Specifications

6-35
System V Printer Configuration
PostScript printers are shipped with 35 standard fonts, although less expensive models
have only 13.
• A font may be permanently downloaded by being transmitted to a printer using a special
PostScript programming technique using the exitserver operator. A font downloaded in
this way will remain in the printer memory until the printer is turned off. Memory allocated
to this font will reduce the memory available for PostScript print requests. Use of
exitserver programs requires the printer system password and may be reserved for the
printer administrator. This method is useful when there is continual use of a font by the
majority of print requests serviced by that printer.
• Fonts may be prepended to a print request by the user and be transmitted as part of the
user print request. When the document has been printed, the space allocated to the font
is freed for other print requests. The font is stored in the user’s directory. This method is
preferable for fonts with limited usage.
• Fonts may be stored on a system shared by many users. These fonts may be described
as host–resident. This system may be a server for the printer or may be a system
connected to the printer by a network. Each user may request fonts in the document to
be printed. This method is useful when there are a large number of available fonts or
when there is not continual use of these fonts by all print requests. If the fonts will be
used only on printers attached to a server, store them on the server. If the fonts are to be
used by users on one system who may send jobs to multiple printers on a network, store
them on the users’ system.
The print service provides a special download filter to manage fonts using the last method in
the list.
The print service can use troff width tables for the 35 standard PostScript fonts that reside
on many PostScript printers, for use by the dpost program.
Obtaining a List of Printer–Resident Fonts
Most PostScript printers come equipped with fonts resident in the printer ROM. Some
printers have a disk on which additional fonts are stored. A list of the Type 1 fonts in ROM or
on disk of an attached PostScript printer can be obtained from the printer manufacturer’s
documentation. For PostScript printers attached through a serial port, a list of these fonts
can also be generated using the postio command and a PostScript program, romfonts.ps.
To obtain a list of printer–resident fonts for a PostScript printer attached to a serial port, do
the following:
1. Obtain the device on which the PostScript printer is connected:
lpstat –v
Given a system on which the PostScript printer prlocal is attached through a serial port,
this command would return output similar to the following:
device for prlocal: /dev/tty01
This output shows the printer to be attached on device /dev/tty01.
2. As root user, run these commands:
cd /usr/lib/lp/postscript
postio –L /tmp/postio.o –l /dev/tty01 –t romfonts.ps
For our sample prlocal printer, this will produce output in the file /tmp/postio.o that
looks similar to the following: