#Encoding fonts
6 messages in this thread
First let me explain what I'm doing, then I'll ask my questions. What I'm doing
is creating a set of PostScript macros for Framework III to print to the
LaserWriter. My problem is in dealing with the extended character set. I want
the printout to be the same as what is on the screen. I'm doing this via
encoding my font. For international characters, this works fine. My specific
problem is with box and line drawing characters.
The fonts I'm printing in are Times-Roman, Courier, Bookman-Demi and Helvetica.
I'll consider any font in the LaserWriter's memory though. I've downloaded the
Mac AFM files for the above fonts. My quandry is, which of the characters, if
any, are the the comprable box and line drawing characters that I need to use?
A question on AFM files. I have the Veritype FontWizard DA on my Mac and I can
see that the ASCII equivalent of Trademark is 170 (decimal). Yet, looking at
the AFM file, I see 170 defined as quotedblleft. I see trademark as one of the
extra characters in the AFM file. Is the reason these two don't agree is becase
the font has been encodded, or is there something else I don't understand?
FYI, I'm posting this question in the Mac section because the way I print is
transfering the PostScript file to my Mac via a shared network drive and
printing via LaserStatus.
Quinn:
I think I've got some bad news for you. You can't just re-encode the PostScript
fonts on the LaserWriter because those fonts don't have the characters for the
IBM extended character set.
PostScript fonts come with a maximum of 255 characters. The basic character
sets don't include comparable box and line drawing characters. There are,
however, a couple of commercial fonts designed to image the IBM set. (Frank
Betts, a forum member, just posted a message stating that he is uploading a
shareware? freeware? font that might do exactly what you want — see message
13141).
As far as the Varityper/Tegra FontWizard DA question, the Mac's LaserPrep does
some re-encoding of its own, mapping some characters from the Symbol font to
all the normal text fonts. That's why the numbers don't jive with the AFM
files.
–jon
1. Once you've created a PS file, it's platform-independent. So you could post
your message in a forum or section appropriate to the originating app.
2. As for you AFM question, it porbably has to do with different encoding
schemes. The "Real World PostScript" book has some interesting information
about encoding which, unfortunately, was entirely over my head. If you're a
programmer, it's probably the book you need.
3. The standard Adobe character set is ISO Latin-1. It does not contain the
IBM extended-ASCII line-drawing characters, happy faces, etc. The characters
available to your app are a subset of ISO Latin-1. For instance, Ventura can
access about 200 characters. Its default character set is VP International. The
default under Windows is ANSI (I think about 220 characters). For the IBM
line-drawing charcters, one could use a special font. There is mention of such
a thing right now in the IBM section of this forum. Good luck.
Barry,
Actually the IBM line drawing characters (as well as the "happy face"!) are
present in a few Adobe fonts, but they are not in the standard encoding. In
Letter Gothic (and, I believe, Prestige Elite and Orator), there are almost all
of the IBM extended character set. If you do a dictionary dump of the character
names in these fonts, you'll see present names like "SM790000," "arrowdown,"
"dbar," etc. It's possible to re-encode the font so that these characters can
be printed out.
^Steve^
Every time I think I know something, WHAM! Regarding the IBM line drawing
characters, I was relying on the technical information in Adobe's FONT &
FUNCTION. If, however, I had read the very *next* sentence, I would have seen:
"Letter Gothic, Prestige Elite and Orator contain the IBM line drawing
characters in addition to the standard text characters."
[sigh]
Hi Quinn, I just uploaded a file to lib 3 called SCRN11.ARC which contains two
IBM extended character sets. One is a bitmapped font just like the IBM EGA
screen font and the other is derived from Courier (it needed to be monospaced
like the screen). Both have all of the box drawing characters. There is a TSR
included that allows you to capture EGA 25 line text screens and convert them
to PostScript for printing at your convenience. If you have any questions –
please ask. Frank C. Betts