Re: Helvetica Printer Fonts & HP 1100 (again)
On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, Donald Spoon wrote:
> Bill Moseley wrote:
> > When I print a calendar with Jpilot the fonts are really poor quality.
> As I understand it, the true "helvetica" font is not available on stock
> Debian installs due to licensing problems from Adobe and/or Apple. The
> way Debian handles this is to substitute another font...in my case it is
> the "verdana" fonts from the M$ TrueType" family...I think. This is
> done as part of setting up TrueType fonts on the system, and is done in
> the /etc/X11/XftConfig file...agian "I think".
>From what I can tell I've upgraded past XftConfig and now use
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf. At least that was the file I had to edit to keep
Mozilla from anti-aliasing small fonts (althouh Opera still uses AA
fonts for some reason).
I don't understand the connection between the screen fonts and the printer
fonts, though -- e.g. I'm not clear of font.conf effects the printer
fonts.
> I dunno exacty what your problem is. My understanding of fonts and how
> they are handled in Debian is poor to start off, and I am getting even
> more confused with the introduction of "defoma" and "pango" into the
> overall mix that you see in Debian testing/unstable... depending on how
> much of "unstable" you have installed.
I find not understanding how all the parts work together frustrating,
indeed. I've spent hours bouncing around HOWTOs, Fontconfig, Freetype,
and XFree86 sites. Seems like too much work just to get a printer to
print! Feels like I'm back in 1980. ;)
> The best I can offer is to run down the high-points of all I have done
> here and see if something there helps.
>
> 1. I am using the "gimprint" printer drivers for CUPS. Dunno if this
> has any bearing, but the overall quality of ALL the fonts is
> significantly better than other packages I have experimented with, IMHO.
> The hpijs printer drivers are also very good, but are even slower on
> my system.
I've got cupsys-driver-gimpprint driver installed, but I didn't see any
gimp-print driver for my HP 1100. I guess I expect that.
> 2. Install TrueType fonts per the KDE "anti-aliasing-howto". On my
> sytem this is located in /usr/share/doc/anti-aliasing-howto. The
> significant points here are to use the "msttcorefonts" Debian package
> from testing to get the fonts on your system, make the changes
> recommended in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (looks like you have done this) and
> in /etc/X11/fs/config, and to "upgrade" the /etc/X11/XftConfig file.
> The last point is where I got the font substitution statement mentioned
> above. It is not there in the default Debian X install. I just "cut &
> paste" the sample file in the anti-aliasing-howto dir into
> /etc/X11/XftConfig without modification after re-naming the original
> XftConfig file to something else.
Ok, I've done that. Although, as I said, I believe I'm using Xft2 and
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf. I don't understand the file format, but it has:
<alias>
<family>Helvetica</family>
<accept><family>Verdana</family></accept>
</alias>
On the other hand, if I print from Jpilot I don't see any of the font
config files (fonts.conf, XftConfig or X11/fs/config) touched. So it
doesn't seem like any of those will make a difference. Feel like I'm
spinning my wheels.
> One final "caveat"... I am not a font purist! What looks horribe to you
> may look OK to me. An example of what you are seeing would be helpful,
> if you can get it... a scan perhaps?
Na, in this case it's really ugly printing compared to everthing else
that's printed (e.g. from mozilla). I'd scan it but that's another sore
point: The hotplug and usb stuff kind of works for my scanner, but after a
few hotplug events I get a kernel panic! And I don't want a kernel panic
when, after 36 hours, wusage is almost done running on some logs....
Man, this is fun stuff!
Thanks for your help.
--
Bill Moseley moseley@hank.org
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