7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts
7.1. Introduction and Overview
Installing fonts for WYSIWYG publishing on Linux is a relatively complex
task. It typically involves three steps:
* Make the font available to the X server
* Make the font available to ghostscript
* Make the font available to the application
The main reason for the complexity is that the font printing system (
ghostscript ) is unrelated to the screen font system. In a way, Linux's
left hand does not know what it's right hand is doing. This problem is
nontrivial to solve, because it is possible that printer fonts and display
fonts reside on different machines, so there is no guarantee that all
fonts the XClient uses are printable.
The good news is that most WYSIWYG applications use what is a reasonable
solution to this problem. The solution involves constructing some kind
of mechanism that maps screen fonts to printer fonts ( this is the main
issue. There are also other issues, such as grouping bold, italic and
roman variants into ``families'' of fonts ). Unfortunately, there is no
standard way to do this. It seems that font management standards which
address this issue would greatly simplify the installation of fonts into
WYSIWYG publishing systems, because all applications could use a system-wide
( as opposed to application-specific ) configuration.
7.2. Applixware
There are two ways to install fonts into Applixware. One method involves
using FontTastic, which is Applixware's ``private'' font server. The other
method involves editing Applixware's fontmap, to use a font already installed
on the system. Installing into the font server is more convenient, but
fonts installed in this manner may only be printed at 300 dpi.
7.2.1. FontTastic
Using FontTastic is the easy way to do it. To install new fonts like
this, simply do the following:
1.Run Applixware as root
2.Click on the tools menu.
3.Choose ``Font Installer''
4.Check ``OK'' in the popup dialog
5.Click the ``Catalogs'' menu and choose ``create''
6.Fill in the catalog name box. It doesn't matter what you put there.
For the rest of this example, we'll assume it's called ``foobar''
7.Select your foobar catalog from the catalog manipulations list.
8.From the ``Services'' menu, select ``install fonts into -> FontTastic
font server''
9.Make sure catalog foobar is selected in the catalogs list, then press
the ``select files'' button.
10.Use the select files dialog to select the fonts you want to install.
Press ``OK'' when you've selected the files. For example, if you want
to select arial.ttf in the directory /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts/, you would
type /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts in the ``Current Directory'' dialog, then
select arial.ttf from the files dialog box, then click ``OK''. Note that
you can select multiple files, but they all must come from the same directory.
11.You can edit your list by checking on the different fonts in the list
box and possibly removing or renaming them.
12.When you're ready, click the ``install fonts'' button. Then click ``OK''.
13.Go to the ``services'' menu and choose ``update''. Check ``OK'' on
the annoying modal dialog, then choose exit from the services menu. Exit
applix.
14.Congrats, you're done ! The new fonts will be available when you restart
Applix.
7.2.2. Using System Wide Fonts With Applixware
This method is more involved, but produces better results. I recommend
that this method is used for fonts that are really important, and that
you use a lot. There are a few steps to this:
7.2.2.1. Make the fonts available to X
This is explained Section 4
7.2.2.2. Make the fonts available to ghostscript
This is explained in Section 5.1
7.2.2.3. Edit the fontmap.dir
This is the final step in making your fonts available to Applix, and
also the most time consuming step. The file fontmap.dir is in under
the axdata/fontmetrics of your applix installation. The purpose
of this step is basically to tell applix which screen fonts go with which
outline fonts. This is in general a very nontrivial problem, because the
screen fonts are not always on the same computer that the application
is installed.
We describe how to add fonts to fontmap.dir. In this example, we add
the font Baskerville Italic.
- First, we add a line that says FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
In fact, the name we use in FontRecord is completely arbitrary. However,
the font record must be unique to the font. Because of this, it's good
practice to use the name that ghostscript uses for the font.
- Next, we a line that says Family = Baskerville The family name for
a font is the name that appears in Applix's font selection menu. Typically,
it is non-unique, since bold, italic, roman and bold-italic variants
of a font will typically go under the same family.
- If the font is either a bold, or italic variant, or both, we need
to add the following lines: Slant = 1 if the font is italic, and Weight
= 1 if the font is bold. If the font is bold and italic, we add both
lines. In this example, we need only add the line Slant = 1
- We add a line that looks like this: ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
The screen name is the name that the X-server uses for the font. We
can list font names containing the string ``bask'' by typing xlsfonts|grep
-i bask
- Now we add a line that gives the name of the printer font: PostScriptPrinterName
= Baskerville-Normal-Italic
- Next, we need to specify the location of the font metric file and
the outline file MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm Type1FontFileName
= /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb If you are adding a TrueType file,
you can use ttf2pt1 to generate an afm file : ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - >
foo.afm ( or get the ttfutils package and use ttf2afm ) Then you use
something like this: MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/foo.afm Do
not include a Type1FontFileName directive -- let ghostscript take care
of this.
That's it. Now after adding the whole family of fonts, you should have
something like this:
FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal
Family = Baskerville
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
Family = Baskerville
Slant = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold
Family = Baskerville
Weight = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
Family = Baskerville
Weight = 1
Slant = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.pfb
It is possible to do more with this configuration file. The file itself
has a glossary which explains the format of the configuration file.
7.3. Star Office
Here, we cover Star Office 5.0. The procedure with Star Office 5.1 is
similar, but the utility is called spadmin, not psetup. It's worth mentioning
up front that John
McLaughlin's page is an excellent source on this issue, and it inspired
most of what follows.
Having tried both Star Office 5.0, and 5.1, I have found that Star Office
5.1 seems to give me less grief when adding new fonts. I was not succesful
adding true type fonts to Star Office 5.0, but it proved somewhat easier
with Star Office 5.1.
7.3.1. Backup Your Configuration Before you Start !
It's good to make a backup in case you inadvertantly hose your configuration.
Modifying fonts will impact several files in the xp3. You should definitely
backup the file xp3/psstd.fonts. I recommend going further and backing
up the whole xp3 directory. You can do this by cd-ing to your Star Office
directory, then using
tar cvzf xp3.tgz xp3
to create a backup. To restore a backup, delete the xp3 directory and
unpack the archive
rm -rf xp3
tar xvzf xp3.tgz
7.3.2. Adding Type 1 Fonts to Star Office
Adding Type 1 fonts to Star Office is relatively simple. If you want
to use your TrueType fonts with Star Office 5.0, the best thing to do
is convert them to Type 1 fonts, and then follow the procedure outlined
here. If you have Star Office 5.1, you might wish to use the proceedure
for installing TrueType fonts instead ( though it is somewhat more difficult
). Firstly, do the usual thing -- make the font available to both X and
ghostscript. Once this is done, the font can be installed into Star Office
using the psetup tool. The procedure is as follows:
- As root, run psetup ( or spadmin if you have Star Office 5.1 )
- Press the ``add fonts'' button.
- The easiest thing to do after this is press the ``initialize font
paths'' button. This puts a list of all fonts in your X font path in
the list box.
- Choose the directory containing the font you wish to install ( it
should be in the box ), and then press ``OK''.
- Click the ``convert all font metrics button''.
That's it. You're done. You can exit ( or click ``OK'' until it exits
). When you restart Star Office, you will have the new fonts.
7.3.3. Adding TrueType Fonts to Star Office
Adding TrueType fonts to Star Office is nontrivial, but possible. After
some hard work, and long hours stareing at John McLaughlin's page page,
I finally got them working in Star Office 5.1. Note that this does not
work with version 5.0. The following steps are appropriate it you are
printing through ghostscript:
- Make the fonts available to X.
- Make the fonts available to ghostscript.
