Script Summary:

The purpose of this script is to create PSP 8/9 brushes from a dingbat font. The script will place each valid dingbat character on a 500x500 pixel canvas, convert the character to curves as a single shape, and then fit the character to the canvas. Once the brush has been resized to fit the canvas, the canvas is cropped and the brush is exported, using a unique name built from the name of the dingbat font plus the typed character.

Note: Some fonts have unassigned keystrokes or keystrokes that show up as small rectangular boxes. The script is designed to bypass these.

This script runs in the Pause Script format. The first part of the script creates the 500 x 500 pixel image to hold each brush, and then pauses for the user to select a dingbat font and set its point size, stroke width, and anti-alias options in the Tool Options palette, and the materials for the brush in the Materials palette.

Note: In PSP 9, be sure the "Remember text" option is NOT selected in the Text Entry box. If that checkbox is checked, the last used font will be used, and NOT the font selected on the Text Tool Options palette.

The script then continues, creating a brush from each of the valid characters in the font. If you want to see the Create Brush Tip dialog for each valid dingbat font character, run the script in Interactive mode. If you want to have each font character Brush Tip saved with no intervention from you, run the script in Silent mode. Though it's nice and quick to run through all the characters in the font silently, the advantage of seeing the dialog for each character is that you can choose to save that particular brush tip, or discard it, and still continue with the next dingbat character.

Note: If you choose to run this script in Silent mode, and a brush tip exists with the name being generated by the script, the existing brush tip will be overlaid. If you do not want that to happen, change the OverwriteExisting parameter of the ExportCustomBrush command in the script from "true" to "false". If this is done, and the name exists, a new name will be generated by PSP (NOT the script) with a 001 appended to the name. Should you try to create a brush tip with that same name a 2nd time, the new one will be have a 002 appended, and so on.

In Interactive mode, if a brush tip exists with the name being generated by the script, you will receive this message:

'A file with the name "xxxxx" already exists. Please choose another name.'

and the file will not be saved unless you choose another name.

I had to get creative with file names. There were two problems I had to address:

1. Case does not matter in Windows file names. Therefore, Dingbat1-a and Dingbat1-A are considered to be duplicate file names. To make the brush names different and unique, I used the underscore character (_) in file names for brushes made with lower case letters, and the hyphen (-) for file names for brushes made with upper case letters. Thus, my two "a" brushes would be Dingbat1_a and Dingbat1-A.

2. The second problem I had to address was the list of characters not allowed in file names. Here's that list, and the "creative" substitutions the script makes for them:

   \	bslash
   /	fslash
   :	colon
   *	asterisk
   ?	quest
   "	dquote
   <	LT
   >	GT
   |	vline

In you run the script in Interactive mode, you will see the Create Brush Tip dialog, which looks like this:

There are several things you can change on this dialog panel if you wish:

• The Name of the brush as generated by the script will be entered on the panel - it is best to leave that as is, so the brush names will be unique.

• If you have exported brushes previously, the Author and Copyright fields might be filled in - if not, and you fill them in with the first brush you export, the fields will retain that information for all future brush exports. The Description field will not retain information from save to save.

• Save Variance has been left UNchecked - you can check it if you wish. If you want to save the Variance settings for all of the dingbat font characters, you might consider editing the script and changing the SaveVariance parameter of the ExportCustomBrush command from "false" to "true".

  Note: Though brushes created in PSP 9 are supposed to be usable in PSP 8, it has been my experience that brushes exported in PSP 9 with the Save Variance checkbox checked cause an error in PSP 8. You might want to consider this when deciding whether or not to check the Save Variance checkbox.

• The Step parameter has been set to 32 - you can change this if you wish. Again, if you want a different Step value for all your brushes, you might consider editing the script.

• If you want to save the brush, click the OK button. The brush tip is saved, and the script continues with the next font character.

• If you do not want to save the brush, click the Cancel button. This will bring up a further script dialog, like this:
  

  Click the YES button to continue processing the dingbat font. Clicking the NO button will cause the script to terminate.

  Note: In PSP 8, scripts that are executed from the Learning Center Quick Guide always run in Silent mode. In PSP 9, the execution mode used by a script running from the Learning Center seems to match the mode set on the Script toolbar. However, not all things work the same way as when the script is run from the Script toolbar. For example, if you are running in Interactive mode and choose not to save a brush, and click the Cancel button, the script terminates. This does not match behavior experienced when the script is run from the Script toolbar. Therefore, for consistent results, I would suggest running this script from the Script toolbar, and not the Learning Center.

  Installation Instructions:

Place the script in your Scripts-Restricted folder, or run the script from this Quick Guide (see Running the Script below).

Note: In PSP 9, if you wish to be able to change the "Save to" folder for Brushes during the export process, you will need to place this script in a Scripts-Trusted folder. Otherwise, and in PSP 8, you need to change your "Save to" folder for Brushes using File...Preferences...File Locations before running the script, which can run from a Scripts-Restricted folder.

  Plugin Settings:

N/A

  Running the Script:

To run this script, select the ss-MakingCustomBrushes-00 script in the scripts list and press play.
Run Script for me. (See note above before using this method.)

  Change History:

• 00 - original version