Baslinux mailing list

[cce.zizkov AT volny.cz]

On 10 Jan 05 at 17:57, 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> >
> > Is there some simple way to set up BL2 to type and
> > print Cyrillic
> >
> > kdb.tgz has the keyboard and font programs, but how
> > does one print with downloadable fonts in linux?
>
> Is your printer capable of printing Cyrillic characters?
> By that I mean: character code in - Cyrillic character out.

Capable means:

1. either internal fonts - I do not know such a printer, is there
somebody on the list who knows whether there is any printer
who prints Russian as hardware default?

2. or downloadable fonts - You send the character definition to the
printer once, switch it on with a short code sequence. Then every
8bit character (ASCII 128-255) will be printed with the uploaded
font. I own some for HP Laserjet but not for EPSON :-( Only old and
sentimental DOS veterans in the furthest Eastern countries may still
have such fonts on some floppies they forgot to throw away.

3. graphical - this is what we probably do not want on older
hardware.

> > Graphical printing is at least 8 times as slow
>
> If the printer has no Cyrillic capability (either
> built-in or as an add-on), then dot-by-dot printing
> (in graphics mode) is your only option.

If there is some interest I can upload Russian fonts for DOS charset
cp866 on HPLJ compatible printers. They contain Courier, Times and
Helvetica typefaces in a sufficient number of sizes.

After having uploaded the fonts to the printer you, however, need
to select typeface/size with code-sequences. But this can easily
be done by linux scripts. Translating to charset cp866 should not
be a problem either (sed script). Difficulties will appear
with text alignment, columns, etc. of proportional typefaces.
This is what a wordprocessor usually does.

Zdravím, Christof Lange

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