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Multilingual and Other TrueType Fonts for WPDOS 6.x


Basic installation instructions | Use any symbol in any TrueType font | Microsoft and other international font sites | Home page


For further information on fonts and WordPerfect for DOS, see the separate page on PostScript fonts for use with PostScript printers (for WPDOS 5.1 and 6.x).


WordPerfect for DOS 6.x can use almost any (perhaps every) Windows-compatible TrueType font, including the OpenType fonts distributed with Windows XP (fonts with a .TTF file extension). If the font includes Eastern European, Cyrillic, and Greek characters in addition to the standard Western European characters, WPDOS 6.x will automatically assign these characters to their proper places in the WP character set. As a result, WPDOS 6.x has much of the typographic flexibility of the the most advanced Windows software from Microsoft and Adobe, and is far superior to all except the most recent versions of WordPerfect for Windows in its support of multilingual documents.

Windows 98 and all later Windows versions ship with a selection of exceptionally well-designed multilingual fonts, and others may be downloaded from Microsoft and other sites. The techniques described on this page can be performed only because of the splendid work performed by Microsoft's typography group in the service of advanced multilingual computing and typographic design.

This page includes general instructions for installing Windows TrueType fonts in WPDOS (reproduced from this site's Windows printing page), a method of using any character or symbol in any TrueType font, and links to Microsoft and other download sites for multilingual fonts.


Install Windows TrueType fonts in WPDOS 6.x: basic instructions

WordPerfect 6.x can use the same TrueType fonts used by your Windows system. However, errors may occur in WordPerfect if you use the same copies of the font files stored in the Windows Fonts directory. Avoid potential problems by creating a storage directory for the TrueType fonts that you want to use with WordPerfect, and copy the fonts that you want for WordPerfect into the new directory from the Windows fonts directory. Use a name like C:\TT for your storage directory, and use Windows Explorer to copy the fonts from your Windows fonts directory (typically C:\Windows\Fonts). In most Windows versions, you can also open the Fonts directory by using Start/Run... and enter "Fonts" (no quotation marks). You can also open the Fonts directory by clicking on Fonts in the Windows control panel, or use Start/Settings to access the Control Panel's Fonts icon.

When you have copied into your new directory the fonts that you want to use, start WordPerfect (without the /dl option if you normally use it). Inside WordPerfect, choose Ctrl-F8/Shift-F1, then Install Fonts. The WordPerfect Font Installer (WPFI) will open. Choose TrueType. 

At this point, one of two things will happen, either (a) or (b):

(a) If you have not previously installed TrueType fonts into WPDOS, the Location of Files dialog will appear. Choose TTF Files and enter the full path of your special TrueType directory or, if you decided not to create this special directory, enter the full path of Windows font directory. (Help! What does a "full path" mean?) Select and install the fonts of your choice. (If you installed fonts directly from the Windows font directory, instead of from a special storage directory, there is a small chance that you may need to exit and restart WPDOS, or perhaps even Windows, before the fonts will be usable.

(b) If you have previously installed TrueType fonts in WP (probably from your existing TrueType font directory), a list of those fonts will appear; press Home,* to clear all the selections. Under Directories for Files, enter the name of the Windows font directory. Select and install the fonts you want to use in WP. WP will prompt you to choose between copying the font files to the existing font directory used by WP or leave the fonts where they are. Choose the option to copy the files to the existing WP font directory; if you do not, the files in the Windows font directory may be changed by another program, but WP will assume that the earlier versions are still installed and errors may occur.

If, for any reason, when you choose Ctrl-F8/Shift-F1, the Install Fonts option is grayed out and unavailable, you can open a DOS prompt (Help! How do I open a DOS prompt?), go to the directory containing WPDOS printer files, run WPFI.EXE, and install the fonts in the same manner described above. In WP itself, check the expected location of  TrueType font files in Shift-F1/Location of Files/Graphic Font Data Files. The Install Fonts option will be unavailable if you launch WordPerfect with the /DL option, which disables WP's program launcher. 

Warning: WPDOS may become unstable if too many graphics fonts are installed. Add no more than four TrueType fonts at a time, and test the results before adding any more. WPDOS stores graphics font information in the WP.DRS file, typically in the C:\WPC62DOS directory. Before adding new fonts to WP, make a backup of this file so that you can restore it in case of emergency.


Use any character or symbol in any TrueType font

WordPerfect for DOS 6.x automatically installs the Eastern European, Cyrillic, and Greek character sets when you install any of Microsoft's fonts that support the WGL4 (Windows Glyph List 4) character set. These include the standard Arial, Times New Roman, and other system fonts that ship with Windows 98 and later versions. Until the arrival of multilingual TrueType fonts, the largest character sets available to WPDOS were those provided by fonts in Bitstream's Speedo format; the WGL4 TrueType format provides a larger set of non-Latin characters. No special steps need to be taken to use these characters. WPDOS uses them automatically.

