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From: paul@frcs.UUCP (Paul Nash)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Interrogating PS printers to find loaded fonts
Keywords: fonts download interrogate
Message-ID: <53@frcs.UUCP>
Date: 19 Aug 90 17:31:18 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: free range computer systems
Lines: 33

I have a problem, for which I would like to ask advice.  I am in the
process of developing an intelligent printer spooler, which takes
various inputs and translates them to PostScript output, which is
then fed to a PostScript device.  The device can be high or low
resolution, and can have any number of resident fonts.  I need to be
able to download fonts under control of the spooler, if such fonts
are needed in the print job and are not resident.  Obviously, a
downloaded font will remain in the printer's memory until that memory
is needed for, say, another font.

Is there any way in which I can interrogate the printer (via a serial
port) to find out either which fonts are available or whether a
specific font is available?  I do not want to download the font afresh
every time the print job calls for it!

Alternatively, is there any way to determine how long a font will
remain in RAM in the printer?  If I know how much RAM a printer has,
can I tell how many fonts can be downloaded before it starts to throw
out unused fonts?  Is the algorithm used know (LRU, oldest first,
whatever)?

My newsfeed is a tad erratic, so I would appreciate it if anyone who
has any answers (even RTFM, if they will just give a page number, or
title & author) could e-mail me.  I will summarise (once I have
something that works :-).  I _do_ read this group, though, so if you
would rather post I _should_ get it.

Thanks in advance,
	Paul
	
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Paul Nash		paul@frcs.UUCP		ddsw1!proxima!frcs!paul