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character height Used along with character width to indicate the number of
units that define the font characters.
character width Used along with character height to indicate the number of
units that define the font characters. The character-height and
character-width values are used to scale the primitives of the font. In this
context, primitives are the points, lines, polygons, or character strings of the
font geometrically oriented in two-dimensional space. A Kanji character
consists of several primitives used repeatedly in different scales and
combinations.
modes The modes byte should be 0 for a horizontally oriented font and 2 for
a dual-orientation (horizontal or vertical) font. The special 00E (14) command
code is honored only when modes is set to 2.
shape-number Character code.
defbytes Byte size. It is always 2 bytes, consisting of a hexadecimal or a
combination of decimal and hexadecimal codes.
shape-name Character name.
code Shape description special code. It is always 7 so that it can use the
subshape feature.
primitive# Reference to the subshape number. It is always 2 bytes.
basepoint-x X origin of the primitive.
basepoint-y Y origin of the primitive.
width Scale of the width of the primitive.
height Scale of the height of the primitive.
terminator End-of-file indicator for the shape definition. It is always 0.
To arrive at the scale factor, AutoCAD for Mac scales down the primitive to a
square unit and then multiplies it by the height and width to get the shape
of the character. Character codes (shape numbers) in the Big Font shape
definition file can have values up to 65535. The following table describes the
fields of the extended Big Font file.
Fields of the extended Big Font file
DescriptionByte sizeValueVariable
Character code2 bytesxxxxshape-number
172 | Chapter 8 Shapes and Shape Fonts