PostGhost PRN Files (and how to alter point size in Xy3+)

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Patricia M Godfrey  on Sat, 5 Feb
2005 16:57:39 -0500

> And everything handsome about it.

The quality of good PS fonts is just stunning. What amazes me is, the more you
zoom them, the better they look. They never get grainy or fall apart. You
fill the whole screen with a single character -- and it looks great. These
fonts were donated by major typographers, URW of Germany and Bitstream -- and
that professionalism shows. But, of course, you can add any of your own Type 1
fonts (as long as you know how to create WiDth tables! that's the stumbling
block). As you may have noticed, I omitted the Hershey fonts (ugh). And I
hesitated about omitting Symbols and Dingbats -- but frankly, does anybody use
them?

Major point: Xy3 users can _easily_ change (scale) point sizes due to the way
this PRN is constructed -- and they do NOT have to make new WiDth tables. For
example, if they want to make a 9 point font, they simply make a PT table for 9
point instead of 12 (the default for all these fonts is 12 point):

PT=10
MD NM+9URW_PALLADIO_L
MD BO+9URW_PALLADIO_L-BOLD
MD UL+9URW_PALLADIO_L+UNDERLINE
MD RV+9URW_PALLADIO_L-ITALIC
MD BU+9URW_PALLADIO_L-BOLD+UNDERLINE
MD BR+9URW_PALLADIO_L-BOLD-ITALIC
MD SU+9URW_PALLADIO_L+SUPERSCRIPT
MD SD+9URW_PALLADIO_L+SUBSCRIPT

and then make corresponding FO tables:

FO:9URW_PALLADIO_L
FO<) s P 9 f (
VL=11
UW:9*P052003L
US:SUB
ET
and etc for Bold, Italic, and BoldItalic.
Note that the VL= line should have a value 2 higher than the point size. The
procedure here is not nearly as simple as in Xy4 (where you simply adjust the
 format) -- but it's simple enough. I've forgotten how many PT tables
you can have in a Xy3 PRN file, but the workaround is simply to write
additional PRNs, copying 3POSTGST.PRN to new files with different point sizes.
Simple stuff.

Bottom line: XyWrite enters the 21st century, still alive, still kicking.

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