Technical data

appropriate to use for a number of third-party text printers. See pcfof(8)
and the System Administration manual for details on using this print filter.
1.7.1.2 wwpsof Print Filter
The wwpsof filter is used only with PostScript printers. The filter
converts the single-byte and multibyte characters used in an international
environment to printable PostScript output. Thus, print jobs that include
local language characters can be printed on printers where local language
fonts are not resident. To use this filter, the printer must support PostScript
Level 2 (or higher) or PostScript Level 1 with the composite font extension.
The PostScript fonts can be outline fonts installed on the system, TrueType
fonts, or low-resolution bitmap fonts. TrueType fonts and low-resolution
bitmap fonts are made available to the filter through an X font server, which
requires that the X font server be running. In searching for fonts, the filter
first attempts to use PostScript outline fonts. If those are not available,
the filter uses high-resolution, rasterized, TrueType fonts. If those are not
available, the filter uses low-resolution bitmap fonts.
The wwpsof filter is sensitive to locale setting. When processing a character,
the filter determines if the character is printable in the current locale and
uses the codeset part of the locale definition to find an appropriate font
(outline, TrueType, or low-resolution). Except for file formats that include
Byte Order Mark (that is UTF-16 or UTF-32 format), you must set the locale
appropriately before printing files that contain characters in languages
other than English.
For example, you can set up a printer configuration file for use with the
wwpsof print filter to convert bitmap fonts for other locales to PostScript
when printing files that use UTF-8 encoding. Unicode includes characters
for almost all languages, and any given font is limited to a small subset
of supported characters. Therefore, you can customize a unicode
conversion preference entry in the printer configuration file to specify a
codeset look-up order favoring the fonts that are available for the language
of the text most frequently printed.
The wwpsof filter prints multilanguage text files by first converting each
character in the text file to a matching character in a UNIX codeset for
which fonts are available and then converting the file to PostScript. The
filter can also print PostScript files that have been generated by some CDE
applications.
See wwpsof
(8) and the System Administration manual for details on using
this print filter.
Working in a Multilanguage Environment 1–13