Installing packages from source

["RAPPAZ Francois" <francois.rappaz@unifr.ch>]

Hi,  I would like to install libgnomeprint-2.2-2.10. 
On my sarge I got 2.8 and with Abiword, fill justified text using true type font are ill printed. 

I've read that upgrading libgnomeprint would solve this. 

The next version of libgnomeprint-2.2 I've found is 2.12 and trying to install as a debian package would upgrade a lot of other libraries. I would like to upgrade to 2.10 only but have not found any debian package of that version. 

So I have downloaded the source. Now, I have problems with ./configure since a lot of .pc files are missing (I suppose because I have installed those libraries as binaries deb packages. 
My questions:
- would it be easier to make a debian package with ibgnomeprint-2.2-2.10 and to install it next ? is there any explanations on the web on how to do this ?
- is there a tool to build these .pc files without having to download all the sources ?

Thanks for any help !

François Rappaz