An explanation of the font called Marlett and what to do with it

Windows 95,98,NT,2000 all come with a "magic" font called Marlett. I don't know where the name came from (maybe the last name of the guy at MS who thought of doing it?) but it can help us to make nice looking custom controls.

The Marlett Font contains in it most of the characters for the three dimensional controls that are provided in windows. Things like the s012r in the buttons in the top right corner of the window to the a in checkboxes and the h in radiobuttons. Even the three dimensional appearance of the box around the check and the circle around the dot in checkboxes and radio buttons can be made using different colors and overlaying the cdefg and jklmn characters. See the table below for all the characters and their usefulness:

Symbol	Character	Usefulness
a	a	Check for Checkboxes
b	b	Check for Checkboxes (greyed out?)
c	c	3d border for checkboxes
d	d	3d border for checkboxes
e	e	3d border for checkboxes
f	f	3d border for checkboxes
g	g	3d fill for checkboxes
h	h	3d dot for radio buttons
i	i	3d fill (maybe grayed dot?) for radio buttons
j	j	3d border for radio buttons
k	k	3d border for radio buttons
l	l	3d border for radio buttons
m	m	3d border for radio buttons
n	n	3d fill for radio buttons
o	o	3d grabber for window resizing part 1
p	p	3d grabber for window resizing part 2
q	q	?
r	r	Close button's X
s	s	WhatsThisHelp button's ?
t	t	Scroll up Button? Maybe the Windows3.1 Maximize button?
u	u	Scroll Down Button? Maybe the Windows3.1 Minimize button?
v	v	? Maybe the Windows3.1 Restore button?
w	w	?
x	x	3d grabber for bottom left window resizing part 1
y	y	3d grabber for bottom left window resizing part 2
z	z	Not Used
1	1	Windows95/98/2000 Maximize button
2	2	Windows95/98/2000 Restore button
3	3	Scroll left button
4	4	Scroll Right button
5	5	Scroll up button
6	6	Scroll down button
7	7	Page Down button
8	8	?
9	9	? Maybe the Combo Box Drop down button?
0	0	Windows95/98/2000 Minimize button

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I cannot find this font on either of my Windows 2000 machines. Is there something extra that has to be installed to get this font? -- Dan Jurden
Do you see the special characters in the table above? Then you do have the Marlett font. It doesn't show up in the Fonts folder in Control Panel, though. Just use it! It should show up in the AFONTS() listing and in the font picker in MicrosoftWord and elsewhere.
(MSDN article Q134861 says:

The Marlett.ttf file is a TrueType font file installed in the Fonts folder. The file's Hidden attribute is set and the file is not visible in Windows Explorer.

-- ?wgcs
Thanks! Found it! -- Dan Jurden

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Contributors: wgcs Dan Jurden

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Category Windows OS