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Downloading Printer Fonts?

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The Question is:

 
Is there a way to do "graphical" printing from OpenVMS, similar to the way that
 Windows does?
Background:  I currently print documents in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, etc.
 from my OpenVMS system.  For this to work, I must purchase printers that
 natively "know" the Chinese, Japanese, Russian charactersets, since VMS only
 sends the printer a characte
r and expects that the printer knows what it is and how to print it.  Is there
 some way for VMS to send graphical information (like TrueType information,
 etc.), rather than the character data, so I don't have to purchase specific
 language printers, but ca
n print all languages on the same printer?
Can you point me in the right direction?  Thanks.
 
 


The Answer is :

 
  You seek the ability to download character fonts, and this is certainly
  possible with most any operating system and configuration, and involves
  work in both designing and downloading the character into the printer.
  The operating system then sends the byte or bytes that represent the
  designed character within the font loaded into the printer, and the
  printer then prints the representation.
 
  Some Postscript interpreters, for instance, can allow the application
  that generates the file to to embed font information into the Postscript
  document, and the font is downloaded into the printer when the document
  is printed.  Various printers support downloading characters into memory,
  and some support downloads into non-volatile storage within the printer.
  Some printers can acquire character fonts from network servers, as well.
 
  OpenVMS does not directly provide these capabilities, leaving this font
  processing to the application or to higher-level product code, or to
  the printer itself.
 
  Please see the very-similar discussion of the Euro glyph, as well:
 
    http://h71000.www7.hp.com/euro/
 
  Many of the same discussions of the Euro currency glyph are relevent
  here.
 

answer written or last revised on ( 24-NOV-2003 )

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