- You need to have afm files for the fonts you wish to add. Use ttf2pt1
-A foo.ttf - > foo.afm to create the afm files. Alternatively,
you can get the
- ttfutils package and use ttf2afm The advantage of this is you can
handle several at a time, e.g., ttf2afm *.ttf
- Star Office needs pfb files corresponding to each ttf file. You can
create them with the command touch foo.pfb
Actually, Star Office only uses these files for printing purposes. And
by enterring the font in the PPD, thus duping Star Office into thinking
the fonts are inside your printer ( when they're actually inside ghostscript's
rendering system ), you get around needing to use these files. Star Office
just seems to require that the pfb file exists to install the font.
- Now you can run spadmin and install the font(s).
- Now add the fonts to the PPD file corresponding to your printer configuration.
The name you use for the font should be the same name Star Office uses
for it, not the ghostscript font name. For example, if the font is foobar.ttf
and the corresponding afm file is foobar.afm, you use the name ``foobar''
for the font in the PPD file. The entry should look something like this:
- Font cloistrk: Standard "(001.002)" Standard ROM
On the other hand, if you are not printing from ghostscript, you have
different issues to deal with. In this case, tricking Star Office into
thinking that your printer has the fonts is a bad idea, because your printer
does not have the fonts in the ROM, so while gv will display the PostScript
files nicely, your printer will not be able to print them. If you have
a PostScript printer, the main differences are as follows:
- Do not edit the PPD file.
- Instead of using touch foo.pfb to create empty pfb files, you need
the pfb files to be Type42 PostScript fonts. A Type42 font is really
a ``printer TrueType font''. You don't really notice Type42 fonts even
when you use them, because most applications handle them transparently.
To create Type42 fonts, you use ttfps to create the files.
ttfps foo.ttf foo.pfb
There are some gotchas. Sometimes, Star Office might not choose the screen
font you like. It is sometimes worth checking xp3/psstd.fonts and possibly
editing it to make sure that Star Office is really using the font you
had in mind for screen display. Also, Star Office doesn't handle configuration
problems gracefully. If there's something wrong with your configuration,
it's possible that the word processor will not even start. This is why
you should back up your xp3 directory.
7.3.4. Under the Hood
If you wish to install TrueType fonts in Star Office, you may need to
learn how Star Office handles things. When you run spadmin or psetup,
the following happens:
- Star Office makes symbolic links to the pfb outline files in your
xp3/pssoftfonts directory.
- The afm file is copied into the directory xp3/fontmetrics/afm/
- An entry is added to the xp3/psstd.fonts file. This file stores the
names of all the screen fonts used by Star Office ( in particular, it
maps the screen fonts to the outline filenames ).
This is why it's good to simply backup the whole xp3 directory -- it
is the only convenient way to restore Star Office to a clean configuration.
7.4. Word Perfect
Nothing yet. Rod Smith's webpage is the definitive resource regarding
installing fonts on Word Perfect.
Font HowTo
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. The Location of This Document
1.2. Submitting corrections/errata
1.3. Last Updated
1.4. Copyright
1.5. Rationale
1.6. Credits and Acknowledgements
2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts
2.1. Types of Fonts
2.2. Families of Typefaces
3. Fonts 102 -- Typography
3.1. Classifications of Typefaces
3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and
expert fonts
3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes
4. Making Fonts Available To X
4.1. The font path
4.2. Installing Type 1 Fonts
4.3. True Type Fonts
4.4. xfs
5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript
5.1. Type 1
5.2. True Type
5.3. Using Ghostscript To Preview
Fonts
6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion
6.1. Why ?
6.2. How ?
7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts
7.1. Introduction and Overview
7.2. Applixware
7.3. Star Office
7.4. Word Perfect
8. Netscape
9. TeX / LaTeX
9.1. A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts
9.2. Adding Type 1 fonts
10. Getting Fonts For Linux
10.1. True Type
10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
11. Useful Font Software for Linux
12. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type
13. References
13.1. Font Information
13.2. Postscript and Printing Information
14. Glossary
.
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