source: projects/schriften/README.htm @ 23

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[23]1<html>
2<body>
[9]3
[23]4<h2>Paper Tape Fonts</h2>
[9]5
[23]6<h3>Introducion</h3>
7<p>By punching special bit patterns on paper tapes, you can "print" out
8   text on paper tapes. The result can be used in a wide variety of ways,
9   for example for labeling things, as unique souvenir or simply to
10   label mass produced paper tapes.</p>
[9]11
[23]12<p>Like ordinary computer fonts (e.g. True Type Fonts), there are also
13   many different possibilities to "paint" letters and digits on paper
14   tapes. We have implemented a couple of fonts as perl programs. They
15   are called quite like
16<pre>
[9]17   $ ./schrift.pl "Text we want to print out" > paper-tape.bin
[23]18</pre>
[9]19
[23]20<p>Thus, they usually print out the generated bit patterns to stdout.
21   Mass punching and labeling is therefore quite simple:
22<pre>
[9]23   $ ./schrift.pl "File ABC on `date`" | cat - file.bin | ./punch
[23]24</pre>
[9]25
[23]26<p>To simplify this process, various punching frontens already use
27   the font generation programs internally.
[9]28
[23]29<br/>By the way, the german word <i>schrift</i> simpy means <i>font</i>.
[9]30
[23]31<h3>The PaperTapeFont C Library</h3>
32<p>The PaperTapeFont C library is a rather small pure C library that uses
33   only basis libc functions (no dependency at all). It consists of an
34   header file and a quite huge C file and has a pseudo object oriented
35   approach, comparable to the <tt>LOCHSTREIFEN</tt> object in
36   <a href="../visualisator/lochstreifen.c">the visualisator subproject</a>.
37<br/>This library can handle Paper Tape Font files in a very powerful manner.
38   These are some of the features:</p>
39<ul>
40   <li><b>Quick and small</b>: Only one small C program, runs very fast due to
41       basic string operations (nothing regex like)</li>
42   <li>Can load and save paper tape files</li>
43   <li>Can change paper tape files quickly</li>
44   <li>Can render any strings quickly</li>
45</ul>
46
47<h3>Paper Tape Font command line interface</h3>
48<p>Furthermore, there's a very good documentated command line interface called
49<tt>ptfont</tt> with an excellence help system. Using this interface, you can
50create and modify any Paper Tape Font file, as well as render strings in good old
51Unix philosophy fashion.</p>
52
53<h3>Paper Tape Font Gtk+ interface</h3>
54<p>The GtkPaperTape widget features an implemented fully functional interface to
55   the PaperTapeFont library where you can create and modify any paper tape font,
56   as well as (of course) generate texts in any paper tape font.</p>
57
58<h3>Paper Tape Font files</h3>
59<p>I've written a manual (or specification)
60   <a href="font_files.htm">how to use and write Paper Tape Font files</a>.</p>
61 
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