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6. Applications

6.1 Applixware

The ApplixWare office suite includes a TrueType-capable font server, Gallium FontTastic. Installing fonts with FontTastic is a relatively simple matter, and groups of fonts can be enabled and disabled at will. Unfortunately, fonts installed in FontTastic will be sent to your printer as pre-rendered 300 dpi bitmaps by ApplixWare. Many printers today provide much higher resolution, and to make use of it it is necessary to use a separate font server and GhostScript if you are using a non-PostScript printer.

Both methods are described in detail on Rod Smith's web page on this subject.

(I'll add some detail shortly, until then refer to that web page.)

6.2 The GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program works quite well with a TrueType-capable font server (see section X Window System).

6.3 Netscape Communicator

Netscape/Mozilla Communicator/Navigator 4.x and 5.x will display TrueType fonts on screen using a font server (see section X Window System).

Unfortunately Netscape will not use anything but the standard PostScript fonts for printing, so even if you have TrueType fonts installed with Ghostscript (see section Ghostscript) they will not be printed. Instead you will see standard Times, Helvetica, or Courier. Anyone who wishes to prove me wrong is welcomed to do so - especially all you Mozilla hackers out there.

6.4 StarOffice

Fonts must be configured for X and for the printer in order to be used in StarOffice 4. You also need an .afm font metric file, and must inform StarOffice that the font is available.

First, use a font server to make your TrueType fonts available to applications in X.

If you have a PostScript printer you will probably want to see the section on converting fonts to create a Type 1 font and an .afm file.

For those with non-PostScript printers, the TrueType fonts can be used directly in Ghostscript, and afm files can be generated using a script called afmmaker.ps like so:

gs -q -dNODISPLAY -dBATCH afmmaker.ps > arialbd.afm

after editing the font name. (NOTE: This should be easier!!!!! Also find that script...)

Alternatively the TrueType to Adobe Type 3 converter ttf2pfa can create .afm files from TrueType fonts, however you will need to run it through another script. (Look for that web page!!!)

It should be noted that it seems to work without .afm files, but it doesn't seem to like resizing them. Haven't tried printing anything yet.

Also, I've been using dashes (-) instead of spaces ( ) in font names, I don't know if this makes a difference. Will look into it.

The .afm file should go in xp3/fontmetrics/afm (probably under $HOME/Office40 for personal settings or /usr/local/Office40 for global settings), and the .pfb file (if using a PostScript printer) should go in xp3/pssoftfonts.

Ghostscript users must also list the fonts as being contained in the printer's ROM; do this by editing the appropriate file in xp3/ppds/. Note that GENERIC.PS, the ppd file for the generic PostScript printer, simply includes HPIIP522.PS, so if you're using the generic driver edit that file instead. You can use gs2so from the TTFutils (Not Available Yet! Wait a couple days or do it manually) to convert Ghostscript's Fontmap file into a list that you can put into this file.

The file xp3/psstd.fonts associates printer fonts with screen fonts. Ghostscript users should specify the fonts' names, and PostScript printer users should use the converted fonts' filenames (excluding .pfb extension). xfstt users can use ttf2so from the TTFutils (NAY!) to produce suitable data from xfstt's font list.

(Note that this section is still a little fuzzy, I haven't worked out all the details yet, especially as regards to .afm files. It will be improved very soon....)

6.5 TeX

ttf2pk, a utility for converting TrueType fonts to PK format for use with TeX, is included with the FreeType library.

6.6 Wine, the Windows Emulator

Actually, Wine Is Not an Emulator, but that's another story.

Wine does not yet include native TrueType rendering support (although this is something that is being planned), so it is necessary to use one of the X font server programs (see section X Window System) for onscreen display, and Ghostscript (see section Ghostscript) in conjunction with the Windows PostScript printer driver for printing.

6.7 WordPerfect

WordPerfect 7 for Linux does not support TrueType fonts. However it does support Adobe Type 1 fonts, so you can use ttf2pt1 (see section Converting TrueType to Adobe Type 1) to convert your TrueType fonts to Adobe Type 1.

Once you have converted your fonts, copy the .pfb and .afm files into the WordPerfect fonts directory (typically /usr/local/wp7/shlib10) and run the WordPerfect font installation program (xwpfi, typically located in /usr/local/wp7/shbin10) to install the fonts. For more information on Linux WordPerfect and fonts, see Rod Smith's excellent site on Linux WordPerfect Fonts & Printers.

6.8 Other Applications

For applications not mentioned here, I recommend first trying an X font server (see section X Window System) and then, if that doesn't work, converting the TrueType fonts to another format (see section Converting).

If neither of these works and you cannot figure something out on your own, post to comp.os.linux.x for X applications or comp.os.linux.misc for non-X applications to see if there is anyone else who has already figured it out for that application. If you sucessfully figure out how to use TrueType fonts with an application not mentioned in the most recent version of this document, please e-mail me so that I can add the information to the next version.


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