cs9h9tts@cybaswan.UUCP (t.simpson) (05/14/91)
Excuse my ignorance, but we haven't got comp.bin.acorn working here in Swansea yet, but what is Ghostscript, everyone seems to be going on about it.. Ta. Tom.
gtoal@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Toal) (05/21/91)
In article <2507@cybaswan.UUCP> cs9h9tts@cybaswan.UUCP (t.simpson) writes: >Excuse my ignorance, but we haven't got comp.bin.acorn working here in >Swansea yet, but what is Ghostscript, everyone seems to be going on >about it.. It is the Gnu-project's PostScript clone. It reads postscript files and converts them to bitmaps. Most implementations offer an interactove postscript interpreter and will display the created bitmaps on the screen; I believe there are also versions which are used as the engine on top of a non-postscript laser printer. For instance, I suspect you could use Ghostscript to turn your cheap 'Laser Direct' printer into a postscript one. The only problems I've heard with it are to do with font compatibility; I don't know how David is handling that -- using Acorn fonts, X fonts, genuine downloaded postscript Type I or Type III fonts, or all of the above :-) [Also I suspect TeX's pk fonts? If not, why not? :-)] Graham PS This is of course hearsay - I haven't got a copy myself yet...
dahe@cl.cam.ac.uk (David Elworthy) (05/21/91)
In article <10390@castle.ed.ac.uk> gtoal@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Toal) writes: >The only problems I've heard with it are to do with font compatibility; >I don't know how David is handling that -- using Acorn fonts, X fonts, >genuine downloaded postscript Type I or Type III fonts, or all of the >above :-) [Also I suspect TeX's pk fonts? If not, why not? :-)] > I'm using the fonts that came with it. I did think of using the Acorn fonts, but after consultation with the original authors, I decided it would involve more effort than I was willing to put in to it. The following extract from fonts.doc explains where the fonts come from: Ghostscript fonts ----------------- The fonts included with Ghostscript come in several parts: - Font data in files *.gsf: each file defines one (transformable) font specified in outline form. - BuildChar procedures in gfonts.ps: these provide the algorithms for interpreting the data in the .gsf files. - The Fontmap file: this relates Ghostscript font names to .gsf file names. Currently, the fonts supplied with Ghostscript are based on various public domain bitmap fonts, mostly the ones supplied with the X11 distribution from MIT, and on the public domain Hershey fonts. ... The bitmap-derived fonts include the usual Helvetica, Times-Roman, and so on; see the file `Fontmap' for the complete list, in the usual roman, italic, bold, and bold italic styles (for the most part). The Hershey fonts, on the other hand, are quite different from traditional ones; the file `hershey.doc' describes them in more detail. There is also a single rather heavy home-grown font called Ugly that may be preferable to the other fonts at small sizes (where the bitmap-derived fonts tend to be too light). This font is the file `ugly_r.gsf' in the Ghostscript source distribution. ... Since Ghostscript uses the Adobe Type 1 format for fonts, there are lots of opportunities for improvement. Eventually, the right approach is to use higher-quality fonts, and to implement some of the Type 1 hint facilities. Work is underway to create high-quality fonts for Ghostscript in particular, and the GNU project in general. The fonts distributed with the current release of Ghostscript have the redeeming value that they are available *now*. --- -- david