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#15: InstallFont and Big Fonts

Author: Guillermo Ortiz (rev. Eric Soldan & Matt Deatherage)
Year: 1987

... describes how InstallFont can fail when installing a font larger than 32K and bit 15 of ScaleWord is clear.

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Apple II
Technical Notes
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                                                  Developer Technical Support


Apple IIGS
#15:    InstallFont and Big Fonts

Revised by:    Eric Soldan & Matt Deatherage                        July 1989
Written by:    Guillermo Ortiz                                      June 1987

When the Font Manager executes InstallFont, it may try to scale the selected 
font if bit 15 of the ScaleWord is clear; a font larger than 32K causes this 
call to fail.
Changes since November 1988:  Noted System Software 5.0 enhancements.
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The Font Manager cannot scale a font which is larger than 32K, so InstallFont 
will fail if scaling is required and the desired font exceeds this limit.  If 
the call fails for this reason, it will report an FMScaleSizeErr ($1B0C) 
error.

This is not the same situation as when there is not enough memory available to 
hold a newly scaled font.  The situation will generate Memory Manager errors.

System Software 5.0 can scale fonts to be larger than 32K, so there is no 
longer the limit imposed by System Disk 4.0 and earlier.  In addition, System 
Software 5.0 can handle font sizes up to 255 points, if memory is available.  
Note that this is a different situation than trying to scale a font which was 
originally larger than 32K, but both work under 5.0.