Subject: unix font handling and printing under utf-8 locale
From: Tomas Frydrych (tomas@frydrych.uklinux.net)
Date: Tue Jan 30 2001 - 05:27:16 CST
With the two patches I made recently, it is now possible, under utf-
8 locale, to input and display arbitrary Unicode characters in a
single document. The next necessary step is to deal with the
printing, but this is where it gets slightly more complicated.
At the moment AW prints using pfa/afm set of font-files.
Unfortunately, the X fonts server, including XFree 4.0.2, seems to
be unable to handle Type1 Unicode fonts (it will only make
available the first 255 characters). Consequently, the only scalable
Unicode fonts that are currently usable with X are ttf. Therefore, we
need to free ourselves from the pfa/afm limitation, if we are to be
able to print under utf-8 locale. (Support for ttf fonts in AW would be
a welcome feature irrespective of utf-8 locale.)
I am not sure what the best way forward is on this, and would
appreciate some input. I have had a look at the XPrint API, but as it
is not supported by gdk and we do everything graphical via gdk, it
would require a major effort to print using XPrint, and further, as
Vlad pointed out on other occassion, there is a portability problem,
since XPrint is not available on all X platforms.
I recall that in an earlier discussion of the font issue, Vlad
mentioned that it would be possible to print with ttf fonts using
ghostscript. However, I have no experience with GS and PS in
general, and have no idea where to start and how to go about it. If
anyone could point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
Tomas
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