On Sat, 25 Jan 2003, Robert Roebling wrote: > > > 1) Our own PS generator > > 2) A driver based on GnomePrint > > > > I'm working on making #2 functional again. If > > wxWindows can have a Gnome dependency, I *highly* > > recommend using libgnomeprint and libgnomeprintui > > versions 2.2.x > > Dependancy on the infamous 200 Gnome libraries > is currently no option for wxWindows. It may be > less of a problem for a "single app" project > like AbiWord. > > > So, our printing is done in a fashion very > > similar to on-screen drawing, or how your > > "device contexts" work. (..) > > Pretty much all of these have a 1:1 mapping > > onto PS and PDF drawing operations. > > Yes I know, we alredy can print to PS, it's just > not yet optimal. > > > Now, one can't use Pango to print, at least > > not yet. > > Well, we do :-) I just tell the FreeType backend > of Pango to produce outlines of the rendered > text and write these to the PS file. I have > to work on scaling, but the text is there > including CJK without having to embed 7.5Mb > fonts in the PS file. > > > so that we can embed the font directly in the > > PS output, instead of merely referencing it by name. > > See any PS or PDF manual for what that means. > > I actually read both and I'm fairly familiar with > both concepts. The problem is that you would have > to embed megabytes of data for a Japanese font. > If I am not mistaken, OpenOffice and Qt are both > able to embed only individual glyphs to avoid that > problem. Unfortunately, this is beyond my knowledge > of PostScript. > > > Now, we use Xft2/FontConfig if possible to get > > the font metrics and font files themselves. > > Yes, I know. But what about ligatures or more > exotic scripts? You need shapers for them or > the text won't look ideal. Everyone can print > "Hello" in PostScript :-) > > > Xft2/Fontconfig is installed and have a way > > to convert text to UTF8 or UCS4, > > We have both in wxWindows. > > > it's pretty trivial to craft a fairly > > functional PS driver device context. > > I know since I have written most of the current > PS driver for wxWindows, but "fairly" funtional > is not always enough. Once again, I still > hesitate to throw away Pango until I see any > real reason to do so. Since AbiWord has much > more experience with printing issues, I am > raising the issue here. > > BTW, does AbiWord handle the problem that text > can have a differnt size/length depending on the > resolution? Printers obviously have far higher > resolutions and this can in rare cases affect > line break algorithms. >
If you read the archives for today, yesterday and the day before you can see we're currently dealing with this tricky problem. We haven't got it beaten yet though. Cheers Martin
