Method of manipulating fonts containing large numbers of characters
Patent 5533180 Issued on July 2, 1996. Estimated Expiration Date: 
April 7, 2014. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.
April 7, 2014. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.InventorsAssigneeApplicationNo. 224585 filed on 04/07/1994US Classes:715/542, Font selection345/467, Character generating345/472.3, Calligraphic715/808, Pop-up control715/810Menu or selectable iconic array (e.g., palette)ExaminersPrimary: Herndon, Heather R.Assistant: Burwell, Joseph R. Attorney, Agent or FirmInternational ClassG06F 015/00AbstractA method of enabling a computer user to manipulate, as one font, an arbitrary number of special characters exceeding the 256 characters which single byte font schemes can represent in one font. The invention takes advantage of the user-activatable font management capabilities built into popular application programs, such as a mechanism for switching between different standard character fonts; and, a font display mechanism for enabling the user to monitor the font switching procedure. The special characters are divided into font segments, with each segment containing a number "X" (less than 256) characters. The segments are stored for subsequent retrieval. Each character input by the user is scanned to determine whether it is one of the special characters. Non-special characters are passed without further action. If a special character is detected, the stored font segment containing that character is identified to see if it is the font currently in use by the program. If so, control passes to the application program. Otherwise, the font switching mechanism is activated to select the font segment containing the input character as the current font. As this is done, activation of the font display mechanism is suppressed so that the font switching occurs in a manner transparent to the user. Control then passes to the application program.Other References
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