Useful info. Thanks!

On 16.11.2010 17:48:47 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> Installing a font on a printer is a problem, post-processing
> a PostScript file is another one.
> 
> It is indeed an issue to determine how to reference a font that has been
> manually installed on a printer. I tried once to install a TrueType font
> on a Xerox printer, and the Xerox utility I used for that tried to
> convert it. Into what? No idea.
> 
> I tried to reference the Kochi Gothic font manually installed on a HP
> printer and using the PostScript name (Kochi-Gothic) didn’t work.
> Printing the font list was giving ‘Kochi Gothic’ with the space in
> between and AFAIK it’s not possible to use a space in a font name in
> PostScript.

Yes, the PS names use hyphens instead. I would also expect the
PostScript name from the TTF font to be used.

> I tried to reference an ornaments font installed on the Xerox printer,
> using the TrueType file provided with the printer to get the metrics.
> I got it working be deriving a font with a custom encoding. I don’t know
> wether the actual font on the printer was in Type 1 or TrueType format.
> The method of deriving a custom encoding would have been the same
> anyway. Maybe it was even some proprietary format.

Yes, the glyph description type really doesn't matter, as long as you know
how to address the individual glyphs (Adobe names or CIDs).

> So, it’s difficult to know whether a font that is manually installed on
> a printer will be converted or not, accessible as a single-byte font or
> a CIDFont, etc. And each make is likely to do it differently.

That's what I feared. When analysing the last problem (HP printed some
glyphs badly), I started to write some PS code to dump a font dictionary
to the console. I didn't get too far. If a PostScript program could be
written that creates a report for one or more PS fonts on a printer, we
might learn more about how the printer offers the fonts.

But if some printers present pre-installed TTF fonts differently than
others, that would make the whole thing rather complicated for users
which means to recommend embedding full fonts.

> However, AFAIU from Chris, there still is an interest to fully embed
> a font to allow post-processing by a print bureau. For example,
> concatenating several FOP-produced documents into a single big print
> job. In that case we don’t care about the printer. Everything remains in
> the control of FOP. It’s up to us whether we want to use base fonts or
> CID-keyed fonts. And I don’t think the user even wants to know how we do
> it, as long as they have the option to either fully embed, or
> subset-embed the font.

Agreed.

<snip/>

Jeremias Maerki

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