Finding a list of postscript fonts

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7 total messages Started by hoopz Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:08

#1592

Author: hoopz
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:08

5 lines
1134 bytes

I'm not sure where to put this, but since the Postscript forum is pretty dead, I figured I'd try here.

I have a program that creates postscript files and it has an option to enter the name of the font to be used. Where can I find a list of the fonts that I can use? So far I've found that 'Courier', 'Hershey', 'Times-Roman', and 'Courier-Bold' all work, but I'm sure there are more. I know this is dependent on which fonts I have installed, but I can't figure out what those are.

Thanks

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1593

Author: Herb
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:43

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948 bytes

What platform are you on?  Linux? Sun? Mac? Windows?
And what version of the appropriate operating system (For instance, 
font locations differ from Windows 3.1 to XP)

  - Herb

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1594

Author: hoopz
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:57

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848 bytes

Thanks for the help. I am on Windows XP. And I found some .PPD files in the windows/system32/spool/w32x86/ directory. These files list fonts, but not all of those font names work when I enter them into this program, so I have a feeling it is using some other list.

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1595

Author: Dov Isaacs
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:03

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1267 bytes

First of all, what do you mean by PostScript fonts? Do you mean the printers that might be resident in a printer?

If so, the PPD file for a particular model printer will tell you the names of the fonts that are allegedly resident in the printer.

However, best practice dictates that you should never assume that any particular font is really available in a PostScript printer. To assure that you print with exactly what you format with on the host computer, you should download the font(s) you reference as part of the PostScript stream!

- Dov

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1596

Author: Herb
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:12

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1579 bytes

Type 1 fonts (not usually called Postscript fonts any more) for 
Windows usually have two parts; a .pfm file and a .pfb file.

No Type 1 fonts come with Windows.  Your Courier and Times New Roman 
are probably Truetype fonts. I've never heard of "Hershey".

If you haven't actually installed any Type 1 fonts, then the only ones 
on your system would be those installed with some Adobe products.

Almost any text program, including notepad, will give you a list of 
installed fonts. Just open notepad, click on format/font... and you'll 
see a dropdown list of all installed fonts. Type 1 fonts will be 
identified with a red script "a", and Truetypes with a "TT" icon.

  - Character

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1600

Author: Odysseus1479
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:07

11 lines
1225 bytes

In article <3bc3148f.2@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI>,
 "Dov Isaacs" <isaacs@adobe.com> wrote:

> [...] best practice dictates that you should never assume that any 
> particular font is really available in a PostScript printer.

Not even Courier, Helvetica, Times, and Symbol? I had always thought 
that every PS printer or interpreter included at least those thirteen.

-- 
Odysseus

Re: Finding a list of postscript fonts

#1599

Author: Dov Isaacs
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:29

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1252 bytes

Not really! None of the Acrobat products (including Distiller) include all those fonts anymore. And many imagesetters have included nothing other than Courier. And even when such fonts are "printer resident" you still don't know if the font you composed to matches the printer resident version in terms of available glyphs and detailed font metrics.

- Dov

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