Font Installation on Unix and Other Systems
Windows and Macintosh systems have one central directory where all applications access their fonts. Unfortunately, in Linux and Unix, each application implements fonts differently: the X Window system has its way, word processors want it a different way, printing systems want it another way, and so on.
Several font installation examples are documented below with links provided by IDAutomation's clients. If they are not helpful, contact the operating system or application vendor for installation procedures.
IDAutomation's TrueType and PostScript fonts are created to the standards set for TrueType and PostScript fonts, and can be treated as any other font for the purpose of getting the vendor's assistance. IDAutomation can only support the font tools, the symbology and the fonts themselves as stated in the statement of support - IDAutomation is unable to assist with the installation of the fonts on Unix or Linux systems. Assistance for installing fonts on a Unix platform can be obtained from the consulting company mentioned in the tutorial about installing fonts in Unix for Oracle Reports or consider IDAutomation's Java Barcode Packages, which work on any operating system with a Java Virtual Machine.
Sun Solaris Xsun supports TrueType fonts. Use the Font Administrator GUI, /usr/dt/bin/sdtfontadm, to add them to the server's list of fonts.
Currently, Linux does not provide native support for TrueType fonts, but it is possible to install and use TrueType fonts with xfstt, a free TrueType font server. More information on xfstt is available at the following links:
Enter the following commands in sequence from a terminal window (Assuming the ttf file has been downloaded to "/usr/local/fonts/ttf" directory)
This will create two files, "fonts.scale" and "fonts.dir", containing a list with full font names for each true type font. Finally, add this directory to XWindow's font search path. Redhat users can make use of "chkfontpath" tool to add search path.
chkfontpath -a /usr/local/fonts/ttf
If the "chkfontpath" utility is not available, then manually edit the "/etc/X11/xfs/config" file (or "/etc/X11/fs/config"). Find the line "catalog = ". Add the directory to the end of list, separated by commas.
Sometimes, the font server needs to be restarted for the changes to take place.
This information was from one of IDAutomation's previous customers.
With most PostScript installations, PostScript interpretation is done in the printer. All that is needed is to get the proper PostScript commands onto the stack in the printer. For instance: When a PostScript program has been created to print a document, prepend the .pfa font to the file, then when the PostScript program is ready for use, add the following line in the program: /FontName findfont 12 scalefont setfont. This will load the font named "FontName" from the font dictionary, set it to a scale of 12 and set it to the active font; this will work with any OS. If the flat text document were sent to LPT1 on a windows machine by typing or copying, not by the printer driver, the same thing would be achieved. For additional information, refer to the installation of PostScript fonts on Unix using X11 example.
The ASCII version of IDAutomation fonts does not always work with X-Server on Sun Solaris with Oracle Reports. This is what one customer did to get the fonts working.
Please note that the following steps were used to install the sample version of the IDAutomation Interleaved 2 of 5 fonts, sADVI25f, on a Solaris machine. In order to get the ASCII version font to work properly in another environment, please substitute the font name to be loaded for IDAutomationC128M.
Customer's Solution: "I told you that the binary version *.pfb worked on my X-Server but I need this font for Oracle Reports. Oracle Reports can only handle the ASCII version, so the problem was not solved with the binary version. But I found a solution":
(0) Make the ASCII-file work:This is all of the information IDAutomation has concerning the font installation on Sun Solaris.