Re: Re: fonts

Jon,

From The book, "Postcript Language Reference Manual" 2nd ed. by Adobe
Systems Inc.: Pg. 12-13, and also, on page 19. "Many existing
applications generate printable documents in some older print file
format or in some intermediate representation.<snip>
Unfortunatly,while such translation is usually straightforward, a
translator may not... make the best use of the... capabilities of the
PS language."

And on page 20, EMPHASIS mine, " Once again, these guidelines for
program structure (here they are talking about the translators which
may/are be used as Jon described:Ballendo)ARE NOT PART OF THE
POSTSCRIPT LANGUAGE AND ARE NOT ENFORCED BY THE PS INTERPRETER. In
some cases, a program may require... this is most likely to be true
of PROGRAMS COMPOSED DIRECTLY BY A PROGRAMMER. However, for page
descriptions generated AUTOMATICALLY... ,adherance to the structuring
conventions is strongly recommended."

And, from page 262,in the FONTS chapter, "This is useful mainly with
characters that are defined as OUTLINES (as ALL type 1 fonts are)".

Finally, page 339-340,speaking to bitmap fonts directly, "1.The PS
interpreter consults the font cache. 2. If the char. is not
there,...consults the device, requesting it to provide a bitmap form
(if available in the requested size, this is what I think Jon is
referring to:Ballendo),3.(omitted for clarity:ballendo) 4.IF THERE IS
NO SUCH CHARACTER,THE INTERPRETER EXECUTES THE CHARACTER DESCRIPTION,
PLACING THE SCAN CONVERTED(This is a vector to raster
translation!:Ballendo), placing the scan converted result in the font
cache.

(the character description above is a vector representation, as I
said)

Jon,

We are both right. PS IS a vector language(including fonts) as I
said; and the capability to USE the bitmaps(which are an example of a
programming SHORTCUT for performance) you speak of to create a
toolpath IS available!

The fact that many standard fonts ARE stored in their SHORTCUT form
as you state, does nothing to diminish the truth that they are
available, if necessary, as vectors! THIS is what concerns the thread
I posted to.

Ballendo


William Scalione wrote:

> ballendo@y... wrote:
>
> > Jon Elson wrote:
> >
> > <snip>Unfortunately, PostScript and many other systems use bitmaps
> to
> > createthe printed fonts.
> >
> > Postscript IS a vector based description language, including

fonts.

> > The vectors are TRANSLATED into raster bitmaps for output.

How did you determine this? Have you ever written a PostScript file?
I have done several of them (or written programs that output
PostScript).
I am (painfully) familiar with the internals of PostScript font
definition.
Almost all standard fonts are bitmapped, and either specified by name
and called up from the printer itself, or downloaded as long strings
of hexadecimal values in the PostScript file itself, and added to the
font list in the printer.

Now, it is true that GRAPHICS can be described by vectors, and that is
the
best way, as the graphic can be scaled arbitrarily without losing
detail.
You COULD define a font as a set of graphic images, and then set them
on the page to form text, but I've NEVER seen this done for text.

> > Don Lancaster's site, the guru's lair at: www.tinaja.com has a
> WEALTH
> > of info re: postscript. Don is something of a postscript Zealot.
> > Books, etc.

Yes, and I've learned a lot from him! Does he say something that
implies
what you said above? I'd sure like to see it.

> Get ghostscript and gsview (a viewing program for ghostscript) and

you

>
> can output Postscript, PDF, EPS files to vector format including

DXF.

Yes, again, the GRAPHIC content of files that are originally in vector
format
will pass through still in vector, but simple type won't!