In the March 1986 issue, I reviewed Clares' Fontwise program - an impressive printer utility which makes use of printer graphics to produce a variety of text fonts which print remarkably quickly, and allow proportional spacing and justification on the same text. Examples of some of the fonts were shown in the earlier review.

Fontwise allowed embedded commands to change print styles etc within a document only when used from Wordwise or Wordwise Plus. Fontwise Plus has been modified to allow use of stored commands from the View wordprocessor as well. However, don't get the idea that you can just run a standard Wordwise or View file through the system. Files do really need to be prepared with Fontwise in mind, and the process still appears to be a little fussier for View users. You will also need to budget for some extra paper since there is no effective way of previewing the printing output.

As well as providing for View (and Mini-Office) users, Fontwise Plus has a number of additional features compared with the original program. For example, you can have enlarged print, in which any given font can be printed in letters of double width. There is also user control over microspacing of letters and line spacing. There are also a couple of additional fonts and some other improvements. Fontwise Plus is priced at £20 but Fontwise owners can upgrade for £10.

The Fontwise Font Editor is a separate package also priced at £20 which allows you to design your own fonts for use with Fontwise. There are also 20 fonts supplied on the disc which may be loaded, edited and resaved as your own file. The editing is carried out on an enlarged image which is accompanied by a display of the current status of the entire font (see screen dump). This seems a very good design feature and generally the editor is impressively quick, smooth and easy to use.

I am pleased to report that all the Fontwise discs are fully compatible with the BBC Master 128 - with one snag. Since one requires use of a protected system disc in DFS format, it is not possible to access text files saved on ADFS format discs. As one who has converted all my text files into ADFS I found this particularly frustrating!

As an aside, I can see that this is going to be a general problem for disc rather than ROM-based utilities for the Master which the software companies are going to have to address. One solution might be to produce separate Master versions of machine code utilities which locate themselves in the sideways RAM allowing the user to choose the filing system for their own work discs. This would also be a lot more convenient for users of single disc drives as well.

Printer compatibility is also a potential problem. As I mentioned in my previous review, the routines are only partially compatible with my Shinwa CP 80 - e.g. the printer goes berserk when I attempt to print condensed characters. Clares have clarified the situation by pointing out that full use requires Epson FX80 compatibility - including quad density graphics. Judging from Jon Vogler's column, most of the dot matrix printers on the market now would seem to qualify, but it might be advisable to check with Clares if you are buying a printer for use with Fontwise products.

How good a buy is it? I thought that the press release protested rather too much about how cheap the programs were at £20 each. This seems reasonable for Fontwise Plus, but rather pricey for the additional Editor - good though it is. As with all software, however, the value depends in part on your need for a product of this type. If you want these facilities, then I must say that Clares implementation is really excellent.