Re: [gnome-print] Gnome2 printing, font subsetting and CJK fonts

[Lauris Kaplinski <lauris ximian com>]

Hello!

I'll reply to your both emails here ;-)

The font subsetting is mixed. For stable (gnome-1-4-branch)
versions, this is done for large TTF fonts (that cannot be
embedded entirely in PS job due to too long tables). Such are
all CJK TTF/TTC fonts, plus several Microsoft multilingual
fonts. Small TTF-s and all Type1 fonts are embedded a a whole.
Subsetting is done by a little adjusted code from ttf2pt1,
i.e. the generated stream is Type1, that AFAIK includes at least
some hinting with glyphs.

Technically gnome-print target is larger than PostScript,
but for bitmap and screen based formats things are easier
to do - just letting freetype to do actual rendering and
compose bitmap images into buffer.

I have tested PostScript subsetting with Japanese (the only
CJK language I know a little about), and it seemed to work
for such fonts as Bitstream Cyberbit, Kochi Gothic and
Kochi Mincho, but more extensive testing is welcome ;)

Due to need of embedding, gnome-print wants direct access
to font file. So it includes own font installer, that can scan
you harddisk for usable font files, and compose gnome-print
font database out of these.

Due to that, gnome-print has its own font class(es) - I wanted
to free user absolutely from worrying about font format - if
he has GnomeFont instance, it is always printable.

Ah - you email reminded me, that i have .plan to make vertical
metrics of printable fonts available to gnome apps ;-) Just
because there is no application, that could use those, I have
had little incentive until now...

Best wishes,
Lauris Kaplinski

On Wed, 2001-12-19 at 10:07, Richard Shih-Ping Chan wrote:
> Does the gnome-print architecture access font
> files directly and is it capable of font subsetting in generating
> PostScript output? I'm interested in this because
> of CJK/CID-Keyed fonts/OpenType with large charsets.
> 
> 
> (This is the print-analogue of pango I guess - pango can use
> freetype2 to read font files and render the glyph - but
> how would you go about printing the fonts using subsetting?)
> 
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Richard Chan <cshihpin@dso.org.sg>
> DSO National Laboratories
> 20 Science Park Drive
> Singapore 118230
> Tel: 7727045
> Fax: 7766476
> 
> 
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