text viewer

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I'm building a new site for a sign buider. He'd like to include a component
on his web site that allows someone to enter the text for their sign into a
dialog box and then apply different fonts and colors to see how the finished
sign would look. Does anyone know if such a "text viewer" exisits?
 
Hi Sharon,
I can't see this being viable. The obvious problem would be that your client
probably has 100 (at least) fonts he can use and a lot of subtle shades of
colour. On the web we maybe have half a dozen fonts that most users will
have and colours never look the same on different PCs., so there's going to
be no relation between how a sign will be rendered on a computer vs how it
will look when it's actually made into a sign. If a guys looking for a sign
to promote his business he wants to know exactly how it's going to look -
doing something like this might help a few times but I'd think it's going to
be one customer gained for every two lost.

I'd rethink - what you really want is for the customer to visit your client
and get a proper mock up of his sign. Maybe think about how to make the web
site encourage the customer to call your client - and explain the "facts of
life" to your client.
 
Well, there are sites which actually do this, using (I assume) graphics. But
it has to have taken some serious (and expensive) programming. I would
mention this too, in case your client has been to one of those sites - that
it can be done, if he wants to spend (probably) 5 figures on it.
 
And then it's only as good as the fonts the visitor / viewer has installed
in their computer.

It can be done using an ActiveX control, but there's no guarantee that it will work
on "all" visitors computers, as they may have ActiveX disabled

To be done properly would require a downloadable program to be run on the client machine,
that uses Windows API calls
Here's a simple example that can use any font installed on a "client" computer.
http://www.95isalive.com/fixes/HitMeFP.htm



--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer
 
Not so. There are sites which sell fonts, where you can type in some text,
choose a font, and view your text in that font. As I said, I assume they
have some way of producing a graphic image on the fly.
 
Yes. It's feasble with server side programming or custom java.

For what-you-see-is-what-you-get effect, the user makes some basic
selections on a form, submits to the server, the server creates a
prototype on the fly and converts to an image of what it might look like
serves it back in a page.

...PC
 
Yah it's pretty cool, and I bet really expensive to implement...

http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/stu...166|14166|137|0&category_id=4841&gallery_id=9

I've bought business cards from these guys and they come out looking exactly
like they appear on the web.



| Yes. It's feasble with server side programming or custom java.
|
| For what-you-see-is-what-you-get effect, the user makes some basic
| selections on a form, submits to the server, the server creates a
| prototype on the fly and converts to an image of what it might look like
| serves it back in a page.
|
| ..PC
|
| P@tty Ayers wrote:
|
| > Not so. There are sites which sell fonts, where you can type in some
text,
| > choose a font, and view your text in that font. As I said, I assume they
| > have some way of producing a graphic image on the fly.
| >
| >
 
That's neat. In asp.net it's very easy to create an image on the fly, could
be a business card, sign or whatever. The only problem would be to create
the image the fonts would all need to be installed on the server, which
probably means a dedicated box would be eseential. Should have thought of
this solution when I gave my first answer.
 
There's even more better ones than that, only I couldn't find them quickly.
My brother works for a brick&mortar print shop that paid big bucks...and I
mean really big bucks...to buy an app like that that after the online proof
is approved it goes directly to the press.





| That's neat. In asp.net it's very easy to create an image on the fly,
could
| be a business card, sign or whatever. The only problem would be to create
| the image the fonts would all need to be installed on the server, which
| probably means a dedicated box would be eseential. Should have thought of
| this solution when I gave my first answer.
|
| --
| Cheers,
| Jon
| Microsoft MVP
|
| | > Yah it's pretty cool, and I bet really expensive to implement...
| >
| >
http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/stu...166|14166|137|0&category_id=4841&gallery_id=9
| >
| > I've bought business cards from these guys and they come out looking
| > exactly
| > like they appear on the web.
| >
| >
| >
| > | > | Yes. It's feasble with server side programming or custom java.
| > |
| > | For what-you-see-is-what-you-get effect, the user makes some basic
| > | selections on a form, submits to the server, the server creates a
| > | prototype on the fly and converts to an image of what it might look
like
| > | serves it back in a page.
| > |
| > | ..PC
| > |
| > | P@tty Ayers wrote:
| > |
| > | > Not so. There are sites which sell fonts, where you can type in some
| > text,
| > | > choose a font, and view your text in that font. As I said, I assume
| > they
| > | > have some way of producing a graphic image on the fly.
| > | >
| > | >
| >
| >
|
|
 
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