Flesher: Technical Support

System 3 Service Bulletin 011:

System 3 Printwheel and Font Table Selection

You have been supplied several Font Table charts and Printwheel Character charts for your use. Use the Printwheel Character Chart first to select characters for the printwheel. Select up to 300 characters and place the them in any order (we'll arrange the placement of the characters on the wheel). In the table, "V/H" means vertical or horizontal; just put a "V" or "H" to indicate the orientation in which the character is to be used. "Style/Pt" is style and point size. Use our style numbers such as; "630".

Next, use as many Font Table Charts as you need to define font tables. The letters shown in the 'KEY' column of the chart are the letters on the keys of your computer keyboard. Note that each key on your keyboard can be used up to four times in each font. Different characters are selected by using UNSHIFTED, SHIFTED, ALTERNATE, AND SHIFTED ALTERNATE controls keys. Select a character from the Printwheel Character Chart to correspond to each desired key. In the column labeled "CHAR POS", enter the number corresponding to the desired print character on the printwheel character chart (1 through 300). You don't need to assign a character to each key; keys can be left "dead" without an assigned character. The same printwheel character can be assigned to keys on several different charts (For example, you could use the same period and comma for both 18 point and 24 point fonts).

SHARING CHARACTERS and USING OFFSETS (position shifts):

There are some 'tricks' that can be used with System3 which will give you additional printable characters. Following are some suggestions, but you can probably think of others. Characters on the printwheel can have multiple uses. For example a comma can be used as an apostrophe. (The software will handle the position shift.) Some characters can be used in several different fonts and even between vertical and horizontal orientation. For example, the '+' can be used in both vertical and horizontal fonts and an 18 point hyphen can be shifted upward in position and used for the 24 point font.

• Use one period for both vertical and horizontal fonts.
• Use "+" for both vertical and horizontal .
• Use a six pointed "*" for both vertical and horizontal.
• Share periods, commas, hyphens and other sorts between fonts.
• Use comma for apostrophe.
• Use 'O' for zero (I don't like this one; the zero and 'O' are unique.).
• Use upper case I for lower case l (they are indistinguishable in sans serif - type styles).
• Use upper case vertical I for horizontal underscore (sans serif type styles - only).
• Use upper case horizontal I for vertical underscore (sans serif type styles - only).

USING MACRO CHARACTERS (characters created from multiple strikes):

Some characters can be constructed from combinations of several other characters. For example, a semicolon can be by using a period and a comma, or a colon can be constructed by using the period twice. (The font table software will handle the details of selecting multiple characters and shifting their position.) Foreign characters can even be constructed such as an umlaut by using the period twice. An acceptable 'C' with a cedilla can even be constructed with a 'C' and a comma shifted downward. * Use a comma and a period for semi-colon.

• Use a period twice for colon.
• Use a period twice for umlaut.
• Use a "C" and a comma for French or Spanish cedilla.
• Use two commas for quote (").