John Scheffel
04-10-2003, 09:54 AM
Over the years of using ME10/Drafting, we have often encountered problems sending MI files to other people due to font file issues. Drafting only saves the name of the font with the MI file. If you send the drawing to someone else you can encounter problems unless they have the exact same font files as you have. Some of the problems we have encountered are:
The recipient is running a different version and the standard font files are slightly different. For example, you create a drawing in the current version, and they are running an older version which does not have new characters which were added to the standard font.
You have used a custom font that they don't have, in which case the text displays as blocks. This means you must also send them the font file, and they have to figure out how to load it (not as easy as you might think).
You have customized a standard font to add characters or modify characters. For example, we add some extra symbols to the hp_symbols font. People using the standard hp_symbols will see boxes where these custom symbols should be. At one time we increased the size of the decimal point since it was virtually invisible in some printouts, but CoCreate has since fixed this in the standard fonts.
You use a truetype font in your drawing, but the recipient does not have that truetype font in their Windows installation.
All of these issues would be eliminated if all the fonts used in a drawing were saved into the MI file. You would not have to save all the fonts, just the ones that were used. This would insure that the drawing the recipient sees looks exactly like the drawing the creator sees. I suspect the fonts were not saved in the early days because storage space was very limited, but that should not be an issue today. A typical font would add about 60 KB to the MI file size, and most drawings only use one or two fonts. However, if this is a concern it could be added as a configurable option. For example:
SAVE_FONT_WITH_MI ON
The recipient is running a different version and the standard font files are slightly different. For example, you create a drawing in the current version, and they are running an older version which does not have new characters which were added to the standard font.
You have used a custom font that they don't have, in which case the text displays as blocks. This means you must also send them the font file, and they have to figure out how to load it (not as easy as you might think).
You have customized a standard font to add characters or modify characters. For example, we add some extra symbols to the hp_symbols font. People using the standard hp_symbols will see boxes where these custom symbols should be. At one time we increased the size of the decimal point since it was virtually invisible in some printouts, but CoCreate has since fixed this in the standard fonts.
You use a truetype font in your drawing, but the recipient does not have that truetype font in their Windows installation.
All of these issues would be eliminated if all the fonts used in a drawing were saved into the MI file. You would not have to save all the fonts, just the ones that were used. This would insure that the drawing the recipient sees looks exactly like the drawing the creator sees. I suspect the fonts were not saved in the early days because storage space was very limited, but that should not be an issue today. A typical font would add about 60 KB to the MI file size, and most drawings only use one or two fonts. However, if this is a concern it could be added as a configurable option. For example:
SAVE_FONT_WITH_MI ON