TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
Bear Giles,
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v0.3, 10 January 2000
This document describes how to configure a Debian system to use TrueType fonts for display and printing. The most recent version of this document can be obtained in HTML format at
http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/debian-tt.html
1. Introduction
- 1.1 Disclaimer
- 1.2 Credits
- 1.3 Additional links
- 1.4 Change log
- 1.5 Feedback
- 1.6 Related projects
- 1.7 Distribution
2. Display (what they never told you)
3. Display (X and the
font servers)
-
3.1 Setting up the
xfsFont Server -
3.2 Setting up the
xfsttFont Server and installing TrueType fonts - 3.3 Using TrueType fonts
- 3.4 Installing additional TrueType fonts
- 3.5 Internationalization
- 3.6 Security Issues
4. Printing
(ghostscript)
5. Content Generation
-
5.1 Generating
AFMfont metrics -
5.2 Generating
font.mapfiles -
5.3 Image manipulation:
GIMP -
5.4 ASCII to PostScript conversion:
enscript -
5.5 Text Formatting and Typesetting:
groff -
5.6 Text Formatting and Typesetting:
TeX
6. Unanswered questions
7. Obtaining TrueType Fonts
8. Legalities
1. Introduction
A Linux installation typically contains several independent sets of fonts or font metrics. A quick glance at my system shows fonts or font metrics spread across the following directories:
-
XFree86stores its fonts in/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ -
Ghostscriptstores its fonts in/usr/lib/ghostscript/fonts/ -
TeXstores its fonts in/usr/lib/texmf/fonts/ - The Debian
kbdpackage stores its fonts in/usr/share/consolefonts/ -
Groffstores its metrics in/usr/share/font/devps/ -
Enscript(ASCII to PostScript converter) stores its metrics in/usr/share/enscript/*.afm
Needless to say, these fonts are not coordinated.
TrueType fonts are designed to eliminate this problem by allowing the same font files to be used for both display and printing. This HOW-TO attempts to show how to use TrueType fonts for display, printing, and document preparation on Debian GNU/Linux systems.
1.1 Disclaimer
The information in this document is, to the best of my knowledge, correct. However this HOWTO is still in preliminary versions and what works for me may not work for you. Even if it does work for you, I am not a professional technical writer and I have been known to gloss over critical details.
So have fun, but play it safe and keep backups.
1.2 Credits
Created by Bear Giles,
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Thanks go to:
- Brion Vibber,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >'; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text13947 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it, who wrote the(preliminary) TrueType HOW-TO (http://pobox.com/~brion/linux/TrueType-HOWTO.html) - Doug Holland,
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1.3 Additional links
These links don't directly discuss Debian systems or packages, but they may still be interesting to readers of this mini-HOWTO.
- Using TrueType Fonts with RedHat Linux
(http://www.kegel.com/linux/tt.html) - X Font Tools
(http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/xfonts.html) - Getting fonts to look pretty under GNU/Linux for applications
like StarOffice
(http://king.ccrc.wustl.edu/~zubin/fonts.html) - How to use True Type © fonts for StarOffice Under Linux
(http://www.mindspring.net/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html)
1.4 Change log
- 0.1. Sept. 16, 1999: First release.
- 0.2. Sept. 16, 1999: added "additional links" section.
- 0.3. Jan. 10, 2000: reader feedback! Added clarification of several details.
1.5 Feedback
Comments, corrections, additions and critiques are always welcome. You can reach me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
1.6 Related projects
- FreeType http://www.freetype.org/
The FreeType engine is a free and portable TrueType font rendering engine. The code is a clean-room implementation that is totally independent of the Apple and Microsoft implementations. (A question has recently been raised about a possible Apple patent, however.) FreeType is a library, not a font server or a complete text rendering library.
1.7 Distribution
This is the first draft and I expect it to change significantly
after publication, I ask that you refer to the latest version at
http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/debian-tt.html.
The permanent home for this document will eventually be at
http://www.coyotesong.com/
2. Display (what they never told you)
Before we dive into setting up TrueType fonts under X, we should review the difference between points and pixels... and why we care.
