Font Character Mapping

The Font Character Mapping utility is used to view the contents of MicroStation fonts and edit character mapping.

The Text Styles dialog box displays only ASCII characters used in English and digits (ABC…XYZ, abc…xyz, and 012…789). Therefore, it is difficult to tell if a font includes symbols and accented characters used in foreign languages.

When fonts are imported using the Font Installer utility, the positions of characters often do not match with the standard MicroStation fonts. The positions of individual characters can be changed with this program.

To use the Font Character Mapping utility

1. Key in: MDL L FONTEDIT


2. The Open Font Library dialog box opens.


3. Display the path of the font library you wish to edit.
   The Character Mapping dialog box is displayed.


4. In the Font option menu, select the name of the font you wish to load.


5. After you have completed your edits, click the Save button to save the changes.

Editing character mapping

MicroStation uses a character mapping called DEC Multinational ASCII, which is very similar to ANSI Windows encoding used by Microsoft Windows and ISO-88591 .

AutoCAD under MS-DOS often uses MS-DOS code page 437 for character mapping. The Font Installer utility does not adjust character encoding when importing a font from the MS-DOS version of AutoCAD to MicroStation format. The Font Character Mapping utility enables you to correct the encoding.

PostScript fonts use Adobe standard character encoding. The Font Installer utility changes their character encoding to DEC Multinational ASCII.

Because the encoding methods described above do not exactly have the same characters, it may be necessary to adjust the position of individual characters.

To change the position of individual characters

1. From the Mode option menu, choose Manual.


2. In the From field, type the value of character you wish to move.


3. In the To field, type the value of the destination.
   The values you enter need to match with the current display mode. If the display mode is hexadecimal, values such as bc, and 9f can be entered. In Screen Font mode, you can enter values as x, and Z.


4. After you enter the appropriate values, click the Change button.
   The position of the two characters will be swapped.

1. From the Mode option menu, choose DOS (437)->uStn.


2. Repeat steps 2 and 3 from the above procedure for all the characters you wish to remap.


3. Press the Change button.


4. To convert character mapping from ANSI Windows (Latin-1) to DEC Multinational encoding, select the ANSI Windows-> uStn mode.


5. Press the Save button to save the changes.


6. Press the Done button to close the dialog box.

Character Mapping dialog box

Used to edit characters in a selected font.

The character display reflects the characters available with the font selected. You can see a magnified version of a character by holding down the Data button while selecting the corresponding key.

Font

Used to select the font whose characters you wish to display/edit.

Display Mode

Used to select the mode in which the font's characters are displayed. They can be displayed in Decimal, Hex, or Screen Font. By default, decimal values are displayed.

Edit Character Map Mode

Used to select the mode in the character map that is to be edited.

From

The value of the character from where you want to move the character.

To

The value of the character where you want to move the character.