Screen Fonts Varying in Size When in Different Resolution

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0
• Microsoft FoxPro for Windows, versions 2.5x, 2.6, 2.6a

You may note that items carefully sized in the Screen Builder for one resolution do not exactly match in another resolution. This behavior is the result of the Windows font mapper being unable to exactly match the font in the new resolution.

The font mapper attempts to match the many characteristics of the named font with the fonts available in the new resolution. It matches size, style, family, and a number of other characteristics to determine the best match. If no exact match is found, the nearest possible match is chosen.

This varying font selection can become a problem when the font that is chosen as the screen font for a screen (see the Screen Layout dialog box) cannot be matched on the destination resolution. Since the screen font is used to size and position all the items on the screen, sizing and positioning can vary significantly if the font cannot be exactly matched, which results in Windows selecting a "best fit" match.

To mitigate the effects of this problem, do the following:

1. Follow Windows dialog box design practice and design screens with a lot of space around individual items. This type of design allows items to "float" when varying resolutions and screen fonts are used.

2. Design screens with a TrueType screen font. Because the various sizes of each TrueType font are derived on the fly for each resolution and size combination, TrueType fonts are available in virtually any size, which means that the font mapper never has to settle for second best.

3. Make sure that the chosen design font is available on the destination machines--for example, TrueType fonts are not available in Windows 3.0. Also make sure you don't use a font that wasn't shipped with Windows because that font may not be installed on the destination machines.

   If the destination machines are running Windows 3.1, it is best to use the TrueType fonts that are shipped with Windows 3.1 (for example, Arial, Times New Roman, and so on).

   If the destination machines may be running Windows 3.0 instead of 3.1, use the fonts shipped with Windows 3.0 (such as Courier, Helv, or Tms Rmn).