All displayed fonts are measured in points. One inch is exactly 72 points. Why 72? Partly because of the limitations of mechanical typesetting machines and partly because it's evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18 and 24. It's also worth noting that the default unit in PostScript is one point.
(Historical note: I lied. Until the introduction of PostScript an inch was exactly 72.27 points, but that point size was set in the era of mechanical printers with metal stamps in a handful of standard sizes. With computer displays and laser printers, it's easy to get fonts in any size and 72 makes much more sense for the reason mentioned above.)
As a general rule, most text should be between 7 and 12 points. Anything smaller than 6 points is literally "the fine print." Line printers used 9 or 12 point type (for 8 or 6 lines/inch, respectively).
In contrast, all video drivers must ultimately measure fonts in pixels. To your video driver, your screen is 1024x800 pixels, not 10 by 8 inches (or 720 by 576 points).
To map from points (which we use to specify a font size) to pixels
(which we use to blit the video memory) we must know our screen's
resolution. This is usually measured in "dots per inch (dpi),"
although it's really pixels per inch. These are the units used in
the two sets of bitmap fonts included with XFree86:
fonts-75 is intended for use on low-end displays with
a resolution of approximately 75 dpi, fonts-100 is
intended for use on mid-range displays with a resolution of
approximately 100 dpi. There are no bitmap fonts intended for use
on high-end displays with a resolution of over 120 dpi.
As a concrete example, a 13" diagonal screen (11.1" usable) displaying a 640x480 pixel image has a resolution of 72.0 dpi. This Is Not A Coincidence. In fact, most web pages (and Microsoft applications) are designed around a canonical display with a resolution of exactly 72 dpi. XFree86's default configuration assumes a display with a resolution of 75 dpi.
Back in the real world, nobody runs 640x480 video anymore. Nobody uses 13" diagonal screens anymore. Since video cards have improved faster than video monitors it's not uncommon to have a configuration like mine: 19" diagonal screen, (17+" usable), 1600x1200 pixels, 117 dpi resolution.
If I run a stock X configuration, all of my fonts are approximately 2/3 of the intended size. It's not an exaggeration to say that all fonts are cut down by a full size: large fonts (12 pts) appear medium (9). Medium fonts (9 pts) appear small (6).
There are three things we can do to fix this. First, We should tell the X server our actual screen resolution:
/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers
#:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -bpp 16 :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -bpp 16 -dpi 120
Second, we should ensure that we use the 100 dpi bitmapped fonts in preference to the 75 dpi fonts.
/etc/X11/XF86Config
Section "Files" RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/" EndSection
Finally, if one of our bitmapped fonts isn't an exact match the
X server will attempt to "scale" a similar font via
pixel replication. The results are rarely pleasant to use. Assuming
we have a reasonably powerful system, we can tell the server to use
scaled fonts by default, then bitmaps which are exact matches, and
scaled bitmaps as a last resort.
/etc/X11/XF86Config
Section "Files" RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/" EndSection
2.1 A look ahead to XFree86 4.0
I've just been informed that XFree86 will support DDC communications, if the video card and monitor both support it. This will allow the X server to query the monitor for its physical dimensions and the server will automatically compute the correct DPI setting.
You will still need to make the appropriate changes to your font path, since the server should not second guess your explicit configuration.
2.2 Review: Preparation before changing
X configuration files.
Any time we make changes to the X11 configuration files, it's an
excellent idea to disable XDM by putting exit
0 somewhere near the top of the file. If you don't do this
and X is unable to start for some reason,
XDM will put your system into a nasty busy loop that
is an unspeakable pain to correct. You Have Been Warned.
3. Display (X and the
font servers)
Strictly speaking, it is not absolutely necessary to set up font
servers to use TrueType fonts with X servers. If you
wish to use static files instead of a font server, please see the
instructions for setting up TrueType fonts for
ghostscript.
3.1 Setting up the xfs Font Server
At this point I assume you have a working
/etc/X11/XF86Config file that loads explicitly
specifies each directory in the FontPath. We will
convert it to use the xfs Font Server.
