Linux-specific technical problems

Don Jungk linux at flippingdades.com
Thu Mar 15 15:00:19 EDT 2007


On Thursday 15 March 2007 9:42 am, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> I'm a little lost in postscript, but...does this mean that if Bob were
> to replace the font he uses, things would automatically work?

I don't think so. The fonts he is using seem to have all the correct 
characters. I'm not an expert in Postscript, but I have had to learn a 
little. (since REALBasic's print functions don't work with Linux and I have 
to write Postscript "by hand") When a font is embedded in a PS file, the 
shapes of the letters are there in a big bunch of binary code. The mapping 
which links a particular ascii code to each letter shape is the encoding that 
we're dealing with here. With some printers, if the string of text characters 
includes a non-defined ascii number, the print job aborts. Others will go 
ahead and print the rest of the page.

I've just started looking at the demo version of Revolution, so I can't help 
too much with how to determine what ascii codes are in the text string that 
the Rev ps that is being sent to the printer (other than reading them with a 
hex editor after the ps is written). But it should be able to send any set of 
codes that you need. If these match the PS file's text encoding chart it 
should print correctly. The encoding chart is the part with things 
like /aacute /plus /period /.... etc.

If he is opening the ps file in a text editor, he might want to check what 
text encoding the editor is using. He probably needs it to be set to 
WindowsLatin1 or Western European 8859-1 or Western European 1250. These all 
seem to work for me, but his system and printer may be different.

Don




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