Star Micronics 4 manual Bit-mappedfonts, Internalfonts

3.2HOWTHE STAR LASERPRINTER4 STORESFONTS

3.2.1 Bit-mappedfonts

StarMicronicshasearneda reputationfor attractive,well-designedfontson its printers,and this laser printercontinuesthe tradition.

The Star LaserPrinter4 uses bit-mappedfonts.Each characters madeup of a patternor “map”of dots,just like characterson a dot-matrixprinteror on your computerscreen. Resolutionmakes the difference:to make each characterthe StarLaserPrinter4 uses ten or twentytimesas many dots as a dot-matrixprinteror computerscreendoes.

Everysizeofprintyouwant,pluseveryitalicorboldfacevecsion,hasitsown bit map and is normallyconsidereda separatefont. It takesa gooddeal of printermemoryto hold all the fontsyoumightwant at any givenmoment.

Star Las&Pnnter 4 fonts can be grouped into three categories:internal, cartridge,and downloadablefonts.

3.2.2Internalfonts

The StarLaserPrinter4 has sevenbuilt-ininternulfontsthat resideperma- nently in its read-onlymemory (ROM).That’s why these are sometimes called“residentfonts”:

Courier 12point Medium

Courier 12point Bold

Courier 12point Italic

Courier 1Opoint Medium

Courier 1Opoint Bold

Courier 1Opoint Italic

LinePrinter 8.5point Medium

Courieris the faceused on the mostcommonelectrictypewriters.Courier is not printed with proportionalspacing.The LinePrinterfont, designed originallyfor mainframecomputem,is smallanddesignedto pack a lot of charactersinto every inch of print (greatfor spreadsheets).

With these most frequentlyused fonts in ROM, a page can be assembled muchfasterthanifthefontshadtobeloadedintotheprinterforeachprinting job.

34