HP-UX 11i v3 International Printing Features

PostScript Printing

Unlike other printer control languages, PostScript is a real stack-based programming language. As

such, it can perform complex drawing operations in a concise manner.

Table 8 lists the PostScript-specific model files and printing modes supported by HP-UX.

Table 8: PostScript-Specific Model Files and Their Printing Modes

Model Files PostScript Printing Modes

PS.font Raw

Local language text to PostScript with font embedding

Mozilla PostScript font embedding

PS2.nlio Raw

ASCII to PostScript

Japanese to PostScript for printers with Japanese fonts

postscript Raw

ASCII to PostScript

Raw mode refers to the direct printing of a PostScript data file to a PostScript printer without

additional manipulation. It is also supported by a number of other non-PostScript model files such as

PCL5 or PCL5.asian.

Of the three PostScript-specific model files, PS.font is the most versatile and, therefore, is the

recommended model file for PostScript printing.

The PS.font Model File

The HP-UX operating environment supports the printing of local language characters on PostScript

printers using the PS.font model file. In fact, this model file is just a wrapper script for the

psfontpf print filter. Unlike other model files, PS.font serves mainly as a keeper of configuration

and customization information, which is passed to psfontpf via command-line arguments. All the

actual processing work is done within the psfontpf print filter. From the perspective of migration

from Tru64 UNIX, the psfontpf print filter has similar capabilities as the wwpsof and ppdof print

filters in Tru64 UNIX.

The psfontpf print filter is a generic text-to-PostScript converter that converts the various single-byte

and multi-byte characters used in an international environment to a printable PostScript file. The filter

embeds all the required PostScript font data within the PostScript code, if necessary. Therefore, print

jobs that include local language characters can be printed on printers where local language fonts are

not present. The psfontpf print filter also supports embedding font data to PostScript files generated

by the Mozilla web browser. By making the Mozilla web browser use an LP destination with the

PS.font model file, web pages containing non-Latin 1 characters can print correctly on a PostScript

printer.

In order for the psfontpf print filter to print local language characters correctly, you must instruct

psfontpf what character-set encoding is used by the input characters. You can do this by specifying

either the locale with that character-set encoding or the name of the character-set encoding directly.

Specifying the locale name is preferable to the encoding name because more information is

associated with a locale, such as the fonts to be used. This is especially important for CJK ideographic

characters, for which specifying the correct locale ensures that the proper glyphs will be used for

printing. As the psfontpf print filter converts all characters internally to Unicode, codeset names

with no Unicode conversion support are not supported by the print filter.