- Install
XFSIf you have not already done so, install
main/binary-*/x11/xfs_*.deb. - Configure
XFSEdit
/etc/X11/xfs/configand change thecatalogueto contain the contents of yourFontList. You may also wish to change thedefault-resolutionsvalue./etc/X11/xfs/config
# paths to search for fonts catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/ # x1,y1,x2,y2,... default-resolutions = 100,100,75,75
- Restart
XFSRestart
XFSin the usual Debian manner:root shell
# /etc/init.d/xfs restart
- Verify that
XFSis workingBefore we change our
XF86Configfile, we should verify that thexfsserver is working by listing them through the font server:user shell
$ fslsfonts -server unix/:7100 -adobe-courier-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1 -adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--0-0-100-100-m-0-iso8859-1 -adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--0-0-75-75-m-0-iso8859-1 ....
- Change
/etc/X11/XF86Configto usexfsWe're now ready to tell the X server to use the
xfsfont server. We keep one static font path as a fallback position in case of a problem withxfs. (We keep "misc" since it containsfixed, the default font.)/etc/X11/XF86Config
Section "Files" FontPath "unix/:7100" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" EndSection
- Restart
XRestart
Xwithstartx, unless you like living life dangerously. If that's the case, name me the beneficiary of your unusually large life insurance policy and restartxdm. - Verify that the
XFSfonts are visibleOnce we have an X session established, we can verify that our server sees all of the
xfsfonts by listing them through theXserver.user shell
$ xlsfonts -adobe-courier-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1 -adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--0-0-100-100-m-0-iso8859-1 -adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--0-0-75-75-m-0-iso8859-1 ....
3.2 Setting up the xfstt Font Server
and installing TrueType fonts
At this point I assume you have a working xfs font
server and wish to add TrueType support via xfstt.
- Install
XFSTTIf you have not already done so, install
main/binary-*/x11/xfstt_*.deb. - Installing the TrueType Fonts
Copy your TrueType fonts into the
/usr/share/fonts/truetypedirectory. These files usually have a.ttfextension, and they should have0444permissions. - Restart the
XFSTTFont ServerRestart the
xfsttserver with theforce-reloadflagroot shell
# /etc/init.d/xfstt force-reload
- Verify that
XFSTTis workingBefore we change our
XF86Configfile, we should verify that thexfsttserver is working.Important: the Debian
xfsttserver listens to port 7101, not 7100. Also, the default permissions will require you to run this query as root.user and root shells
$ fslsfonts -server unix/:7101 _FSTransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111 fslsfonts: unable to open server "unix/:7101" # fslsfonts -server unix/:7101 -ttf-arial black-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1 -ttf-arial mt black-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1 -ttf-arial narrow-bold-i-normal-bold italic-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
- Change
/etc/X11/XF86Configto usexfsttWe're now ready to tell the X server to use the
xfsttfont server. We want it to use TrueType fonts in preference to all others./etc/X11/XF86Config
Section "Files" FontPath "unix/:7101" FontPath "unix/:7100" FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" EndSection
- Verify that
XFSTTfonts are visibleOnce we have an X session established, we can verify that our server sees all of the TrueType fonts by listing them.
$ xlsfonts | grep ttf -ttf-arial black-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1 -ttf-arial mt black-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1 -ttf-arial narrow-bold-i-normal-bold italic-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1 ....
3.3 Using TrueType fonts
At this point it should be possible to use a TrueType font in
applications like GIMP, Netscape or
StarOffice. Since most TrueType fonts aren't
monospaced you probably don't want to use one of them with
xterm - these programs use monospacing the size of the
largest character cell.
3.4 Installing additional TrueType fonts
If you are using the xfstt font server, it's trivial
to install additional TrueType fonts.
