Re: New PostGhost and Xy2PDF frames - XyShell NOT Required

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Patricia M Godfrey  on Fri, 10 Dec
2004 15:43:29 -0500

> I had to download the latest Ghostscript, and then tell
> gsview where to look for a dll, but after that it worked
> beautifully.

So its come to that, aye? Programs that won't even work
until you install them! Damn.

> I'm kicking myself for having tossed an
> old app that converted TTF to Postcript fonts

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/ttf2pt1.exe

Your sample font printout is a keeper! Here's a PDF
(attached -- generated with Xy2PDF, of course), with high-
order chars added to your list, which will show people who
don't yet have Ghostscript what's available with
POSTGHST.PRN -- can open in Acrobat Reader, of course, which
I assume everybody has (there are a few fonts I skipped in
the PDF, such as HERSHEY and SHELLEY [they suck], and a few
others that I didn't include in the PRN; you can see the
entire list in FONTS.DIR, in the \GS\FONTS directory of the
Ghostscript installation -- command "T1310" to
regularize the carriage returns for XyWrite). Of course,
you can add other fonts to the PRN, if you are adept at
setting a PRN up. There are some handy facilities for doing
that in U2, such as PF2AFM (Generate AFM Font Metrics file
from PFA|PFB Postscript Font), POSTWIDTH (Generate XyWrite
PRiNter Tables from Postscript AFM files), and PWDIR
(Generate WiDth Tables (via POSTWIDTH) for DIRectory of
*.AFM).

When we get around to releasing the next U2, I'll beef up
PostGhost a bit, so that it accepts an input filespec.
Right now it only displays the open file in the current
window.

Try TYP out too. In general, I have no need (or desire) to
look at a graphical display of my file, nor to select a
printer -- I just want the piece of paper, thanks.
TYP prints hands-off -- boom.

I promised to port TYP to Xy3. That simply entailed
drudging through the program statement by statement and
reducing it to kindergarten code; and it is done. Only then
did I realize, oof, that I need a Xy3-level PS PRiNter file
too. I'd managed to completely blot out of my memory things
like "PT=#" commands. Oy! Primitive stuff. Luckily, I
long ago wrote facilities (in U2) that will generate PS
WiDth tables and the like; but making a PRN from scratch,
fifteen years after I made my last Xy3 driver, is neither
trivial nor particular fun. The first version PRN may only
support a few fonts -- maybe a Courier, a Times, and an
Helvetica (one or two each of fixed pitch, serif, and sans);
and it may take awhile to cough even that up.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------

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