🚀 go-pugleaf

LaTeX and TeX are both very good at producing extremely nice documents and so
forth, and converting to PostScript is easy via the dvips program supplied by
Radical-Eye software (I only have this one ... but I think Adobe also supply
one as well)

There is one small problem.

When one is drafting a TeX document from home and you want to look at what
you've produced, you run it through TeX, and then through dvips to get a PS
file at the host.  Now this is fine, except when you want to print that PS
file on your local PostScript machine, because if you only have perhaps one
page of document, you invariably get a file that is MUCH much bigger than
what you started with, because TeX uses a font (computer modern?) for which
there is no printer defined font, and so dvips must include the entire font
definition table into your PS file.  This is a real pain when one is only at
1200 bd.  (Yes, I know you _can_ zip things up and send them, but that avoids
the issue!)

What I'd like to know is, is there a font set available for TeX that is
the same as the standard fonts in a PS engine so that dvips doesn't have
to include the font specification?  For example, is there Helvetica, or Times
that TeX knows about, which is the same as the Helvetica or Times as specified
in the guts of, say the Laserwriter?  For small, single page files, this
change would reduce their size by as much as 70%, and more if you are
using larger fonts, as they are bitmapped.

This problem has probably more to do with what TeX knows about than what dvips
should be doing ... it probably wouldn't be too hard for dvips to recognise
the standard fonts, and make one or two redefinitions in its output file (like
define /Helvetica findfont 12 scalefont setfont as /Fc for example). Even
if this sort of thing isn't in a dvips at the moment, it should be ... !

If anyone can provide help/pointers where to look, it would be great!

--
============================================================================
Malcolm Herbert                                    2nd Yr Comms and Elec Eng
s914431@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au                             RMIT Melbourne Aust
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