- Copy the new font(s) into
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ - Restart
xfswith/etc/init.d/xfs restart
3.5 Internationalization
xfstt has the ability to generate multiple font
encodings, provided that the TrueType font contains the necessary
glyphs. To enable fonts other than iso8859-1/unicode-1, you must
manually edit the /etc/init.d/xfstt script:
/etc/init.d/xfstt
- start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $XFSTT -- \ --port $portno --daemon + start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $XFSTT -- \ --port $portno --encoding iso8859-1,koi8-r,windows-1252,symbol-0 \ --daemon
The recognized encodings in Debian 2.1 are:
- iso8859-1 (Latin 1 - Western Europe)
- iso8859-2 (Latin 2 - Central and Eastern Europe)
- iso8859-3 (Latin 3 - Esperanto and Maltese)
- iso8859-4 (Latin 4 - superceded by Latin 6)
- iso8859-5 (Cyrillic)
- iso8859-6 (Arabic)
- iso8859-7 (Greek)
- iso8859-8 (Hebrew)
- iso8859-9 (Latin 5 - Latin 1 with Turkish, not Icelandic)
- iso8859-10 (Latin 6 - Nordic languages, replaces Latin 4)
- koi8-r (Cyrillic)
- windows-1250 (Central Europe)
- windows-1251 (Cyrillic)
- windows-1252
- windows-1253 (Greek)
- windows-1254
- windows-1255
- windows-1256
- windows-1257
- symbol-0
- wingding-0
- wingreek-0
- cp-437 (various IBM code pages)
- cp-737
- cp-850
- cp-851
- cp-852
- cp-853
- cp-855
- cp-857
- cp-860
- cp-861
- cp-862
- cp-863
- cp-864
- cp-865
- cp-866
- cp-869
- cp-895
- atari-st
- unicode-2
The first 128 characters in the iso8859-x encodings is
always ASCII. The windows- fonts embrace and extend
iso8859-1 with additional characters such as "smart
quotes." (Since these extensions, such as "smart quotes" are
undefined in iso8859-1, they are usually rendered as
question marks.)
Excellent source for additional information on character set encodings are at
-
http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/%7Eflavell/iso8859/iso8859-pointers.html, -
http://anubis.dkuug.dk/i18n/and -
http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html.
3.6 Security Issues
I used Unix sockets above, but the standard Debian packages also
configure xfs and xfstt to listen to
TCP/IP ports 7100 and 7101, respectively. Access to these ports
should be controlled by the trusted-clients field in
/etc/X11/xfs/config, but this option is not
implemented in XFree86 3.3.2.3a.
This means that anyone, anywhere, can connect to your font server.
Since xfs (and presumably xfsts) "clone"
to support more users there's a trivial denial-of-service attack
against these systems. It's probably safe to use the font servers
on dialup lines (since you're present to handle problems), but DSL
and cable modem users should use a firewall.
4. Printing
(ghostscript)
Starting with version 4, ghostscript has supported
TrueType fonts as a compile-time option. Two Debian packages
provide ghostscript:
-
main/binary-*/text/gs_*.debis DFSG-compliant version 5.10, -
non-free/binary-*/gs-aladdin_*.debis non-DFSG-compliant version 5.50.
4.1 Configuring Ghostscript to use
TrueType fonts
If you have a working xfstt server, it is easy to
configure ghostscript to use TrueType fonts. We simply
execute the following command:
# xfstt --gslist --sync >> /etc/gs.Fontmap
In practice, I've found it beneficial to make several small changes
to the font definitions generated by xfstt. First, if
a font name does not contain any spaces, I change the name to the
usual notation. If a font name does contain spaces, I replace all
spaces with dashes and the original name is added as an alias to
the new name.
Finally, I prepend TTF- (or MS-) to all
font names to minimize problems caused by a TrueType font having an
identical name to an preexisting font.
Thus
(Arial) (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arial.ttf) ; (Arial Bold Italic) (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arialbi.ttf) ;
becomes
/MS-Arial (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arial.ttf) ; /MS-Arial-Bold-Italic (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arialbi.ttf) ; (Arial Bold Italic) /MS-Arial-Bold-Italic ; /Arial /MS-Arial ;
The aliases ensure that ghostscript and
xfstt can still specify the same font by a common
name.
