One cannot necessarily rely on particular font being available on a system, and for security reasons asminsistrators restrict instalation of fonts (among other things) onto systems in a network. I would like to know if it is possible to embed a font into my code so that I know that it will always be there, or can I provide it with the exe but not have to rely on it being "installed" (i.e. use it from the same folder in which the exe resides)?

Thanks,
Andrew

Tyro[a.c.edwards] wrote:
> One cannot necessarily rely on particular font being available on a system, and for security reasons asminsistrators restrict instalation of fonts (among other things) onto systems in a network. I would like to know if it is possible to embed a font into my code so that I know that it will always be there, or can I provide it with the exe but not have to rely on it being "installed" (i.e. use it from the same folder in which the exe resides)?
> 
> Thanks,
> Andrew

That depends.  What are you using the font for?

If you're using a library that requires a family name, then probably not.  If you're using a library that can accept a file name, then probably yes.

Remember that the system doesn't care if you append crap to the end of
an executable.  One trick you can use is to just append whatever files
you want to the end of the executable, and then have a little 1K block
at the end that tells you where the files are and how big they are; you
can then extract the files at run time and delete them when you terminate.


  -- Daniel

Use
ubyte[] fontbytes = cast(ubyte[])import("yourfont.ttf");

grauzone wrote:
> Use
> ubyte[] fontbytes = cast(ubyte[])import("yourfont.ttf");

That is so cool.

I've seen the import() expression mentioned here on the NG before. It returns a string containing the imported source file, right? Is it mentioned anywhere in the docs? I can't seem to find it.

-Lars

http://digitalmars.com/d/1.0/expression.html#ImportExpression

It returns a char[], which is a misdesign, because the loaded file can be binary data as well. I think.

grauzone wrote:
> http://digitalmars.com/d/1.0/expression.html#ImportExpression
> 
> It returns a char[], which is a misdesign, because the loaded file can be binary data as well. I think.

The file could also contain non-utf8 text, which should also not be stored in a char[].  char[] is for utf-8 only.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd@eldwood.com

On 5/6/2009 12:30 PM, Daniel Keep wrote:
>
> Tyro[a.c.edwards] wrote:
>> One cannot necessarily rely on particular font being available on a system, and for security reasons asminsistrators restrict instalation of fonts (among other things) onto systems in a network. I would like to know if it is possible to embed a font into my code so that I know that it will always be there, or can I provide it with the exe but not have to rely on it being "installed" (i.e. use it from the same folder in which the exe resides)?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Andrew
>
> That depends.  What are you using the font for?
>
> If you're using a library that requires a family name, then probably
> not.  If you're using a library that can accept a file name, then
> probably yes.

I'm using DFL which uses family names (eg. "Times New Roman").

> Remember that the system doesn't care if you append crap to the end of
> an executable.  One trick you can use is to just append whatever files
> you want to the end of the executable, and then have a little 1K block
> at the end that tells you where the files are and how big they are; you
> can then extract the files at run time and delete them when you terminate.
>

When I do this, how do I ensure that the program is able to locate the font after extraction without "installing" it?

>    -- Daniel

On 5/6/2009 1:39 PM, grauzone wrote:
> Use
> ubyte[] fontbytes = cast(ubyte[])import("yourfont.ttf");

This will take care of making sure the font is available. How do you instruct the library (DFL in this case) that this variable contains the font or that after you write it back to the hard drive to refer to the file? A font that is not installed, but instead, simply residing in a folder of your choosing?

Tyro[a.c.edwards] Wrote:

> When I do this, how do I ensure that the program is able to locate the font after extraction without "installing" it?
> 

I think AddFontResource from the SDK will do that. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd183326(VS.85).aspx

On 5/6/2009 9:50 PM, John C wrote:
> Tyro[a.c.edwards] Wrote:
>
>> When I do this, how do I ensure that the program is able to locate the
>> font after extraction without "installing" it?
>>
>
> I think AddFontResource from the SDK will do that. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd183326(VS.85).aspx

That was it... Aswesome! Thank you all very much for your assistance.