Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!newsgate.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!paperboy.wellfleet.com!news3.near.net!amber.ora.com!not-for-mail
From:
[email protected] (Norman Walsh)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: Unix Info
Supersedes: <
[email protected]>
Followup-To: poster
Date: 14 Aug 1996 10:35:00 -0400
Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.
Lines: 61
Sender:
[email protected]
Approved:
[email protected]
Distribution: world
Expires: 27 Sep 1996 14:34:08 GMT
Message-ID: <
[email protected]>
References: <
[email protected]>
Reply-To:
[email protected] (Norman Walsh)
NNTP-Posting-Host: ruby.ora.com
Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts.
It addresses both general font questions and questions that
are specific to a particular platform.
X-Web-Homepage:
http://www.ora.com/homepages/comp.fonts/
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.fonts:48308 comp.answers:20522 news.answers:79243
Archive-name: fonts-faq/part10
Version: 2.1.5
Subject: 5. Unix Information
See also the 'utilities' section for more information. Most of the
utilities described in that section run under Unix.
The bulk of this section was contributed by Johannes Schmidt-Fischer in
Jun 1993.
Unix Font Formats
=================
Most printers attached to Unix hosts are PostScript printers. As a
consequence, most Unix users are also using PostScript fonts. If you
are not using a PostScript printer, you need a front-end, like
GhostScript, to convert the PostScript into a format compatible with
your printer.
There is no Unix specific Postscript Type 1 format. The most often used
(and most easily usable) format is Adobe's PFA format. The other often
used format is PFB format. The PFB format is more compact (by about
50%), but in order to use it you need make sure that your font
downloading tools are prepared to convert PFB to PFA on fly.
Postscript Type 3 fonts are no problem, they can be handled the same
way as Type 1 fonts.
Most Unix tools expect to get character metric information from AFM
files. You may have difficulty using fonts collected off of the 'Net
if they do not include AFM files
Font Installation
=================
Application
-----------
It depends. (Well, what did you expect me to say? ;-)
Printer using an ExitServer
---------------------------
Convert PFB fonts into PFA format if necessary and then send them to
printer inside a wrapper like so:
%!PS-Adobe-2.0 ExitServer Job
serverdict begin 0 exitserver % 0: substitute your password
... % font in PFA-format
%%EOF
Or include them directly in your print job:
%!PS-Adobe-2.0
... % font in PFA-format
... % other initialisation
%%Page: 1 i % beginning of your job...
... % ...
%%EOF
