Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!newsgate.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!paperboy.wellfleet.com!news3.near.net!amber.ora.com!not-for-mail From: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: Sun Info Supersedes: Followup-To: poster Date: 14 Aug 1996 10:35:06 -0400 Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Lines: 153 Sender: norm@ruby.ora.com Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Distribution: world Expires: 27 Sep 1996 14:34:08 GMT Message-ID: References: Reply-To: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) NNTP-Posting-Host: ruby.ora.com Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts. It addresses both general font questions and questions that are specific to a particular platform. X-Web-Homepage: http://www.ora.com/homepages/comp.fonts/ Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.fonts:48307 comp.answers:20521 news.answers:79242 Archive-name: fonts-faq/part11 Version: 2.1.5 Subject: 6. Sun Information Someone mailed a file of Sun-related font tips. Unfortunately, I cannot find the file. If you have any suggestion for this section (or if you are the person that mailed me the other list), please forward your suggestions to norm. [ Note: much of this information is obsolete, based on the SunOS4/Solaris2.1 server. The Solaris 2.3 and later servers are based on the standard X11R5 server but with Display PostScript added, so you can do Type 1 in the "normal" way (fontdir+mkpsres) ] Subject: 6.1. Fonts Under Open Windows The following information regarding fonts under Open Windows was donated by Liam R.E. Quin from the Open Windows FAQ. Subject: 6.1.1. Does OpenWindows support Type 1 PostScript fonts? Type 1 fonts are supported starting with the NeWSprint 2.0 and Solaris 2.0 (OpenWindows 3.0.1) releases. There are also 57 F3 format fonts supplied with OpenWindows which are fully hinted. Documentation on the F3 font format and the F3 font interpreter, TypeScaler, is available from Sun. Subject: 6.1.2. Improving font rendering time Although the Sun type renderer (TypeScaler) is pretty fast, it's not as fast as loading a bitmap. You can pre-generate bitmap fonts for sizes that you use a lot, and you can also alter and access the font cache parameters. If you have a lot of memory you might want to increase the font cache size. $ psh -i Welcome to X11/NeWS Version3 <--- psh will say this at you currentfontmem = % type this line ... 300 % ... my server was using 300 Kbytes 1024 setfontmem % Just to check: currentfontmem = 1024 See pp. 328ff of the NeWS 3.0 Programmer's Guide. You need to say psh -i so that the PostScript packages are loaded - see the psh man page. You could also add the following line to your $HOME/.openwin-init file to perform this task every time you start OpenWindows: echo 1024 setfontmem | psh -i > /dev/null 1>&2 Subject: 6.1.3. Making bitmap fonts for faster startup Sun supports the F3 scalable outline format. These descriptions are stored in .f3b files. The makeafb program is used to create a bitmap font at a particular size which is stored in a .afb file, which is an Adobe ASCII format for font bitmaps. X11/NeWS really prefers a binary format though for speed and other reasons, so convertfont is used to "compile" the font into a font binary or .fb file. Once this is done, X11/NeWS needs to understand the relationship between the .f3b file and all the bitmaps which are based on it. Thus, the bldfamily program makes these correlations and stores the data in the font family or .ff file. bldfamily also builds a global list of all fonts stored in the working directory, writing the results out to the file Families.list. If one wishes to create font aliases, these can be added to the Synonyms.list file by hand and bldfamily will then add them to Families.list for you. X11/NeWS uses Families.list to construct the font list it advertises to applications. To go from F3 to BDF, use makeafb to generate a bitmap font in .afb format. Then use one of convertfont's many options to change to this to .bdf format and from there it should be clear. $ mkdir $HOME/myfonts $ cd $HOME/myfonts $ makeafb -20 -M $OPENWINHOME/lib/fonts/Bembo.f3b Creating Bembo20.afb $ convertfont -b Bembo20.afb Bembo20.afb->./Bembo20.fb Chars parameter greater than number of characters supplied. $ ls Bembo20.afb Bembo20.fb Synonyms.list $ bldfamily * Bembo ./Bembo.ff (Encoding: latin) cat: ./Compat.list: No such file or directory $ xset +fp `pwd` $ xset fp rehash If you want the server to see your new font directory every time, add this directory to your FONTPATH environment variable in one of your start-up files, e.g. .login or .profile. Subject: 6.1.4. Converting between font formats (convertfont, etc.) You can also use F3 fonts with an X11 server, by converting them to a bitmap (X11 bdf format) first. Your license restricts use of these fonts on another machine, and unless you have NeWSPrint you shouldn't use them for printing. Having said all that... you can use makeafb and convertfont to generate bdf files that you can compile with bdftosnf or bdftopcf. Use mftobdf (from the SeeTeX distribution) to convert TeX PK fonts to X11 BDF format, which you can then use with either X11 or OpenWindows. Subject: 6.1.5. Xview/OLIT fonts at 100 dpi There aren't any. More precisely, the various text fonts, such as Lucida Typewriter Sans, are available at 100 dpi, and in fact are scalable under OpenWindows. The glyph fonts used to be bitmaps, which don't scale very well, but starting with OpenWindows 3.2, the OpenLook UI glyph fonts are provided in scalable format as well. Subject: 6.2. Where can I order F3 fonts for NeWSprint and OpenWindows? 600 F3 fonts are available for unlocking from Printer's Palette, a CD available with NeWSprint 2.0. In addition, F3 fonts are available from the following sources: Linotype AG Linotype Company Mergenthaler Allee 55-75 425 Oser Avenue 6236 Eschborn Germany Hauppague, NY 11788 49/(61 96) 4031 (800) 336-0045 FAX 011/49/6196-982185 FAX 516-434-2055 attn: F3 Font Production attn: F3 Font Production Monotype Plc. Monotype Typography Salfords Redhill RH1 5JP 53 W. Jackson Boulevard Suite 504 England Chicago, IL 60604 44/(737) 765959 (800) 666-6893 FAX 011/44/737-769243 FAX (312) 939-0378 attn: F3 Font Production attn: F3 Font Production U R W U R W Harksheider Strasse 102 One Tara Boulevard Suite 210 D2000 Hamburg Germany Nashua, NH 03062 49/(40) 606050 (603) 882-7445 49/(40) 60605148 (603) 882-7210 attn: F3 Font Production attn: F3 Font Production Bigelow & Holmes Autologic P. O. Box 1299 1050 Rancho Conejo Boulevard Menlo Park, CA 94026 Newbury Park, CA 91320 415/326-8973 (800)235-1843, or (805)498-9611 in CA FAX (415) 326-8065 FAX (805) 499-1167 attn: F3 Font Production attn: F3 Font Production