I am trying to use a printer hard drive to store all my fonts for an application (196 in total). I have a script that allows me to push these fonts on to the hard drive of my Compaq LNM40 printer, but the fonts are then not recognised as fonts when I try to print them out from the printer. Does anyone have another script or any idea why the fonts are not recognised by the printer? The fonts are basically .pfb files, so I think this is the correct format but have little experience with fonts and postscript. Is there a naming convention I should be sticking with?
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Postscript fonts on a printer hard drive not recognised!!!
- Thread starter iredmo
- Start date
First let me admit I've never done this, for a couple of reasons which I'll explain.
That said, fonts are defined as resources in PostScript, and have to be where the interpreter expects them to be. They can't just be "on the hard drive". You'll need to check the manual for your printer to learn if there is a specific location or installation/initialization method needed to let the interpreter know about the fonts. There is one undoubtedly: printers have hard drives specifically for font storage! So there has to be a "softfont" installer or something similar that came with your printer.
The reasons why this has never been an issue with me: 1) almost all of my PostScript programs are designed to generate PDF files, with fonts embedded. 2) Whenever I want transportable PostScript, I convert the fonts from .pfb to .pfa (binary to ascii), and simply include all of the pfa files in the PostScript. That way the PostScript doesn't need to know if or where fonts are when it is interpreted, it has the fonts.
That said, fonts are defined as resources in PostScript, and have to be where the interpreter expects them to be. They can't just be "on the hard drive". You'll need to check the manual for your printer to learn if there is a specific location or installation/initialization method needed to let the interpreter know about the fonts. There is one undoubtedly: printers have hard drives specifically for font storage! So there has to be a "softfont" installer or something similar that came with your printer.
The reasons why this has never been an issue with me: 1) almost all of my PostScript programs are designed to generate PDF files, with fonts embedded. 2) Whenever I want transportable PostScript, I convert the fonts from .pfb to .pfa (binary to ascii), and simply include all of the pfa files in the PostScript. That way the PostScript doesn't need to know if or where fonts are when it is interpreted, it has the fonts.
You should be able to download the fonts to your printer hard drive, you will need printer documentation as to the specific directory, as this may vary by manufacturer. Also, you will need to modify the PPD for the printer to let the driver know that the font is a printer resident font else when you print the file, the driver will not know that the font is resident and include the font in the datastream if it resident on the originating computer, thus defeating the purpose of having a printer resident font. Also, be cautious as to how many fonts you load on the printer as is will slow performance of the printer down, as the postscript interpretor will have to query the font list and build the font. The more fonts on the printer the longer this process can take. I hope this helps.
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