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Upgrade Guide

If you are an experienced user of Sign Wizard or Neon Wizard, the last thing you probably want to do is read a sales document describing the core features that you came to appreciate years ago. You want a document that shows you the new features in detail and respects your knowledge of the software. The new Upgrade Guide is that document.

You have two options for viewing the Upgrade Guide:

1. Call or email your sign supply distributor or Aries Graphics International and ask to have a copy mailed to you.

2. View it online here with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The guide reviews the major new features of Sign Wizard 6.5 and Neon Wizard 6 in detail. Here is an example excerpt describing the new Font Wizard:

 

Font Wizard – SW+NW
If you aren’t a font expert and have trouble matching fonts to a scanned design, here comes Font Wizard to the rescue. This feature will tell you with a high degree of probability which font a given character belongs to. Then you can simply enter the text the easy way instead of trying to clean up a scanned image.

It works like this: Scan the image and bring it into Sign Wizard using the new Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) or TWAIN interface. Be sure to keep the text horizontal so that an accurate reading can be taken of the shape of the letters. If you have scanned the text vertically or at an angle, rotate it in Sign Wizard prior to using the Font Wizard.

Select the bitmap and click on Font Wizard from the Text Menu. If your image was colored, this feature switches it to black and white so a cleaner bitmap can be analyzed. If you want to keep the color image, make a copy of it before using this feature. When you select the feature, the cursor changes to a small square indicating that you can now select the letter or letters you wish to match to a font.

Try to choose unique letters that are characteristic of the font; simple letters are more difficult to match. Do not choose letters that have overlapping elements from another letter if you can help it, or letters that are welded to another letter. Drag the marquee around your first letter of choice. It should automatically crop in on the letter. Type that letter on the keyboard, and make sure that capitals are entered as capitals. Press enter on the keyboard or click on the Find button in the properties bar above.

The Font Wizard will search through all of your fonts, or just the font category you specify, looking for a match. The top 3 results will be listed and the letter will be displayed in that font. The first one will normally be correct. Click on OK and this character will be inserted into the layout over the bitmap image of the letter you selected.

In this example, the P from the font “Korrina Extra Bold” will now be placed in the layout on top of the P in the bitmap. You can now use the Text tool to type out the rest of “Polling Place” using this high quality Sign Wizard font. Another option is to use another one of the new features, Styles. You can now simply create a style based on this one character.



With the “P” selected, click on the S icon in the properties bar to bring up the Styles dialog box. You’ll see that the pertinent data for this character is already entered. Give this Style a name, save it, and now you can use it over and over. If you just want to replace that one line of text and don’t intend to use that font again, you can just click on the text tool and type in the rest of the characters. If you want to use this font again, use Styles.