INF: Using a Different Hardware Font Instead of the Default

ID Number: Q22131

2.00 2.03 2.10 3.00

WINDOWS

Summary:

The following information describes how to inform Windows that a

specific hardware font in a display device driver should be used

instead of the default system font.

In general, an OEM provides an .FON file that contains bitmaps and

metric information that is appropriate for the display board. This

font file is listed in the SYSTEM.INI file in the [boot] section as

follows:

fonts.fon=<OEM's .FON file>

At startup, GDI creates the SYSTEM_FONT stock font from this file.

If the display board has a hardware font available, it is possible to

force GDI to use this font as the SYSTEM_FONT font by creating an .FON

file that contains no bitmap information and has the third bit (04h)

set in the dfType field and the absolute address of the hardware font

in the dfBitsOffset field in the FONTINFO structure contained in the

.FON file.

Note: It must be possible to draw that same font (or any other

hardware fonts that are provided within the display device driver)

onto main-memory bitmaps. GDI has no notion of some fonts being used

on the (dedicated) frame buffer and other fonts being used on

host-memory bitmaps. Often, this requires that the hardware font be

read off of the board and into host memory where the display device

driver can move the bitmaps onto compatible bitmaps allocated by GDI.

Within these guidelines, and with that provision in mind, the

programmer can feel free to provide the system, OEM, and so on, with

as many additional fonts as are desired (say, from Bitstream, Xiphias,

or Conographics).

For more information on how Windows creates its stock fonts, query on

the following words in the knowledge base:

prod(winsdk) and stock and logical