Re: True type server

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

> 
> On 23 Aug 1998 jfm2@club-internet.fr wrote:
> 
> > X is tragically scarce on half decent fonts.  The fonts problem causes
> 
> there's an archive of type1 fonts. I think it's something like
> ftp.os2-cdrom.com. I link to it on the web page. I am not clear on how
> they are licensed. It seems probable that they are distributable, but I am
> not clear on it.
> 
> I think we should consider ding some of the following:
> 
> (a)	include pointers to places where fonts can be downloaded (there's
> a lot of places where you can get fonts off the internet. I already have
> links to them on the page)
> 
> (b)	pointers to commercial font CDs. You can get ~infinitely many
> fonts for about $20- US.  
> 
> Fonts are a big problem not because of unavailability, but because they
> are often distributed without the license, so we can't really distribute
> them.
> 
> The software that grabs things from our site (and possibly also from some
> font archives) would be nice ...
> 

The problem is: if your document uses a Courier font then X will use the 
first Courier in the font path and that will be the
bitmapped version.  Not a problem with stsndard X apps but apps like gv
or xpdf will try to scale it and will produce a mess.  There are cases
where some words  appear cut in two.

THat's why I would like to provide scalable versions of standard fonts
like Courier, Times or Helvetica  (or a server scaling them) and place them
in front of the font path (with xset) so they are used by default.  Scalable
fonts are a problem on boxes without FPUs but these are rare now
at least in Europe and North America.  In addition given  that True Type
fonts are optimized for low res devices I think they can be rasterized
reasonably fast in a box without an FPU.  Windows used them at a time
 most PCs had no FPUs.

The reason I want good fonts is:  A new user has a problem and tries to
read the doc online.  Problem is that in many documents you need the
magnification tool of gv or xdvi to be able to read it so bad is the
output.  He could print it of course and he would get a fine output but...
But perhaps our user has no printer, or perhaps he has an unsupported
printer, or perhaps he still has not configured the printer because in
his particular situation configuring it is not trivial.

That's why I want scaled fonts and have them used by default.


-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org