I should describe our restriction to Type1 fonts as being a "current"
restriction. There is no reason why AbiWord could not be extended to
support TrueType, for example. We have no immediate plans to do so, but it
could be done.
--> Ok. I can see that. My question is, are the afm files _really_ >necessary? I would really like to be able to just direct abiword to my >/usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 directory instead of downloading 1.7 meg >file. > Another thing are true type fonts. I can easily display them in any X >application using a font server (xfsft) and I would really like to be able >to use them in abiword (yes, I do have a coresponding fonts.dir file). >True type fonts can be embedded into postscript just as well as type1 >fonts (as type42 font or something like that) all that is missing are >those blasted afm files. So once again, are they really necessary? > >-Filip > > >On Thu, 8 Apr 1999 Shaw Terwilliger wrote: > >> If this isn't in the fonts information on the web site, it really should >> be. We can't use X for all font information because X sucks--it doesn't >> leak enough information so that we can create printable documents. >> We can't get the raw Type1 fonts to embed in PostScript output through >> X, we can only get character metrics and pre-rendered bitmaps. To >> get the Type1 information, we need a copy of the fonts locally. >> GhostScript uses fonts this way, mapped through its Fontmap. X loads >> fonts through fonts.dir, and so people (and us, programmatically) >> don't have to maintain two seperate font lists, we parse the same fonts.dir >> to find our Type1 fonts. >> >> X has no concept of "printing"--it's just a window display system, >> and even scalable Type1 fonts are a relatively new thing to X >> (as of X11R5). Before that you had fixed resolution bitmap >> fonts which would be unreadable at 10 pixels high on a 600 DPI laser >> printer, but horribly aliased at 600 pixels high. >> >> We use Type1 fonts because they're portable (ASCII and binary formats >> easily converted using free tools), scalable (not resolution-dependent >> bitmaps), and there is a set of printables with GhostScript that >> look very nice on paper. They could use a few more hints for display, >> though, but zooming in on a document will give them a bit more space >> to smooth out.
Eric W. Sink, Software Craftsman eric@abisource.com