That error is the result of not having /usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts
in your font path. This is usually done through a wrapper script
that launches AbiWord (usually /usr/local/bin/abiword or
/usr/local/bin/AbiWord). It will dynamically (through xset) add and
remove the font path.
You can also permanantly add this path to your X configuration file.
> I have checked the mailing list archives, but the relevant entries (in May)
> did not seem to help. The AbiSuite font set on my machine is located in
> /usr/local/AbiSuite/lib/fonts and I have included this in my XF86config
> file. I also did xset fp rehash after I made these changes, since they were
> made from within kde 1.1.1.
As far as I know X servers (I'm assuming you're using XFree86), you'll
have to actually restart the X server for it to re-read the list
of font paths in your XF86Config (or whatever server config file).
"xset fp rehash" will just re-read the fonts.dir files in the directories
already in your path.
You can run "xset fp+ /path/to/my/fonts" to add an entry to the X server
without restarting.
> The error message appears regardless of whether I try to start AbiWord by
> typing it in xterm, or by its icon in kde. The application and AbiSuite
> directories exist in their default locations.
Which file are both of these procedures executing? AbiWord should be
started from its wrapper shell script (/usr/local/bin/abiword and
/usr/local/bin/AbiWord should be symlinks to the real script at
/usr/local/AbiSuite/bin/AbiWord).
> However, I did notice that a good number of my fonts in the X11 directory
> still have the gz extension, leading me to believe that they were never
> uncompressed. This does _NOT_ apply to the 75dpi fonts, though.
I don't believe the X server actually writes the uncompressed files
back to disk. It should just read them through a decompression filter
(like zlib), cache them, and use them when requested. I may be wrong
about this, but I've never seen my X server write font files _back_ to
its paths (which could be read-only, or NFS-mounted, or through a
font server, etc.).
> After the above error message appears, the program closes, and I sulk for
> the rest of the day while I read the help archives. :)
Make sure you're running AbiWord through the wrapper script instead of
the direct binary (/usr/local/AbiSuite/bin/AbiWord_d). If the fonts
are really at /usr/local/AbiSuite/lib/fonts, instead of /usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts,
the wrapper script might be confused. The fonts should have ended up in the
latter location. You could always edit the wrapper script (and I'll fix
the packaging), or use "xset fp+ /path/to/some/fonts" to add it manually.
-- Shaw Terwilliger