Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!dhosek
From: dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (D.A. Hosek)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: 300pk soft font format
Keywords: font laserjet 300pk
Message-ID: <3490@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 9 Dec 89 00:44:02 GMT
References: <349@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: dhosek@jarthur.UUCP (D.A. Hosek)
Organization: Pitzer College, Claremont, CA 91711
Lines: 36

In article <349@watserv1.waterloo.edu> tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) writes:
>I'd like to find out what the format is for the .300pk soft font files
>for the HP LaserJet.  Could someone either email me the specs or point
>me in the right direction for them?

Well, if my interpretation is correct, you're not actually referring to
soft fonts which are HP-specific, but to PK files which are a generic
bitmap format.

The PK format is described in the source code to the following programs:
   PKTOPX
   PXTOPK
   PKTYPE
   GFTOPK
   PKTOGF

I believe that's the complete list.

These are all WEB programs, which is a Pascal pre-processor system consisting
of two programs: WEAVE which creates a TeX listing of the program, and TANGLE
which creates a Pascal file which can be compiled.

If your system has PK files, chances are you have all the necessary programs
on your system as well.

The PK format is a really nice one, by the way. The compression of bitmaps
is quite amazing (around 33% the size of a "straight" word-aligned bitmap,
50% the size of the compressed bitmaps MF outputs). It was created by Tom
Rokicki (also the author of dvips, AmigaTeX, and chunks of NeXTTeX).

-dh
-- 
"Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
   nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior"          -Catullus
D.A. Hosek.                        UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek
                               Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu