AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! Peter Wang
The best selection of fonts for the Palm, period! Ron Buelow
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This free collection comprises about 60 fonts in more than 20 font families.
They are designed for a better legibility, better view and for style (and sometimes just for fun).

Download Alpha Fonts

Alpha Fonts were made with Alexander Ovcharenko's Handy Pilot Font Editor

 

Fontview 1

 

Fontview 2
 

Fontview 3

Complete Font View
What's New?
Installation at a Glance
Troubleshooting
 

 

Emergency Room
Font Specification
Thanks
The X-Files
 

Download Alpha Fonts

Palm Fonts
from other Developers
 

Important Note

The Alpha Font Collection is no independent application! You must install an extension manager and FontHack first. Four extension managers are available yet: X-Master, TealMaster, EVPlugbase and HackMaster. I recommend X-Master.
X-Master and FontHack are included within the "X-files" folder in the Alpha Font Collection.
 

News

Palm Reader Pro supports Alpha Fonts and anti-aliasing without the use of FontHack. Simply install the fonts you like and choose within Palm Reader. Why should you pay for any Agfa fonts?

The screen resolution of the newer Palm OS devices Handera 330 and Sony Clie 710c is higher than the familiar 160 x 160 pixels. Probably FontHack (and so Alpha Fonts) will not work on these devices. Alpha Fonts will not be adapted for these resolutions in the near future.

Good news for WordSmith users: Version 2.0 includes the new "FineType" technologie. That means anti-aliasing for Color-Palms and a Windows-tool to convert TrueType-fonts. A Palm-tool to convert fonts like Alpha Fonts for WordSmith is in beta and coming soon.
 

What's new in 1.71?

1. Squaredance, was completed with narrow and large fonts. Roman, bold and large bold were checked and enhanced.

2. FontHack by Sergey Menshikov was updated to version 3.2. A lot of big bugfixes! If you are a user of version 2.2 please update. FontHack 3.2 is now included in the Alpha Fonts folder.
 

What was new in 1.7?

1. Compact, an allround font family saving space with no compromise in legibility.

2. Midget Mono, the monospaced brother of the extra small Midget font.

3. Palm OS < 3.3 is no longer supported specially. You may use these fonts with older OS versions nevertheless - but in some few applications you might see an "Euro"-symbol instead of a wide blank. That's all.

4. Hackmaster is replaced with X-Master. Unfortunately Hackmaster was not updated for years and X-Master is the recommended free successor.

5. The font view is no longer included in the download. You can find it here (Click at the images above).

 

Silverscreen+AlphafontsA nice couple: Silverscreen and Alpha Fonts
 

 

Installation at a glance

If you are new with Palm stuff, consult your Palm User Guide first!
Note also the readme files for X-Master and FontHack.

1. Backup your Palm data (Hotsync).

2. Install X-Master and FontHack on your Palm. You should install at least one Alpha Font too.

3. Launch X-Master and activate FontHack by tapping on the checkbox (left side).

4. Choose "Details - Configure". Now you can replace system fonts with the corresponding Alpha Fonts. You can replace them in all and / or single applications as you like. (For HackMaster, TealMaster and EVPlugbase procedure is a little bit different.)

For German users: Eine deutsche Version von X-Master gibt es bei www.linkesoft.de.

With AAA FontViewer you can easily preview and delete all fonts.
You can also delete fonts with the System Laucher (Menu - Delete).

Do not delete an active font! This will cause a fatal error (but no data loss).
 

Troubleshooting. Don't panic!

1. Do not replace a System font with a larger or smaller one. (See "Font Specification" below). Font size is defined by its line spacing, not by the character's size! (E.g. "Alpha RX" is 11 pixel high - so it fits to the Standard and Bold font.
Note: Most applications expect the Systems font hights. If you replace System fonts with larger or smaller ones, the screen and buttons don't fit anymore. That's a minor problem. But some applications are strict and will crash (e.g. TealDoc).

2. Deselect ALL System Extensions (Hacks) except FontHack. Make a soft reset. If now everything is fine, one of the others is not compatible with FontHack. Find out which one it is. If a newer version is available - try this. Otherwise you must decide, which Hack is more important for you.

3. The micro-fonts "Midget" and "Ants" are the only ones, that do not correspond to System font sizes. Use them carefully! They are made for DOC readers like AportisDoc or QED (page scrolling might be a little bit strange). Some users asked me for such fonts, but they won't work perfectly, until applications detect the real size of a used font.
TealDoc can't deal with micro-fonts and will freeze.
Note: These micro-fonts are supported by the latest version of AportisDoc (correct scrolling!). AportisDoc also licensed "Alpha Mono Roman".

4. If nothing will help, please contact the authors of X-Master and FontHack. But make a soft reset first - that often cures Hack-confusion!

I'm just the font-designer ...
 

Emergency Room

In worst case, e.g. a reset loop, do not perform a hard reset! Hold down the page-up-button while resetting manually (called "warm reset"). Launch X-Master (or your extension manager) and deactivate FontHack. Now reset the Palm again (normal soft reset). This should fix the problem without data loss.
Unfortunately many people do not know this "warm reset" and make a hard reset instead. This is unnecessary in about 90 % of serious Palm confusion.
 

Font Specification

It is recommended to replace Palm fonts with the corresponding ones!
Palm standard size are fonts with Ro / RX / RW / Bk / Nw / NX appendix (roman, roman extra, roman wide, book*, narrow, narrow extra).
*Book fonts have wider letters than roman.
Palm bold size are fonts with Bd / BX / BN (bold, bold extra, bold narrow) appendix.
Palm large size are fonts with Lg / LN (large, large narrow) appendix.
Palm large bold size are fonts with LB / LBN (large bold, large bold narrow) appendix.
Pay attention with XS-fonts (extra small). Some applications will freeze!
 

Thanks

to Alexander Ovcharenko, Sergey Menshikov, Richard M. Hartman, Andreas Linke and to all the users, who helped me with suggestions and bug reports.
 

The X-files: Required or useful applications

These applications are included within the download of Alpha Fonts.
1. Basic application is X-Master from www.linkesoft.com. You may use Tealmaster, EVPlugbase or Hackmaster instead. X-Master and EVPlugbase are freeware.
2. You must install FontHack. It's free. www.farm.org/cyrus
3. NoLinesHack, trebor@powerinter.net, removes the annoying underlines from your Palm. I recommend it. NoLinesHack is a free new successor for ClearHack.
4. AAA Font Viewer allows preview and deleting of all fonts (except system fonts) on the Palm. Highly recommended and free. www.catslair.com/tech/palm.

© 2000/2001 for Alpha Font Collection: Rainer Zenz. If you want to substitute one of these fonts to shareware or commercial software, please contact me. For freeware it's free, of course. If you want to publish it - do it! Do not remove any file from the Alpha Fonts folder. Have a look at PalmGear for the latest version.

July, 19, 2001

Palm, Palm V, Palm Vx, Palm IIIc, Hot-Sync are registered trademarks of Palm Inc. or its subsidiaries.