Nightmare on Font Street - more printing woes

From: John@Kungfu-tse.net
Date: Thu Jan 23 2003 - 05:08:49 EST

  • Next message: G. Barker: "Abiword Right Margin problem."

    I have run into a real muddle with printing. Martin Sevior helped me a little
    while ago to solve printing crashes when I was compiled with Gnome. Then after
    much effort I managed to get Abi to work with my Windows TrueType fonts (albeit
    a bit ragged on screen), but Abi objected when I tried to print them and Mark
    Gilbert told me why. However, it now prints TrueType fonts in the wrong fonts!

            I searched the archives and discovered a thread in the devel list to the effect
    that Abi will not print TT fonts and that the whole font issue is a problem,
    compounded by troubles with Gnome-print. Much of it was over my head but I got
    the gist. As the error messages kept mumbling about Postscript being unhappy I
    experimentally tried using the Type 1 fonts that Drakfont (in Mandrake 8.2) had
    made from my Windows fonts when it imported them. I added them to the Abi font
    file and ran mkfontdir to update the fonts.dir file and Hey Presto I have all
    the Type 1 versions of my TT fonts. And even more Hey Presto they print
    beautifully in the right font! (Although still a bit ragged on screen)

            However (and there is always one of these!), I get this error message whenever
    I select a font to use:

    Abiword encountered errors parsing the font metrics file
    [/usr/local/share/AbiSuite/fonts/Forte.afm].
    These errors were not fatal, but print metrics may be incorrect.

    These errors also pop up whenever I load a file into Abi containing any of my
    new fonts, but not when I choose an original Abi font. With files containing
    only a few fonts this is not proving a problem, but it makes the viewing of my
    file containing examples of every font quite impossible, as you can imagine.

            I have no compulsion to use TT fonts in place of these Type 1 (which appear to
    print beautifully), so if I can get rid of the error messages I will, unless I
    have missed something, have a very satisfactory setup. I presume the ragged
    screen fonts are not anti-aliased and that is something else for me to deal
    with, but less urgent. Can anyone throw light on all this, and take away my
    error messages so I can run with all my Type 1 fonts (to which presumably I can
    add others as the mood takes me?). Or even tell me how I can print
    correctly with the TT fonts, if that is an option. 

    -- 
John Mellor

    Linux - Free in every way
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