GearBits

PalmCorner Weekly Feature--Fonts4OS5

You have just bought a new Palm OS5 device, and you are excited about all possible things you can do with your new device. It kind of brings back memories of your childhood when you got a new toy for Christmas. Well, just like the Christmas gift, such excitement will soon wear off, and you start to find certain faults with your device. Well I have heard so often from my readers that they are not happy with the way the texts look in their devices. In other words, some people do not like the way the default font looks in their device.

In the pre-OS5 world, we had a program called Fonthack (a hackmaster extension program) that could manipulate the fonts globally (or for a specific program), but in the OS5 world, we can no longer use any hacks (although Tealpoint’s Tealmaster is an exception, it has quite a few limitations including the number of hacks it supports). Lubak (short for Lubomir Veselovsky) created a number of programs that were device specific for the previous OS 5 devices (such as Sony Clie, Palm Tungsten T, C, etc), but the program was specifically tied to the model and/or brand, and if you switched the model or brand, you were out of luck or had to buy another one of his programs.

Well, Lubak has just released a new program called Fonts4OS5. The program was designed from scratch and now has a footprint of only 32Kb. As you can see, the user interface is also different, and it’s much more user friendly. You can even see the preview of how the new font will look like before you apply it to your device. The program comes with 13 new fonts including Tahoma, Sans Serif, and Handera fonts. See below for the comparison between the Tungsten T3 default font (top) and Tahoma 18 points (bottom). According to Lubak, the number of fonts available for selection should be unlimited and he plans to release additional fonts in the near future.

The program costs $12.90 for new purchases and $4.90 for anyone who owned his previous font program.

I upgraded and installed the program yesterday, and so far I have not encountered any problems, and my T3 looks so much better (i.e., to my liking). You select the font you want and the program will reset the device. That's all there is to it. You can always go back or switch fonts on your whim. I've settled on Tahoma 18 for the time being. If you are not satisfied with the current font, or you just don’t like the way the texts looks in your device, then I recommend this program highly.