printing to file (PDF) with KPrinter

[James Richard Tyrer]

Marc Heyvaert wrote:
> Hello James

> This is where I am now. I use CUPS as a printing
> system. 

As I said, CUPS is limited to the GS_LIB directories that are built into 
GhostScript.  There is no good way to make it look elsewhere unless Grant Taylor 
&/| Till Kamppeter have added Craig.Drummond's patch to Foo-Matic.  Or you could 
ask CD about this: Craig.Drummond at gmx.net

The problem of printing quality output to PDF
> files is something that I want to solve for ordinary
> users (it's part of a hands-on manual for KOffice). So
> this means that patching Qt is out of the question.

I do wish that they would fix that.

You can work around the incorrect PostScript names font by font by creating an 
alias for GhostScript in the "Fontmap" file in the directory where the font is 
installed.  Use the incorrect PostScript font name that the Qt PostScript driver 
uses in the PostScript file as an alias for the correct PostScript font name 
which GhostScript needs to find the font.  This will allow you to use that font 
with Qt not embedding it and then GhostScript will still find it and embed the 
correct font as Type42.  For example:

	/Swis721BT-Roman	(0003a___.pfb) ;

add the alias:

	/Swiss721BT-Roman	/Swis721BT-Roman ;

Would fix the weird problem with Swiss721 missing an 's' in the PostScript name 
with some versions (e.g. the one that comes with WordPerfect).

You would need to do this for each weight as well, but this fix will work.

> So this is where I am now :
> 
> Using Type 1 fonts is ok => no problem.
> 
> Using Truetype fonts these fonts are embedded as
> bitmaps. It looks bad, but you can improve on this by
> setting the resolution to a higher number. Standard it
> is on 300 dpi, so you have a really bad staircase
> effect when you magnify in Acrobat. When you set it to
> 2400 it really looks ok to me even with magnification
> to high %. I suppose that for a reasonbable quality
> printed output 600 dpi or 1200 dpi could be
> sufficient. But I'm still testing this.
> 
> Type 3 fonts (I sometimes get these in my pdf, still
> have to find out where they come from) and the bitmaps
> look not too good in Acrobat 4 and 5. But With acrobat
> 6 it is a lot better I think. This is just a
> conclusion that I draw from looking at the output on
> my Windows PC?
> 
> I am starting tests now of converting tt fonts to Type
> one with tt2pt1. Perhaps you have something to say
> about this route?

It is possible that using FontForge:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

to convert them might do a slightly better job.

However, it is preferable (unless you need other fonts) to make a PDF using: 
Times, Courier, Helvetica, Symbol & Zapf Dingbats that come with Adobe Acrobat 
Reader 3.x:

Download the M$-Windows version:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobatreader/win/3.x/ar302.exe

You should be able to unpack this with WINE.

You want these files:

COBO____.PFB  HVBO____.PFB  TII_____.PFB  SY______.PFB
COB_____.PFB  HVB_____.PFB  TIR_____.PFB  ZD______.PFB
COM_____.PFB  HVO_____.PFB  TIBI____.PFB
COO_____.PFB  HV______.PFB  TIB_____.PFB

You might find other places to download these if you Google for the file names.

Then you need the AFM files.

Get these from Adobe:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/type/win/all/afmfiles/900-960/950/

Get the ones that correspond to the PFB files.

You need to change all the names to all lower case before installing them -- 
KRename will do that.

Using these fonts and not embedding them in the PostScript file should result in 
a PDF that doesn't have the fonts embedded.  It will use the fonts that come 
with Acrobat Reader (Times New Roman, Courier New, & Arial [they have exactly 
the same metrics]) when it is displayed.  Although you might need to use 
GhostScript 8.x to do that (not embed them).

--
JRT
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