On Thu, Apr 08, 1999 at 07:25:51PM -0500, Shaw Terwilliger wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 08, 1999 at 05:00:35PM -0700, Darren O. Benham wrote:
> > First -- fonts in Linux. Is there a reason not to use X's font information
> > so that the fonts.dir is unneeded? I havn't used abiword under windows but
> > I know windows will dish up fonts to you, also...
>
> If this isn't in the fonts information on the web site, it really should
> be. We can't use X for all font information because X sucks--it doesn't
> leak enough information so that we can create printable documents.
> We can't get the raw Type1 fonts to embed in PostScript output through
> X, we can only get character metrics and pre-rendered bitmaps. To
> get the Type1 information, we need a copy of the fonts locally.
> GhostScript uses fonts this way, mapped through its Fontmap. X loads
> fonts through fonts.dir, and so people (and us, programmatically)
> don't have to maintain two seperate font lists, we parse the same fonts.dir
> to find our Type1 fonts.
>
> X has no concept of "printing"--it's just a window display system,
> and even scalable Type1 fonts are a relatively new thing to X
> (as of X11R5). Before that you had fixed resolution bitmap
> fonts which would be unreadable at 10 pixels high on a 600 DPI laser
> printer, but horribly aliased at 600 pixels high.
>
> We use Type1 fonts because they're portable (ASCII and binary formats
> easily converted using free tools), scalable (not resolution-dependent
> bitmaps), and there is a set of printables with GhostScript that
> look very nice on paper. They could use a few more hints for display,
> though, but zooming in on a document will give them a bit more space
> to smooth out.
Well, that answer that question. Is fonts.dir an X thing or a ghostscript
thing?
--
Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also.
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