Microsoft's fonts include additional characters and symbol sets that WordPerfect cannot automatically install. These typically include the Arabic and Hebrew character sets, some little-used European characters, and, in some fonts, typographic symbols like ligatures and other special symbols. Before these symbols can be used in WPDOS, some manual labor is required. The tools required for using these additional symbols are (a) the PTR.EXE program that was supplied with WPDOS,  (b) a calculator or calculator program, and (c) a utility that can display the width of a character in a TrueType font and the number of the character in the Unicode encoding standard. All three are freely available:

(a) The WordPerfect 6.x Printer Definition Program, PTR.EXE, was not included in diskette-based copies of WPDOS 6.x If you do not already have a copy, it may be downloaded from Corel's web site. Install the program into the same directory that you use for printer files (in WPDOS, you can find the name of this directory with Shift-F1, Location of Files, Printer Files).

(b) You may use the calculators embedded in this page (see below) instead of a standard calculator program like the one included in all versions of Windows. To open the Windows calculator, use Start/Run and enter CALC to launch the program. You may also use the Calc.exe program that ships with WordPerfect Office.

(c) An most informative utility for use with TrueType fonts is Kevin Macdonald's freeware program TrueType Explorer. Download and install the program before proceeding. (Note: In the years since this page was first written, similar utilities have probably appeared, but the following instructions are set up for TrueType Explorer.)

Now perform the following steps to access characters in TrueType fonts that are not normally accessible to WPDOS 6.x. For a character in a proportionally-spaced font to print from WordPerfect, it must have an entry in the font's character map and in the font's proportional spacing table. In the following instructions we will add an entry to the character map and proportional spacing table for a font after importing it into WPDOS.  The instructions describe, as an example, the way to enable WordPerfect to use the "fi" ligature in the Times New Roman TrueType font. This example may easily be adapted to any other character that is not already enabled after being imported into WPDOS.

(1) Install TrueType fonts into WordPerfect as described elsewhere on this page. Test the fonts to insure that they print correctly. To follow this example, import the Times New Roman font (TIMES.TTF).

(2) If you are using vDosWP, then run the vDos Plain DOS command to open a DOS prompt (if you are still using 32-bit Windows, simply open a command prompt). Navigate to the directory in which you keep your WPDOS printer files and PTR.EXE, and make a backup copy of the file WP.DRS (use a name like WPDRS.OK).

(3) In the same directory, run this DOS command to open the WP printer definition program and modify the file that stores information about your TrueType fonts: ptr wp.drs

(4) In the Printer Definition Program, WP.DRS should be selected. Use Edit/Fonts/Non-Shared Built-In, and select the font you want to work with; in this example, we will use Times New Roman (TT). Use only a font with (TT) at the end of its name. Choose Edit/Character Map. With the font's character map selected, choose Create, assign the new character map a name like Windows Unicode, and make sure that the box next to "Use Pattern" has a checkmark (this copies the existing character map to a new, initially identical map). Press OK. With the new Windows Unicode character map highlighted, press the asterisk key to mark the map as used by your font. Choose Edit to open the screen in which you modify the character map; using the Current Character Map to Edit option, explore the characters that have been imported into WordPerfect, but do not make any changes in the character map. Leave the Printer Definition Program running with this screen open.

Note: The reason for creating a new character map named Windows Unicode is that multiple fonts can use the same character map without causing problems. After creating a new character map for one of your Windows-based TrueType fonts, you can assign that same modified Windows Unicode character map to other imported Windows TrueType fonts; that way, you will not have to make separate changes to the character map of each font. However, you will need to modify the proportional spacing tables separately for each font, because the different spacing of individual fonts requires different proportional spacing tables.

(5) Return to the Windows desktop and run the TrueType Explorer utility that you installed earlier. Open your TrueType font storage directory (C:\TT or some similar name), select the font that you are modifying in the Printer Definition Program, and drag it into the TrueType Explorer window. For the purposes of these instructions, we are working with the Times New Roman font, so you should drag Times.ttf into the window. You should see an icon labeled Times.ttf.

(6) Still in TrueType Explorer, use the View menu and select Details. The font will appear with its full path listed (for example C:\TT\TIMES.TTF). Select the font and press Enter; then select Unicode Blocks, and press Enter; if you like, explore the various blocks to see the characters in the font. Not all of these characters were added when the font was installed into WordPerfect, although all are accessible in Windows.

