Re: Font download in SVGPrint document...

Dean Jackson wrote:
> > > >I wasn't aware that there is a spec for font outlines described via SVG.
> > > >Sounds nice - but it seems to have to write another converter
> > > >(TTF/OTF/PS Type1/BDF/PCF) --> SVG-Font... ;-(
> > > >
> > > >Two questions:
> > > >- Is there already such a converter available somewhere ?
> > >
> > > I believe there is a converter for TrueType somewhere, I can't remember
> > > where though.
> >
> > Please drop me an email if you find a Freetype2-based one... :)
> 
> I played around trying to get Freetype2 to export SVG fonts.
> The SVG bit is fairly easy. For some reason I was having trouble
> with Freetype (probably using the wrong APIs).

Take a look at
http://xprint.mozdev.org/lxr/http/source/xprint/src/xprint_main/xc/programs/Xserver/Xprint/ps/psout_ftpstype3.c
- that's a very very simple FreeType2--->PS Type3 outline font converter
- does that help somehow ?

> The truetype->SVG convertor Alex mentioned is part
> of the Apache Batik project http://xml.apache.org/batik
> 
> There is another convertor here:
> http://www.gdv.uni-hannover.de/~peinecke/font2svg/

Thanks! :)

> > > >- IS there any utility which supports SVG fonts (to test the output of
> > > >my converter code) ?
> > >
> > > The Adobe & Corel SVG plugins & Batik's Squiggle viewer will support
> > > display of SVG fonts.
> 
> Support for SVG font (outlines) is required for conformance to
> any profile of SVG (Tiny, Basic or Full). So, lots of viewers
> support it (eg. the BitFlash and ZOOMON mobile viewers).
> 
> > Mhhh, is any one of these canidates supported on Linux/x86 and/or
> > Solaris/SPARC ?
> 
> Batik is Java, so it runs on Solaris and Linux, and has source
> code.
> 
> The Adobe viewer also runs on linux and solaris.

Nice... seems I have lots of tools for testing my code... :)

> > > >It seems that the "SVG fonts" option is the way which should be used for
> > > >SVGPrint, otherwise the neccesary support code within devices such as
> > > >printers would become much larger just to support another bunch of font
> > > >formats (and the SVGPrint spec would need to specify a standard for
> > > >downloading such "alien" (e.g. non-XML syntax based) font formats).
> > >
> > > Yes, also SVG fonts allow for exactly reproducable results on all
> > > implementations and have good support for Unicode as well.
> >
> > ... but it seems there is currently no support for hinting (OKOK, it's
> > debateable whether hinting makes sense at 600DPI :) and some neat stuff
> > from OpenType isn't available either.
> 
> We are considering adding hinting in SVG 1.2, but we can't promise
> it yet.
> 
> There is also the alternative to embed the OpenType (or whatever format)

What about doing the reverse, e.g. adding features from the OpenType/AAT
(Apple Advanced Typograph) repository to the SVG1.2-Fonts feature list ?

> font within the SVG using base64 encoding and the CSS Web Font
> facility. Illustrator does this, with an Adobe specific font
> format called CEF.

Questions is whether this is wise since this will add extra complexity
to the code in the destination device. It may be better to say
explicitly "NO" to non-"SVG font"-based fonts to avoid that implementors
all do their "proprietary" font formats, making it hard to exchange
SVGPrint documents without running into font format mismatch problems
between generator and viewer (one alternative would be to create a
SVGPrint version of Adobe's PPD (again, more complexity, more fun for
the people who have to implement this and more pain for the enduser
<example>who doens't understand why his laptop SVG viewer refuses to
load a SVGPrint document while the mobile phone can display it</example>
=:-)).

----

Bye,
Roland

-- 
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 (o.\ \/ /.o) Roland.Mainz@informatik.med.uni-giessen.de
  \__\/\/__/  MPEG specialist, C&&JAVA&&Sun&&Unix programmer
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Received on Friday, 2 January 2004 07:30:00 UTC