Re: CUPS in Action (need help :)

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Ahmad Khalifa <ahmad at khalifa dot ws> wrote:
> Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> 
> > Sorry for the __VERY__ late reply, really am.  I was able to see the
> > Arabic without issue using "ghostview" (gv-3.5.8), I just had to copy
> > the font file (the .pfa file) in the same directory as the .ps I was
> > displaying and it showed without issue.
> 
> better late than never :) and WOW! you can actually see the arabic ?
> .PS files contain the font files within them, so I think something is
> wrong with the .PS file that makes GV, GGV, CUPS (and all .PS readers)
> not see the font. what you did -copying the font next to the .PS- cannot
> be done with CUPS, so we still have a problem.

Not sure I know what to say; this is beyond my understanding at the moment.

> but hey, Thanks, now I can check the shaping/bidi until the .PS thing is
> fixed, if it is ever!!

At least we can see what the output looks like, if need be we can debug
this .PS thing later as a side-affect.

> > The output that was displayed looked very odd, things were shaped but
> > the spacing was all off (and this was not due to harakat either).  I'm
> > attaching a small screenshot to show you what I mean and I'd be more
> > than happy to mail you more detailed shots in private if you so desire.
> 
> yeah I know about that, its a problem with the font not being monospaced
> every character has a different width and CUPS's texttops filter puts
> every character at a constant distance from the previous character.
> If you look in the .PS file you'll see that arabic characters are
> written 1 by 1, each with its own coordinate.
> In short, the solution is a monospaced arabic font like windows' Courier

Could you then regenerate the .PS using a monospaced Arabic font for us
to see ?  If all is well (and I think there were other issues with regards
to Harakat and composing characters taking too many spaces) then we should
proceed with getting this patch adopted - as it stands now it does a hell
of alot more with it than without it :-)

> > Hope that helps and keep up on this effort - I'm here to help/test.
> 
> I had given up on CUPS, but what you said was really helpful.
> Thanks for the help.

NO, no, no - ___never___ give up, please don't.  This and others are very
important topics and we are very eager to complete 'em and again sorry for
my delay (why no one else stepped forward is a different story :-)

Salam and keep at it !!

 - Nadim


		
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