PostScript Chess Font -- "README" file. ========== ===== ==== == ======== ===== Copyright (c) 1991 A. N. Walker. All rights reserved. Restrictions on Use: ------------ -- ---- You must keep the copyright notice on this file and on the accompanying "Font" file. If you change anything, you must clearly mark your changes. Otherwise, you may use these files as you please for private, educational or research purposes. You may also use them freely for commercial purposes as long as you do not make any changes to the shapes of the pieces without my approval. I do not, and am in no position to, make any claim as to suitability of these files for any specific purpose. They work for me, and if they work for you too I shall be pleased. If they do not work for you, well, you have what you paid for. If you are pleased with the results, please let me [and your readers, if any!] know. If you manage to make money out of them, please let me know how! I'd quite like to see [real or PostScript] copies of what you manage to do, if you have the necessary time, inclination and resources. If you don't like the results, please let me know why. Indeed, if you have any comments, please e- or snail- mail them to me. What you have to do: ---- --- ---- -- --- You should have three files, called "Font", "Demo" and "Table". If you have a way of viewing PostScript, shovel "Font" and "Demo" or "Font" and "Table" at it; for example, I use the commands lpr -Plwriter Font Demo lpr -Plwriter Font Table to see the results on "my" LaserWriter. If you have no way of viewing PostScript, then I'm sorry, but I can't help you. What you should see is an assorted collection of boards and figurines in various sizes and rotations ("Demo") or a neat table showing all the symbols in the font ("Table"). If anything else happens, you will have to consult someone who knows what they're doing -- *not* me! I can promise you that the files as shipped print nicely on a bog-standard Apple LW+. They take several minutes each to print on our LW+; this is largely because they make almost pessimal use of the font caching mechanism -- lots of big characters are printed once each in different sizes and orientations. Conventional pages with lots of figurines or ordinary text and only a few diagrams print acceptably quickly (especially, of course, if you have a faster or more recent LW). If you are happy with the demos, you can then install the "Font" file as a font in your system. **************************************** * I cannot help you with this process! * **************************************** I can't even do it for our own computer, which has a much-hacked (from its PDP-11 days) version of Troff; I leave it to our guru. Neither he nor I know what magic you have to utter for an unhacked Troff, or for TEX, or for Macs or PCs or whatever weird and wonderful software or hardware you possess. When you install the font, you may also find it useful to grab some of the PostScript code from "Demo", especially if you want to draw (for example) labelled diagrams. What there is in the Font: ---- ----- -- -- --- ----- There are really two fonts wrapped up into one. The more conventional sub-font is the so-called "text mode", and is what you get when you first select the font. This mode itself has two major components. The upper case letters are the figurines, for use in text. For example, "Q" draws a queen figurine. Lower case letters and other symbols are (most of) the Informant symbols (omitting only symbols like "?" and "ch" that you can reasonably expect to find in boring old Times Roman, but including "+" and "-"). I've been as mnemonic as I could, but there are just too many symbols. The other sub-font is "diagram mode". In this, upper case letters draw white pieces, and lower case letters draw black pieces. For example, "Knk" draws a white king adjacent to a black knight and a black king. The pieces include a selection of fairy pieces and other related symbols -- everything I've seen or had reported to me on chess diagrams in the last few years. The other symbols in this sub-font consist of board-drawing components and motions to facilitate the construction of diagrams. You switch between text and diagram modes using the prime symbol, "'". For example, the famous Reti study can be diagrammed by the PostScript: ('#[7K;8;k1P;7p;8;8;8;8]') show where "#" draws the board, and the stuff between "[...]" is the conventional Forsythe notation for the position. Obviously, for practical use, you will need a chess pre-processor (which I have *not* written!). Most of the capabilities of the font are illustrated on the demo page, which also includes some possibly-useful PostScript procedures for various of the effects. Warning: the dual-mode font treads on very thin ice in some places! In particular, the caching mechanisms of PostScript are