Stencil
by Kell Gatherer

Stencil is an application which turns a Draw path object inside out.
Effectively it creates a negative image by placing a bounding box around the
outside, so that what was filled is now transparent and vice versa. The
resultant file can be used for all kinds of special effects which are not
available in Draw itself.

USING STENCIL
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Running the application installs it on the icon bar. A Draw file may now be
dragged onto the Stencil icon and a Save box will appear: drag this to a
Filer window or directly into Draw. The program works by converting the
individual paths in the original into one long path, then creating a box
around it: the 'even-odd' winding rule fills the area around the original
paths instead of inside them. Only path objects will be treated in this way;
all other objects, e.g. text or sprite, are ignored. Any grouping in the
original is also ignored, since the new file is just one path anyway. The
path style of the first character will be applied to all characters.
Dragging the new file using Adjust leaves off the bounding box, so the
program may also be used to connect several objects into one long path.

Stencil is most effective with text that has been converted from a font
using DrawFont (on the Volume 4 Special Disc) or RISC OS 3 Draw: any
patterns placed behind the resultant "stencil" will show through. Inside the
Stencil directory folder (hold down Shift and double-click) is a Draw file
of examples called "Examples".

 RISC User 1993