Much more significantly, with the change in the font names it's
possible to instruct ghostscript to use TrueType fonts
instead of the standard fonts. The documentation claims that this
is also possible with parenthetical notation, but I could not get
it to work.
For instance, we can instruct ghostscript to replace
Helvetica fonts with Microsoft's free Arial fonts by appending the
following lines to the /etc/gs.Fontmap file:
/Helvetica /MS-Arial ; /Helvetica-Oblique /MS-Arial-Italic ; /Helvetica-Bold /MS-Arial-Bold ; /Helvetica-BoldOblique /MS-Arial-Bold-Italic ;
Similar aliases can be defined for the other standard fonts. These
aliases would be most useful on samba printers serving
Windows clients.
4.2 Printing TrueType font specimens
The best way to verify that ghostscript is properly
configured to use TrueType fonts is to print font specimen pages.
Assuming that you're running ghostscript 5.50 and that
it is your default print queue, you can print all TrueType fonts
with the following command:
# xfstt --gslist --sync | printfont
where printfont is the following shell script
#!/bin/sh set -e IFS= ')' while read fontname rest do cat << EOM | lpr %!PS (/usr/lib/ghostscript/5.50/prfont.ps) run $fontname) DoFont EOM done
If you wish to print only a few fonts, the following script will be easier to use:
#!/bin/sh set -e while read -p "Font name, or ^D to exit: " fontname do cat << EOM | lpr %!PS (/usr/lib/ghostscript/5.50/prfont.ps) run $fontname DoFont EOM done
5. Content Generation
5.1 Generating AFM font metrics
AFM font metrics files are not required for display
existing files with TrueType fonts, but they are necessary to
create new files. The ghostscript program
/usr/lib/ghostscript/5.50/printafm.ps could be used to
generate these metric files, but I have found the
ttf2afm program from the tetex-bin
package to be easier to use.
The following script will generate an afm file for all
TrueType fonts in a directory:
#!/bin/sh set -e for i in *.TTF do /usr/bin/ttf2afm $i > ${i%TTF}afm done for i in *.ttf do /usr/bin/ttf2afm $i > ${i%ttf}afm done
One minor problem with ttf2afm is that some
applications expect afm files to start with the
StartFontMetrics tag, but files created by
ttf2afm start with a comment. This "problem" is easily
fixed by hitting each file with a text editor.
5.2 Generating font.map files
Once we have our afm files, we need to tell the system
how to find them. This is often done via the font.map
file.
I have been unable to find documentation on this file format,
unlike fonts.dir, fonts.scale, and
fonts.alias, all created by the mkfontdir
program. However the minimum format appears to be quite simple:
- Font name, without whitespace
-
AFMfilename, without extension
Aliases appear to be implemented via multiple entries, and the filename extension must be in lowercase.
5.3 Image manipulation: GIMP
GIMP is the Gnu image manipulation and paint program.
I did not have to make any additional changes to use TrueType fonts
in gimp.
5.4 ASCII to PostScript conversion:
enscript
Enscript is a program that converts ASCII to
PostScript. Other programs which serve a similiar purpose are
a2ps and mpage. Enscript
allows two-up rotation, watermarks, headers, and keyword-based
syntax coloring. It does not reformat text and is commonly used to
print source listing.
To use TrueType fonts with enscript, you must do two
things:
- Add
/usr/share/fonts/truetypeto yourAFMPath. - Specify a TrueType font, either explicitly or by aliasing a default font.
For details, see the enscript documentation.
Once I had made these changes, I had no problem using TrueType fonts.
5.5 Text Formatting and Typesetting:
groff
Groff is the Gnu front end of the groff/troff document
formatting system. The power of Groff is best seen
with man pages.
user shell
$ zcat /usr/man/man1/groff.1.gz | groff -man | lpr
Besides man pages, an incredible amount of Unix documentation uses
troff formatting with ms (and
occasionally me) macros. The Debian
xbooks package, for example, has 43 files using
troff with ms macros. With
groff, this material can be attractively printed.