very easy to fool with a dynamic font of this type. For example, finding the width of a string is fraught with danger; do it only with strings that include matched pairs of primes. The font design: --- ---- ------- There are surprisingly many different chess fonts in use in printed books. I have tried to copy the simplest -- for example, the rooks have no brickwork, and the kings are quite plain. Note that the pieces do not scale well. Large pieces (inches high) for posters, etc., will have to be specially designed (and are usually based on "real" Staunton pieces). Tiny pieces suffer from the lack of resolution on 300 dpi (or coarser) printers. On a 300 dpi printer, 7-point is really too small, anything less is hopeless (see the demo). I usually use 15-point, which is comparable with most books. The hardest piece to get right is the knight. The book designs are hopeless at 300 dpi resolution, as there are too many fine lines around the mouth and chin. Any attempts to copy them just look like a caricature. So I've made it a bit chunkier. Most readers don't notice. Note that most of the pieces (as opposed to the figurines) cannot be cached. This is because they include both write-white and write-black components (partly, but not entirely, because they have to work on black squares); this makes drawing a whole page of black kings (or whatever) rather slooow. Fortunately, you don't often need such a thing. The figurines *are* cached, so are the Informant symbols, and so are the commonest pieces (the black squares, and the pawns of both colours). Foreign usage: ------- ------ Foreign users may want to re-assign the letters used for the various pieces. This can easily be done in the Font file. Lines such as dup 8#113 /WK put % 'K' (not too far down the file) signify that ASCII character 113 (octal), or "K", is to draw the White King. If you want some other character to draw the WK, alter the 113 to match. You will have to change the BK and Kfig by the same amount, and you will also have to reassign whatever symbol your chosen character already draws, if any. Another minor problem is that some of the fairy pieces are defined explicitly in terms of the existing pieces -- eg, if you decide to use "F" to draw White queens, then the procedure for Grasshoppers (look for "WG" in Font) must be changed to draw upside-down "F" instead of upside-down "Q". I hope the necessary edits are obvious even to non-PostScript users. I suggest that after any change you try the Table and Demo files again. Unusual chess pieces: ------- ----- ------- I've included a fair number of pieces that may not be familiar to all chess players. These include: F for fou, French version of bishop. There are several designs of fou in print, I have selected the easiest to implement. If you want one of the others, you'll have to write it yourself. D,X for draughts pieces. Note that these are not cached (except as figurines); if you are writing a book on draughts with lots of diagrams, you might find it worthwhile to re-write them in a cachable way. This is easier if you want to use them on the white squares (you don't need the "halo" effect), but the books I have seen are about equally split on this. C,I,T for chameleon, imitator, rose. Various fairy pieces. E,G,L,M,O,S,U,V,Z for various rotated standard pieces, used in fairy chess. Note that the "Demo" file includes a more general way to rotate a piece. I have used S for nightrider, oppositely to the problemists convention which uses S for knight and N for nightrider; there is no way that the average player is going to change his habits! If you are a problemist, feel free to interchange S and N (and then M and Z). .,@,|,_ for various other marks useful in annotating diagrams. See the "Demo" file for examples of their use. A,H,J,W,Y are unused. Feel free to use them to add new pieces. Go pieces: -- ------- Sorry, despite several requests, I haven't put these in. I can't save the whole world in one easy lesson. The pieces themselves and the board are easy in PostScript; the annotations and the necessary pre-processor are another kettle of fish. The Go stones could also be used for Reversi (Othello). Bridge symbols: ------ -------- No-one has actually asked for these, but just to forestall you, note that they are already provided in many places -- symbol fonts, dingbats fonts, Hershey fonts, .... Final comments: ----- --------- Suggestions for improvements, especially in the PostScript, will be welcomed. Especially if they improve portability (which I can't check locally!). Especially if you've tried them yourself, and can vouch that they work. Suggestions for extra symbols (other than Go or Bridge) also welcomed, especially if accompanied by PostScript or other descriptions of their shape. -- Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK. anw@maths.nott.ac.uk