3.4.1 Typesetter A Bust?

[krfitz]

Just installed 3.4.1 for my PRT. Tried the typesetter and was disappointed to find that only 18 fonts out of the 235 that are installed in my Windows Fonts folder show up to select from. And none of the 18 available are fonts that I would ever use on a sign. Very limiting, and in fact, useless.

On a positive note, the bitmap converter looks extremely promising and should be a nice addition. The resulting file loooks good on the screen but I have not had a chance to carve anything yet.

-Kevin

[srwtlc]

I'm sure that Bill will jump in here, but you could try deleting or renamimg the typesetter .ini file and let the program reinitialize itself.

Hey Bill, nice touch with the rotating board
.

[fleinbach]

Kevin

I also get all fonts.

[krfitz]

Nope, sorry. I tried that and it asks me if I want to use the default ini. I click yes and I get the same few choices. If I click no, I get an eternal hourglass and empty screen. I'd say this app needs a little more work.

typesetter.ini
WST_Czec (All res)
WST_Engl (All res)
WST_Fren (All res)
WST_Germ (All res)
WST_Ital (All res)
WST_Span (All res)
WST_Swed (All res)
WP CyrillicB
WP TypographicSymbols
WP BoxDrawing
Modern (All res)
MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)

-Kevin

[bill.young]

Hey Kevin,

We've only seen that problem twice now...the other time was in a computer that Ted has. His problem was related to how his computer stored font names in the registry...I'm betting that your issue is the same one.

The good news is that it's been fixed, but the bad news is that in the rush of getting this software version out I forgot to put the fixed version in the installer so it still installs the old one. I'll make sure that it gets updated in the next version of the control software, but if you send me an email I'll send you the correct one so you don't have to wait.

Sorry for the hassle,
Bill

[krfitz]

What can I say? Great minds think alike and have similar computers! Email is on it way. Thanks for your help!

[krfitz]

KOOL BEANS BILL! Thank you, that fixed it. Very nice virtual tool.

[phil_o]

The typesetter program says "Not all fonts can be V-carved with Typesetter, so make sure you look at the Shopbot file in preview mode when using a font for the first time." Is this the preview in Typesetter? How can I tell from preview if it will be V-carved? Maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

[bill.young]

Hey Phil,

You're correct...the preview in Typesetter is just to help with layout and doesn't tell you anything about the file that's created. We suggest you run the file in the regular ShopBot Previewer, just to make sure that it looks the way that you expect. For instance, in working on earlier versions of Typesetter we found a few fonts that encoded a "box" character instead of a space...looking at the file in preview showed that. In general it's not a bad idea to run all your files in preview mode first, just in case.

To make it easy to work with the output files a message box with a couple of options will appear after Typesetter has finished creating the file. One of those options is to draw the file in Preview Mode...all you need to do is to click that button and then make sure that the preview looks like you expect.

Bill

[kaaboom_99]

Good morning guys. I just downloaded the latest SB software and hoped to use the Typesetter portion for a serving tray that requires (4) lines of engraved text. Any suggestions on how to lay this out. I can't seem to get a carriage return to happen as I type in Typesetter. Do I need to make (4) different files and offset my 0,0 to compensate? Also, living in a area that has a fairly large French community, how do I get the specialized characters/accents to be used in Typesetter?

[kaaboom_99]

Just discovered an additional issue. Just tried to convert a .dxf file that I created in Corel 8. I routinely use Corel for my 2D work. SB Ver 3.4.1 would not convert but reports the following on all my files, even files that previous versions converted

DXF_Gui
Run-time Error '13'
Type Mismatch

Thankfully I still keep the Dos ver. on my system (as backup) and was able to do my conversions.
Any ideas guys?
Thanks

[gordon]

SB Ver 3.4.1 contains a version of the DXF converter that fixes this problem, but you have to delete the old UX_DXF.ini file for it to work properly. In the older version there was a line that was being written incorrectly. Hence the error message you recieved. Please delete C:\Program Files\ShopBot\ShopBot 3\Bin\UX_DXF.ini and retry the DXF converter. The converter will create a new ini file with the proper defaults if there isn't one in the correct location.

NOTE: ShopBotters using newer versions of Corel or CAD programs that support the newer versions of DXF output (AutoCAD 2000 or higher). Make sure that you save your DXF files in AutoCAD 12, 13, or 14 format. There have been a couple of ShopBotters having trouble converting files because there files were in the incorrect format. I have plans to upgrade the converter to the newer formats, but don't have a release date yet. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause in the meantime.

If you have any further trouble with this please email me.

Gordon Bergfors
ShopBot Tools

[slendon]

Hi

Just loaded 3.4.1, onto 2ghz office laptop running windows xp pro and started playing with the typesetter tool...after I have created a file and taken the prompt in typsetter to view the preview I get the code running through but no preview..If I look in the main preview the table gets whited out and no image at all in the window ?

Steve

[bill.young]

Steve,

It sounds like a video issue and that your laptop is having trouble with DirectX. First, make sure you have the newest video driver for your laptop from the manufacturer and the current version of DirectX from Windows Update...hopefully that will solve the problem.


If it doesn't, start the ShopBot software and type "VP". At the bottom of the screen you'll find a setting for "Renderer Type". The default is DirectX...try OpenGL or the R98 software renderer and see if that doesn't solve the problem. If not, send tech support an email and they'll fix you up.

Bill

[slendon]

Bill,

Downloaded version 9 of directX, problem seems to be fixed Ok...thanks for the speedy and accurate response

Cheers
Steve

[kaaboom_99]

Good morning!
I have another issue with the typesetter program I hope someone can steer me through. I live in a community that is largely french speaking and have been asked to engrave a plaque with 'e' and accent marks over them (accent acute). It looks like this: é . I pulled the letters from the windows character map, copied and pasted into the text section of typesetter. No matter which font I pick, the message that pops states (very politely) "Sorry, I can't create a file with the font you have chose. Select a different font and try again".
Any suggestion as to how this accent mark can be 'V' carved with typesetter?

[bill.young]

Hey Perry,

You may be out of luck when using Typesetter with any of the extended characters in a font like this one...I'd never tried it before...but I'll add it to the "look into" list.

One issue you'll have to deal with is that when a font is flagged as not usable it's added to the typesetter.ini file, so that you don't keep seeing it in the list of fonts that you can choose from. The typesetter.ini file is located in your "C:\Program Files\ShopBot\Virtual Tools\Typesetter" folder. It sounds like you've added some otherwise "good" fonts to this "bad font" list while you've been trying to make this work, and they won't be available to you from now on without some "un-doing".

You can undo this 2 ways. If Typesetter hasn't run across many bad fonts before this you can just delete the typesetter.ini file and a new default file will be generated the next time Typesetter is run...this is the easiest way. If Typesetter has found some bad fonts before and you just want to remove these fonts, you can open the typesetter.ini file with Notepad or some other text editor and remove those "good" fonts from the list.

Bill