Groff is a very powerful system, but it's the
grandchild (or great-grandchild) of a program used to typeset
1960's era printing presses. Font support in groff
reflects that heritage. Groff, in contrast to its
predecessors, uses PostScript as the default output format so our
earlier work with ghostscript takes care of half of
the problem -- groff does not have to deal with
reading TrueType font files. It does need to have accurate font
metrics, and this section describes how to regenerate the necessary
groff files:
Groff PostScript description files
/usr/share/groff/font/devps/DESC Device description file /usr/share/groff/font/devps/text.enc Encoding used for text fonts /usr/share/groff/font/devps/generate/textmap Standard mapping. /usr/share/groff/font/devps/generate/Makefile Standard makefile
We must edit the Makefile,
/usr/share/groff/font/devps/generate/Makefile
- afmdir=/usr/local/afm + afmdir=/usr/share/fonts/truetype
change the name of the fonts to their TrueType equivalent (e.g., if
we're using Microsoft's free TrueType fonts we would replace
Helvetica with Arial), and change
TEXTFONTS and the like to only include those fonts we
are redefining.
We must also edit
/usr/share/groff/font/devps/generate/afmname to use
the TrueType font names and afm files, and to remove
an "-e" flag from awk.
After all of this, we can rebuild the groff tables
with
user shell
$ cd /usr/share/groff/font/devps $ make -f generate/Makefile
As usual, the best way to verify the changes is to use a visually
distinctive font. E.g., if you are using the Microsoft free
TrueType fonts you can use Mistral for
TR.
(I expect royalties from everyone who reconfigures their system to print manual pages in Old English fonts next April First!)
5.6 Text Formatting and Typesetting:
TeX
TeX is the other common set of text formatting and
typesetting programs on most GNU/Linux systems.
TeX fonts can created with mktexmf, but I
have little information on the exact process. More details will be
provided shortly.
6. Unanswered questions
- Applications
The biggest unanswered question is why
netscape communicatorcan use TrueType fonts,ghostscriptcan use the same TrueType fonts, yet pages printed bynetscapelook nothing like the screen.The short answer is that
netscapegenerates PostScript output with standard fonts (Helvetica and Times-Roman) instead of the user-specified or HTML-specified fonts. The long answer is that I have absolutely no idea why it forces this behavior, or if there is a way to override it.
7. Obtaining TrueType Fonts
If you're looking for TrueType fonts, here are several places where you can start looking:
- c:\windows\fonts on the boat anchor in the corner
- Microsoft's Free TrueType Fonts
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/ - Acid Fonts
http://www.acidcool.com/ - The Font Ring
http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=fontring&list
7.1 A comment about using Microsoft's free TrueType fonts
No article on TrueType support under Linux would be complete without a comment about Microsoft's free TrueType fonts. First the legality of using Microsoft's free core fonts:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq8.htm
Q. What can I do with these fonts? · Anyone can download and install these fonts for their own use. · [Web page] designers can specify the fonts within their own Web pages. ...
Clearly, it is legal and reasonable for Linux users to download and install these fonts, and I would like to thank Microsoft for making them available.
Since another clause restricts their redistribution "in any form
that adds value to commercial products" I don't expect to see these
fonts packaged in main anytime soon. (Could they be
packaged in non-free, perhaps as an installer
package...?)
Now that that's out of the way, I redirect your attention to the second statement. Microsoft actively encourages web page developers to specify their fonts on web pages, and many HTML editors explicitly name fonts.
Many web sites, when viewed by standard Netscape/Linux, can best be described as... legible. Some aren't even that. Not coincidentally the sites which are, um, legible are also usually the sites that explicitly state all font information in their web pages.
After I installed these fonts I noticed that most of these problematic sites became significantly more attractive. Many were still highly Windows-centric, but at least I didn't flinch every time I loaded their pages.
My recommendation is to install Microsoft's free TrueType fonts for
your browser. You are not required to create web pages that use
these fonts, nor do you have to configure ghostscript
to use them.
8. Legalities
Copyright © 1999 by Bear Giles.
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