dialog box prompting the user to reinstall the software. Printer's Apprentice 6.54 Beta #1, - 10/6/97 - Recompiled with Visual Basic 5.0 for increased performance and compatability with Office 97 applications. - General interface tweaks include use of sliders instead of scroll bars on the main window, multicolumn "listview" controls are used on many dialog boxes. - Toolbar has been improved with the Office 97 style and larger, 256 color icons. - The currently selected tab (on the main window) and font is saved when you exit and restored when you restart the software. - Uninstall Wizard can uninstall fonts from multiple TrueType families at once. This dialog now includes a font preview. - Print dialog includes a font preview. - Fixed "invalid subscript" error in Print Uninstalled Fonts Wizard that could occur if you click the print button when no fonts are selected. - Replace TABCLT32.OCX tab control with control found in COMCTL32.OCX. This means we don't have to ship TABCTL32.OCX any more, a savings of 196k. - Recoded and eliminated MHCBO32.OCX. A savings of 192k. PRINTER'S APPRENTICE 6.53 - July 10, 1997 ----------------------------------------- - Fixed "Overflow" error that could occur during startup, after PA had read the font list. WHAT'S NEW IN PRINTER'S APPRENTICE 6.52 --------------------------------------- Listed below are all fixes and enhancements made to Printer's Apprentice since version 6.50. - Fixed "Divide by Zero" error that occured when trying to install just one TrueType font. - Placed error checking code in effort to fix "Overflow" errors some users encountered at startup. - Placed error checking code in effort to fix "Subscript out of bounds" errors some folks have encountered when installing fonts. - Added a new specimen sheet. The 72 Point Character Set prints a table of alphabet and numeric characters at 72 points. - Added a new Select button to the Print/Install/Print from CD dialogs. When you click the new Select button, a menu drops down offering choices to select All, Regular, Bold, Italic, BoldItalic and None. This is response to lots of user feedback. Many users wanted a way to select all the Regular fonts at once. - Fixed progress bar in the Install Fonts Wizard. As it looped through the fonts to install, it would display 5%, 10%, 5%, 2% and other erratic patterns. - Added links on the menu to the Lose Your Mind Developement home page. - Fixed a discrepancy between printing installed and uninstalled fonts. On the Installed version of any catalog, the "(TrueType)" text next to a TT font was not being printed. - Install Fonts and Print Fonts from CD-ROM Dialog Bug Fixes - (Install only) - If a selected font file already exists in your windows\fonts folder, you could get a "subscript out range" error. - If you selected a directory of TTF files and some of those font files were currently installed, upon returning to the main PA window, those fonts would not be displayed or available in PA or other Windows apps. (In other words, installed fonts were being inadvertantly uninstalled by PA) - When reading a directory or changing a directory, the full status message above the progress bar was not being displayed. - Several users noted that it can take a few moments to close this window and return to the main PA window. We have tried to tweak this routine and added a "Cleaning up..." message to the Install/Print window. - Fixed a bug in the Filter drop down listbox. If you had the directory filtered, then printed a catalog or sample sheets, then click the << Previous buttons to go back and change your filter, the filter would no longer work. Each time the filter is changed, it resulted in a "No font files" list. 04/02/97 - Printer's Apprentice 6.5a Final Version, v. 4/2/97 release date