allred@ut-emx (Kevin L. Allred) (09/14/90)
There have been plenty of questions raised about fonts and windows. I
personally have a deskjet plus printer, and have sympathized greatly
with others suffering the frustration of finding out that windows
won't print bitmapped fonts on a PCL printer (only windows vector
fonts and resident printer fonts). I have a 256K ram cartridge, so I
am able to download softfonts to the printer (converted from laserjet
fonts). The PCL printer driver has an option to install fonts
(cartridge or softfonts); so that windows can understand how to use
them ("Windows here are the softfonts ... Softfonts meet windows"
:-). The installation procedure provides the option to match a
softfont with a windows screen font family. I was able to match
softfont versions of the Computer Modern Roman and Sanserif fonts (from
the TeX-Metafont package) to Times Roman and Helvetica screen fonts.
Some other softfonts had no screen equivalents; so I just matched them
with what seemed to be an acceptable fixed/proportional font. I use
Write, when I don't use TeX, and it seems to do okay with the fonts
(the screen spacing sometimes looks very strange -- suggesting that a
true screen version of the font would be much better).
Now for the programming challenge, there are lots of softfonts out
there that would make great windows printer fonts if we could simplify
the conversion process. I had to use a binary editor to add
information to the softfont header by trial and error to get the
correct point size information into windows -- not a good way to
proceed :-( It would be nice if there was some sort of utility that
would make a best guess screen font rendition of any softfont; so that
the screen would at least look like the printout (remember the idea
behind WYSIWYG :-)
Perhaps a more important resource than just plain PCL softfonts is
Metafont and the many font descriptions it can use to generate fonts
in any pointsize. A utility that would take fonts generated by
Metafont and turn them into screen fonts and printer font families
would be a wonderful blessing for everyone.
Anyone willing to take up the gauntlet?
The alternative is to wait until True Type becomes a reality, and buy
the upgrade (There's nothing like holding your breath for vaporware :-(
). Frankly, I would rather not wait that long when lots of wonderful
font families are available in the public domain just waiting for
someone to convert them to windows & suitable printer font format.
Kevin Allred
P.S. If there is interest, I will upload the CMR/CMS deskjet fonts
that I fixed to work with windows to an FTP site. Remember that a
Deskjet RAM cartridge is required to use the fonts. Also I could only
get them to work when permanently downloaded.--
Kevin Allred
allred@emx.cc.utexas.edu
allred@ut-emx.UUCPfritsch@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Dan Fritsch) (09/14/90)
In article <37185@ut-emx>, allred@ut-emx (Kevin L. Allred) writes: > There have been plenty of questions raised about fonts and windows. I > personally have a deskjet plus printer, and have sympathized greatly > with others suffering the frustration of finding out that windows > won't print bitmapped fonts on a PCL printer (only windows vector > fonts and resident printer fonts). > ... > The alternative is to wait until True Type becomes a reality, and buy > the upgrade (There's nothing like holding your breath for vaporware :-( > ). Frankly, I would rather not wait that long when lots of wonderful > font families are available in the public domain just waiting for > someone to convert them to windows & suitable printer font format. > I few weeks back I posted a review of my experiences with several programs providing font solutions for users of PCL printers. I have a Deskjet + and am currently using two programs. The first is a software postscript interpreter called GoScript Plus which comes with the 35 standard postscript fonts. I have downloaded the fonts.lzh file from cica.cica.indiana.edu and now have the matching screen fonts to go with the GoScript fonts. To use GoScript, I simply select the PostScript driver and print to a file which I must later print from GoScript (as a standard DOS application). GoScript does not currently provide a windows driver, but simply processes (rasterizes) a postscript language file and sends it as a graphics file to almost any printer. The second program I use is called SuperPrint (by Zenographics). Superprint uses outline fonts from Adobe (Type I), Bitstream, Compugraphic, and Nimbus Q and can generate any point size printer font from these outlines. Fonts from different vendors can be used on the same page with no problem. A seperate utility allows you to create matching screen fonts for any of the installed outlines and at any desired point size. SuperPrint currently supports Laserjets, Deskjets and Paintjets and a few other devices (no dot matrix at this time). It comes with Nimbus Q versions of Helvetica, Times, Century Schoolbook and Courier, Compugraphic's Futura, and Bitstream's Charter Roman. If you purchase SuperPrint before November 1, they will send you a set of fonts that completes the standard postscript set for $50.00. Goscript Plus is available for around $200, while I picked up SuperPrint at an educational discounted price of $140.00. In my opinion, both programs are great for Deskjet owners. GoScript demands that you purchase it's own fonts (proprietary format), while SuperPrint works with almost any font vendor's format. Also, GoScript does not have its own screen fonts - you must get postscript matching screen fonts elsewhere. I would like to see how Adobe Type Manager (if it ever ships) and Bitstream's new font engine work under Windows. These programs will supposedly generate screen and printer fonts on-the-fly for almost any printer. I'd like to know how fast these products are at generating screen fonts and how many fonts are bundled with them (Adobe Type I and Bitstream fonts are extremely expensive). Regards. Bitstream's - Dan Fritsch (fritsch@cs.unc.edu)
malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) (09/14/90)
In article <16044@thorin.cs.unc.edu> fritsch@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Dan Fritsch) writes: > GoScript demands that you purchase it's own >fonts (proprietary format), while SuperPrint works with almost any font >vendor's format. Also, GoScript does not have its own screen fonts - you >must get postscript matching screen fonts elsewhere. It's not strictly true that GoScript requires that you use their own fonts; I have used several downloadable PostScript fonts that I have obtained from BBSs and the net. The difference is that GoScript will not handle loading the font automatically; you must explicitly specify any additional font files in your invocation of GoScript. For example, if you had some random font in the file newfont.ps, and your document using that font was in the file document.ps, to use the font in the document, you would have to use the command: gs newfont.ps document.ps Also, since GoScript was never intended to be a printer driver, not having its own screen fonts is not a failure on the part of LaserGo. GoScript is intended to provide the ability to print PostScript files to users without PostScript printers. Buying a PostScript printer does not generally get you screen fonts for the fonts in the printer; that usually is left to the application to provide. Sean Malloy | American Non Sequitur Society Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | San Diego, CA 92152-6800 | "We may not make sense, malloy@nprdc.navy.mil | but we do like pizza."
djbpitt@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David J Birnbaum) (09/14/90)
The recent discussion of tricks for adding additional fonts raises an
old question: are there any outline font editors out there that work
with any of the industry standard outlines (Adobe, Compugraphic,
Bitstream, or what have you).
I edit medieval Slavic manuscripts and I am painfully aware that no
major type foundry is going to produce the fonts that I need. And
please don't tell me that certain companies have Russian (or even
Old Church Slavonic) fonts; real Slavists need lots of characters
that aren't in the handbooks. I also need the ability to add a
character when appropriate; if I am editing a manuscript with a
nonce ligature that I choose to represent as a single character, I
need to be able to add that character.
At the moment I use exclusively bitmapped fonts, since good editing
tools are available. When I last checked for outline font editors,
all I could find was ZSoft's Publisher's Typefoundry. At least at
that time, this product could only edit outline fonts in ZSoft's
proprietary format, which no word processing or typesetting software
could use. You could use these outlines to generate bitmapped fonts,
but that isn't what I wanted them for. Bitstream does have an out-
line editor, but it is intended for OEMs, is laughably expensive for
an end user who wants it to customize only his own configuration, and
Bitstream, when I spoke with them last year, was not interested in
producing an editor for end users.
I am aware that Altsys makes an outline editor for the Mac, but when
I asked whether they had plans to produce a similar product for MS-DOS
they said absolutely not, explaining that in their offices "IBM" only
stands for "I bought MacIntosh."
So ... are there new font editors on the market? What does the future
look like for people whose needs aren't met by canned fonts? I don't
need 35 (or 135) typefaces of the same Latin alphabet character set; I
need more characters.
Please reply by email and I will post a summary in a couple of weeks
(assuming there are any responses). Thanks,
David
===========================================================
David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet]
djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet]fritsch@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Dan Fritsch) (09/15/90)
In article <9562@skinner.nprdc.arpa>, malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) writes: > In article <16044@thorin.cs.unc.edu> fritsch@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Dan Fritsch) writes: > > GoScript demands that you purchase it's own > >fonts (proprietary format), while SuperPrint works with almost any font > >vendor's format. Also, GoScript does not have its own screen fonts - you > >must get postscript matching screen fonts elsewhere. > > It's not strictly true that GoScript requires that you use their own > fonts; I have used several downloadable PostScript fonts that I have > obtained from BBSs and the net. The difference is that GoScript will > not handle loading the font automatically; you must explicitly specify > any additional font files in your invocation of GoScript. This is correct. What I meant was that no other program can use the fonts supplied with GoScript, therefore there is no way to get bitmapped screen fonts from these outlines regardless of the program used. For example, SuperPrint (and ATM when available) will be able to convert Adobe Type I outlines to bitmapped screen fonts usable in Win3. Neither will be able to use GoScript supplied typefaces. > Also, since GoScript was never intended to be a printer driver, not > having its own screen fonts is not a failure on the part of LaserGo. > GoScript is intended to provide the ability to print PostScript files > to users without PostScript printers. I never claimed it was a failure on the part of LaserGo. In my opinion, GoScript is an excellent product that performs as advertised. However, I believe users of GUIs want WYSIWYG display of fonts and this requires a means of generating screen fonts from outline fonts. Adobe, Bitstream, Zenographics, Atech and others know this and are responding to users wishes. --Regards. - Dan Fritsch (fritsch@cs.unc.edu)