Re: CUPS in Action (need help :)

[Ahmad Khalifa <ahmad at khalifa dot ws>]

Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> Ahmad, I'm not going to pretend like I know what the heck you are
> talking about (I don't :-), but if you are in need of a monospaced
> .pfa font file then can't we simply convert a monospaced TTF to a
> .pfa using 'ttf2pfa',
>
>   http://ttf2pt1.sourceforge.net/ttf2pfa.html
>   (In passing, http://mheath.customer.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1)
>
> So if this is a possiblitiy, we now simply need a monospaced TTF
> to start with (Uniball noted that KACST shipped one).

dont think so, it has a fixed font. I'm not sure what a fixed font is
but its not monospaced :(

> > BTW, if you do get a font (and for future reference), the Kacst-Qr.pfa
> >     font file has 256 entries (or glyphs or characters or whatever
> >     they're called) the lower 128 are from the 0x600 range, and the
> >     upper 128 are the 0xFE70 range (Pres. Form-B), the Unicode values
> >     are tied to the names of the glyphs in file
> >     /usr/share/cups/data/psglyphs . so if you do get a font you need
> >     to edit most of the font using pfaedit (from sf.net) and make sure
>
>
> pfaedit is now called fontforge (http://fontforge.sf.net :-)
>
>
> >     it complies with the names in psglyphs (or change the names in
> >     psglyphs, but CUPS would like to stick to adobe's standard names)
> >
> >     In short, the Kacst-Qr.pfa font is 128 values from 0600 range and
> >     128 values from FE70 range, because CUPS would like to keep them in
> >     1 font.
>
>
> OK, this all sounds simple enough (ie. sounds like you've gone through
> this pain once or twice :-).  So let's find a monospaced TTF convert it
> to .pfa and verify the CUPS patch.

a __Freely distributed__ Monospaced Font please :)

> BTW: I get the feeling this is really secondary to what you've done to
>      CUPS, so beyond all the .PS file mangling would it be possible for
>      me to print things or can I bypass this hurdle to verify things a 
>      different way (doubt it, but thought I'd ask).

well, no you cant print! because cups's backend would read the .PS file
just like GV, GGV would. and I doubt that CUPS would look for the font
in the same folder as the .PS

> Wait a second.  So CUPS requires you to use monospaced fonts to print
> even in latin/english characters ?  This seems like a rather hefty
> limitation, no ?  Meaning, if/when we get this going - we'll have

Yes, monospaced for all languages, but only for text files.
you can use something like gedit to generate a .PS with a different font
and it will take care of all the coordinates info.

> one font we can use to print things and from the sound of it we won't
> be able to print both latin and Arabic due to the 256 entries
> limitation (maybe), right ?  Sorry for all this confusion, just trying
> to understand what the heck is going on.

No, you can have multiple fonts in a .PS file, and thats what happens
CUPS' texttops filter copies all the fonts it has in the .PS file
try opening the .PS with emacs you'll see them.
the problem is in the .PS arabic font, other languages get displayed
fine.


ak.