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From: yon%consl4.mro4.dec.com@decwrl.dec.com (David Yon)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Deskjet font handling w/Windows woes
Message-ID: <4000@ryn.mro4.dec.com>
Date: 18 Feb 91 13:30:14 GMT
Sender: news@ryn.mro4.dec.com
Reply-To: yon@world.std.com (David Yon)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 46


Hi there,

	I've got an original HP Deskjet with a 128K RAM cartridge.  When
using Windows 3.0, it didn't take me long to figure out that I needed
something better than the standard DESKJET.DRV for decent font handling.
(Macintax for Windows won't even work with the Deskjet, for example).

	So I went out and bought SuperPrint, which cured all my screen and
printer font handling, and even allowed me to use Macintax for Windows.  So
right now I have something like 50 fonts using foundries ranging from
Intellifont and Adobe to simple HP Laserjet Softfonts.  (Yes, I'm a big fan
of Superprint).

	The one thing that I don't like about Superprint, is that it can be
unbearably SSSLLLOOOWWW.  Between the time it takes to generate the fonts,
and then send the image as a raster to the printer, I get an amazing
performance hit.  Just yesterday I tried printing out something from DOS
just using the built-in Courier and was reminded of just how quick this
printer is when you just send it vanilla text.  I also tried downloading
some fonts that I got from Compuserve, and found performance to be
similarly fast when using soft fonts.  However, when I try to load these
fonts (sample Helvetica and Tms Rmn from Elfring) into Windows using the
standard DESKJET.DRV driver, bad things happen.

	First of all, the driver incorrectly reports the point-size of the
fonts.  It reported the 10-point Tms Rmn as "Tms Rmn 0pt", and the 12-point
as "Tms Rmn 600pt"!  Ugh.  When I switch to the deskjet driver and attempt
to print something out using these fonts (from Windows/Write for example),
it's very clear that a) the image is being sent out as a raster, and b) the
font being used is not the one I downloaded.  It looks like the driver is
trying to approximate the font and is thus sending it as raster (which is
only marginally faster than SuperPrint), rather than use the downloaded
font and just send the document in ASCII (which would be *very* quick).

	Has anyone run into this and found a solution?  How are other
Deskjet users dealing with fonts under Windows?  My resume, for example,
only uses two sizes of Roman in italics, normal, and bold.  It seems a
shame to have to live with the speed of SuperPrint when I have suitable
soft fonts for simple documents like this.  Any help greatly apreciated.

David Yon
CASE Consultant

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