Table of Contents
Advertisement
HOW THE STAR
LASEI?PRINTER 8
Bit-mappedfonts
STORES FONTS
StarMicmnicshasearneda reputationfor attractive,well-designed fontson
its printers,and this laser printercontinuesthe tradition.
The Star LaserPrinter 8 uses bit-mappedfonts.Each characteris madeup
of a patternor "map"of dots,just like characterson a dot-matrixprinteror
on your computerscreen.Resolutionmakes the difference:to make each
characterthe Star LaserPrinter8 uses ten or twentytimesas many dots as
a dot-matrixprinteror computerscreendoes.
Everysizeofprintyouwant,pluseveryitalicorboldfaceversion,hasitsown
bit map and is normallyconsidereda separatefont. It takes a gooddeal of
printermemoryto hold all the fontsyoumightwant at any givenmoment.
Star LaserPrinter8 fonts can be grouped into three categories:internal,
cartridge,and dowrdoadable fonts.
Internalfonts
The Star LaserPrinter8 has four built-ininternalfonts that reside perma-
nently in its read-onlymemory (ROM).That's why these are sometimes
called"residentfonts":
Courier
Prestige
Elite
Tms Romn
Line
Printer
Courieris the face usedon the mostcommonelectrictypewriters. Neither
Couriernor PrestigeElite,anothertypewriterface,areprintedwithpropor-
tionalspacing.Tms Romnhowever,is alwaysspacedproportionally. T ms
Romnis probablythemostreadableandmostpopularcommercialtypeset-
tingface.TheLinePrinterfont,desi~ed originallyformainframecomput-
ers, is smallanddesignedto pack a lot of charactersintoeveryinchof print
(greatfor spreadsheets).
With these most frequentlyused fonts in ROM, a page can be assembled
muchfasterthanifthefontshadtobeloadedintotheprinterforeachprinting
job.
38
Advertisement
Table of Contents
