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I am attempting to Embed True Type fonts into PCL but cannot print

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Group1Software

Programmer
Sep 29, 2004
2
GB
I am attempting to embedd a True Type font into PCL printstream. I have followed the technical reference manual and embeded the font. However, when I view the file in a Viewer (SwiftView,, Escapee and RedTitan) all seems fine; except when printing the text is not printed in the selected font.
Does any one know what could be doing wrong?? It seems the down load process is not working.

Also is there a Tool out there that can verify if a PCL stream is valid.
 
Send a copy of your print stream file to me (DansDad at btinternet.com) and I'll disassemble it for you.
[Note that I don't check that mailbox every day, and it does get a lot of SPAM, so please be patient]
 
I've had a quick look at what you sent to me, and there are several general points:[ul]
[li]After the last character download, there is a superfluous array of 0x00 bytes[/li]
[li]You are using the Transparent Print sequence (<esc>&p#X) to print your data; as all your data is within the normal 'printable character' range for the 19U symbol set, there should be no need to do this.[/li]
[/ul]

Having said that, I don't think that these are relevant to your problem; I think the fault is definitely within the soft font definition, but just what is wrong with it would take a long time to work out (and I don't have the time, tools or knowledge to check that your downloaded TrueType segments are valid).

What I CAN do is to return to you a variant of your file, but with your font download replaced by a download of a test TrueType (format 15) font which I happen to have lying around. From this, you might be able to compare the two and work out which segment/table/etc. is at fault.

What YOU can do to confirm whether or not a soft font has been accepted by the printer is to:[ul]
[li]Insert a Make Soft Font Permanent sequence (<esc>*c5F) after the end of the download (the font will only persist until power-off, explicit deletion by command, or another download with the same font ID).[/li]
[li]After the stream has been sent to the printer, use the front panel to print off a PCL Typeface List (just how this is done depends on the printer make/model).[/li]
[li]If the font was accepted by the printer, the typeface list should include (usually at the start) details of the downloaded font; if the printer did not like the font, it will not be listed.[/li]
[/ul]
 
I continued to look at the problem after your last reply and found that the check sum at the end of the header was incorrect. This invalidated the down load process. The way I found this was that I was given another file with a very simple font embedd. I made my out process generate the same output using the font and look at all the differences.
I will look at the file you sent to me as this will give my some indication of other things that are incorrect.

I will keep you informed.
 
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