(7) Still in TrueType Explorer, in the Unicode Blocks screen, scroll down to Alphabetic Presentation Forms, press Enter, then View/Large Icons. The second character in the list is the "fi" ligature; select it and press Enter to see a large image of the character shape, then press Backspace to return to the list, and then View/Details. Notice two items in the row that describes the "fi" ligature: the entry in the Code Value column, which is U+FB01, and the entry in the Advance Width column, which is 1139. (You may need to scroll the window to the right to see the Advance Width column.)

Note: In older versions of this font, the fi Ligature was in the the Private Use Area, and the entry in the Code Value column was U+F001. If you have an older version of the font, use this value instead of the one listed above.

(8) Return to the WP Printer Definition Program. In the character map window, under Current Character Set to Edit, choose Typographic Symbols, then scroll down to item 54, Ligature fi. (If you are installing a character that is not in the WordPerfect symbol list, you may want to use Character Set 12, User-Defined, and choose any available character.) Press Enter (or choose Edit) to open the Edit Map Printer Command window; Tab into Expression. Press F4, then G, then Enter to go into the editing window and enter the five characters (four letters and a parenthesis) in the the string GMAP( (that is, the upper-case letters GMAP followed immediately by an open parenthesis with no spaces anywhere).The Code Value for the fi ligature is U+FB01 (but see the note above if you have an older version of the font); immediately after the string GMAP( in the editing window, you will type only the hex number, which in this example is FB01, and add "h" at the end of the number to indicate that this is a hex number. Also, to avoid an error message in the Printer Definition Program, you must add a zero at the beginning of any hex number that starts with a letter. So, immediately after the open parenthesis, type 0FB01h (notice the two zeroes), followed by a closing parenthesis, so that the expression field looks like this:

GMAP(0FB01h)

Note: If you prefer, you may enter a decimal number (no "h" at the end) instead of a hex number in the GMAP(number) field. To find the decimal number that matches the hex number displayed by TrueType Explorer, you can use this calculator to convert between hex and decimal numbers. Enter the hex digit (no "h") at the end in the first field, and tab to, or click in, the Decimal field (in our example, hex FB01 is decimal 64257):

Hex:    Decimal: 

(8) Press F7 repeatedly until you are back at the Edit Font menu, and choose Size and Spacing Information. In the Size and Spacing Information, select the Spacing... item, then Proportionally Spaced..., then Proportional Spacing Table..., then, with the Times New Roman proportional spacing table selected, choose Edit. The Typographic Symbols character set should be selected; select it if it is not already selected. Scroll down to item 54, and notice that there is no entry in the Width column. Remember that the Advance Width that you found for this character in TrueType Explorer was 1139; use the calculator below (or any other calculator) to divide this number by 41 (type 1139 in the Advance Width field, and tab to, or click in, the Width for WPDOS field):

Advance Width:    Width for WPDOS:

The result in this example is 28. With item 54 Ligature fi selected, press Enter or choose Edit; enter 28 in the PS Width field; and press F7 repeatedly until you are prompted to save the file (answer Yes) and exit the Printer Definition Program.

Technical note: Why divide the TrueType measurement by 41? The unit of measurement in TrueType fonts is 2048 units per em, and this measurement applies at any point size. When WPDOS imports TrueType fonts, it uses a measurement system based on 300 units per inch, and uses 12pt as the font size for which to calculate spacing and other details. In WPDOS measurements, 12 points = 12/72 inch = 1/6 inch = 50 units of measurement. The calculation 2048/50 yields 40.96, which is close enough to 41 for this purpose.

(9) Now, start WPDOS, select the Times New Roman (TT) font; in case you already have another Times New Roman font installed, make sure to scroll down to the name with (TT) at the end; choose a large point size. In the editing screen, press Ctrl-2, 4, comma, 54 and press Enter to insert the fi ligature. Print or preview the file to confirm that you have successfully added the fi ligature.

Unicode.org publishes an index of Unicode character names. Note that in any particular font, some non-alphabetical characters (for example, unusual ligatures) may not be listed in the position indicated in this list. Always confirm the character position by looking in the font itself with a utility such as TrueType Explorer.


Microsoft, Corel, and other sources of multilingual fonts

Microsoft formerly posted an extensive series of multilingual TrueType fonts at its typography web site, but withdrew them after they were downloaded by many Linux users. Most of the fonts have now been posted legally at a page on the Sourceforge site (download the .EXE files listed under "the fonts" (then "final") and run them to install the fonts they contain).  Other international TrueType fonts may be found through Alan Wood's Unicode Resources.

Most versions of WordPerfect for Windows ship with large collections of fonts that should be usable in WordPerfect for DOS (the fonts are typically stored on CD2 of a two-CD set).


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