On Wed, 05 Mar 2003 10:54:11 +0000 John Richard Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Len Lawrence wrote: > > >The importing fonts to CUPS saga continues. Please bear with me - > >this has turned into quite an essay. > ------------------- big snip ------------------------ > Understanding linux printer setup is not easy, and > so here is my best try, > > The natural output of Linux print commands is in > Printer Control Language 5 (PCL5) , while most > dos inkjet printers rastorize the image files in > Printer Control Language 3 (PCL3) to accomodate > this problem Ghostscript converts PCL5 to PCL3. > To speak of ghostscript as drivers is something of > a misnomer, as it's a conversion programme. > > Your dos inkjet printer has a rastor image processor > chip in PCL3 and a certain amount of buffer as well > but as I understand it the control of the page setup > is what PPD does. > > LPD is the local printer daemon and generates the > PCL5 image file , I think? and the image file is > processed through to ghostscript where the conversion > to PCL3 is accomplished, using so called backend filters. > > Somewhere in all this is Foomatic , which I have never yet > come across an explanation of. Thanks for your comments John. I agree that printing is a complex issue which probably explains why LX Format has not replied. If in two years research I have not been able to find an explanation of how CUPS deals with PostScript fonts then they probably cannot afford the time to follow up my query. It is obviously not something anybody can answer off the top of their head. So I will continue poking around. Let's see, at 3.5 minutes a day, I might be getting somewhere by 2025. You can all look forward to my article on printing and font handling in LX Format then <g>. Thanks also for the information re PCL5 and PCL3. I had not come across that. The printer is an HP Deskjet 940C by the way. The PPD file contains a list of default fonts which is reflected in a set of .pfb files in /usr/share/cups/fonts. It should be possible to use these two resources to add new fonts - not clear how though. Any changes seem to be ignored by CUPS. It is not even possible to get it to accept a change in the default typeface, say from Courier to Helvetica. Cheers mate -- Len Lawrence ---------------------------------------------------------- Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them. ----------------------------------------------------------
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