These instructions work best with Netscape, although it should be pretty much the same on Internet Explorer or whatever those pirates at AOL use for a browser. To get a font to download, you can get this week's new Chankstore Freefont at
http://www.chank.com/freepuck.html
Go there now. Then...
FOR THE MAC: When you download the Puckfont, you will download a file
called "puck.sit.hqx." It is a Stuffit document which is binhex encoded.
Sounds complicated, but all you have to do to expand it is drag it onto the
Stuffit Expander icon. If you don't have Stuffit Expander you need to get a
copy of it (see the link to How to Download Mac Files in the sidebar).
When you have expanded "puck.sit.hqx" you will get a folder called "puck."
In that folder you will find three files. The README is just a TeachText
document that tells you to send me ten dollars. My mailing address is in
there, too. You can trash this file if you want. The other two files are
the font.
This is a Post-Script font. It comes in two parts. The one called
"Puckfont.bmap" is the bitmap version of the font for your monitor. "Puck"
is the file your printer uses to print. Don't ask why it's split into two
files like this. That's just the way it is. I might explain later if you're
a bored geek.
All you have to do is drag these two files (Puckfont.bmap and Puck) into
your system folder. If you've got System 7.0 or later (which you probably
do) these files should automatically go into your Fonts folder.
Then you open any word processing programming and you've got another
appetizer in your font menu.
FOR THE PC: [Chank isn't a PC kind of guy, so Nick, one of our very own tech guys here at Tripod, has come to the rescue -- ed.]
After you download your font from Chank's site, first check to see if the font has been compressed. Most downloaded fonts are "zipped," which means that they
need to be uncompressed with some sort of utility that can "unzip" files;
two of the most commonly used unzippers are pkunzip (fine
for Win 3.1) and WinZip (great for Win 95. See the sidebar for a place to download WinZip). To see if your font is zipped, see if the filename ends with ".zip" (Win 95 users will need to check the Properties of the file to see this). Other compression methods are occasionally used, but it's pretty rare at
this point, and I could write a whole column on the subject... For now, let's assume you have an unzipped or uncompressed font file.
OK, so now you have an uncompressed font. The instructions diverge at
this point for Win 3.1 and Win 95, so let's take the two operating systems
individually:
Win 3.1
Go to the control panel. Now go to fonts. You want to Add the font
file. Now tell the computer where the font file is (hope you remember),
and click OK. The font should now be installed.
Win 95
Go to the control panel, either by double-clicking on your computer's icon
and then opening the control panel, or by clicking on Start in the lower
left corner, selecting Settings, and then selecting Control Panel.
Double-click on Fonts. Inside are all the fonts currently installed
on your computer. Just drag the new font file into the folder to install
it.
Good luck!
