1 | <HTML>
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2 | <HEAD>
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3 | <TITLE>
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4 | Installing the fonts in Netscape Navigator
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5 | </TITLE>
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6 | </HEAD>
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7 | <BODY>
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8 | <H2>
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9 | Installing the fonts in Netscape Navigator
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10 | </H2>
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11 |
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12 | <tt>
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13 | by Sergey Babkin
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14 | <babkin@bellatlantic.net>, <sab123@hotmail.com>
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15 | </tt>
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16 | <p>
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17 |
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18 | This is a collection of supplements to Netscape 4.x on
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19 | Unix. Probably they will also work with Netscape 3.x,
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20 | possilby with minor modifications.
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21 | <p>
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22 |
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23 | <h4><tt>
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24 | Makefile<br>
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25 | nsfix.c<br>
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26 | psfonts.cf
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27 | </tt></h4>
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28 | <p>
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29 |
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30 | This is a program that allows to substitute the font metrics
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31 | of any PostScript font in Netscape.
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32 | <p>
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33 |
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34 | When Netscape prints the files to PostScript format it uses a
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35 | built-in table of character widths. It prints all the fixed-width
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36 | characters in the typeface "Courier" and all the variable-width
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37 | characters in the typeface "Times". And if the PostScript printer
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38 | has these fonts by Adobe then everything goes fine because
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39 | the tables inside Netscape are generated from the Adobe fonts.
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40 | But if the fonts are different (say, those supplied with Ghostscripts
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41 | or the fonts with non-latin characters) then the result is quite
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42 | ugly. This program allows to replace the width tables inside
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43 | the Netscape executable with the tables for any given font.
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44 | The only problem is that Netscape can hold only one set of tables
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45 | at once. So if you want to print with different fonts (say,
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46 | for different languages or encodings) you will have to make
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47 | multiple copies of the executable, tune each of them for its
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48 | font and then run them separately.
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49 | <p>
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50 |
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51 | I tried to make the program as machine-independent as possible.
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52 | But because it patches the binary files it still has the dependencies
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53 | on hardware. The default version as supplied was designed for
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54 | Intel x86 machines but it should work OK on any machine
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55 | with 32-bit CPU and 4Kbyte (or less) page size. If it can't
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56 | find the tables matching the font names on some other architecture
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57 | the first thing to try would be reduce the `<tt>PAGEBITS</tt>' definition
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58 | in the source code. On the machines with non-page-aligned structure
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59 | of executables it won't work at all. I don't know whether would
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60 | it work on the 64-bit machines. This may depend on whether the
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61 | Netscape executable was compiled in 32-bit or 64-bit mode. For
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62 | the 64-bit executables it may be neccessary to change the definition
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63 | of the type `<tt>tptr</tt>' to an 8-byte integer type (probably `<tt>long</tt>'
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64 | or `<tt>long long</tt>'). Also must be re-compiled for patching of the
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65 | Netscape binary for each particular machine architecture because
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66 | it assumes the byte order of the current machine.
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67 | <p>
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68 |
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69 | It might be possible to create a program that would patch
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70 | a running Netscape binary on the fly, that would allow
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71 | changing the printing fonts as neccessary when Netscape is
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72 | running. But this would be even more platform-dependent,
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73 | so I don't feel any enthusiasm about doing that.
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74 | <p>
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75 |
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76 | I have tested the program on the Intel machines, Netscape
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77 | 4.08 and 4.7, OS FreeBSD (both a.out and ELF formats of the
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78 | Netscape binary) and UnixWare.
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79 | <p>
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80 |
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81 | After all these scary issues are resolved the compiling
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82 | is easy: just run `<tt>make</tt>'.
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83 | <p>
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84 |
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85 | To command to patch the Netscape is:
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86 | <p>
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87 | <tt>
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88 | ./nsfix <i><netscape-binary> <config-file></i>
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89 | </tt>
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90 | <p>
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91 |
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92 | Please make a copy of the original Netscape binary before
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93 | patching in case anything goes wrong. Patch the copy, test
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94 | that it works OK and only then install it. The configuration
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95 | file describes the fonts that are to be used. An example
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96 | is provided in the file psfonts.cf.
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97 | <p>
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98 |
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99 | Each line in the configuration file consists of 4
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100 | columns:
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101 | <p>
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102 |
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103 | <tt><i>
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104 | <PS_font_name> <font_base_file> <suffix_afm> <suffix_font>
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105 | </i></tt>
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106 | <p>
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107 |
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108 | For example, the following line from my configuration file:
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109 | <p>
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110 |
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111 | <tt>
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112 | Courier /usr/lib/X11/fonts/ttf/cokoi8n.koi8-r .afm .pfa
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113 | </tt>
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114 | <p>
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115 |
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116 | says that the font `Courier' will be replaced with the
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117 | font taken from the file `<tt>/usr/lib/X11/fonts/ttf/cokoi8n.koi8-r.pfa</tt>'
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118 | and the metrics for that font will be taken from the file
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119 | `<tt>/usr/lib/X11/fonts/ttf/cokoi8n.koi8-r.afm</tt>' .
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120 | <p>
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121 |
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122 | One more caveat: the new font must have a proper encoding
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123 | table. Some fonts contain characters for multiple encodings
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124 | hoping that the program wil re-encode them as neccessary.
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125 | This won't work in this case, only the primary encoding table
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126 | of the font will be used.
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127 | <p>
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128 |
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129 | <h4><tt>
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130 | nsfilter<br>
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131 | nsprint<br>
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132 | psfonts.cf
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133 | </tt></h4>
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134 | <p>
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135 |
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136 | These are the filters for printing from Netscape.
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137 | <p>
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138 |
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139 | Changing the metrics is not the end of the story. This will
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140 | provide proper placement of the characters but not the
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141 | characters themselves. There are a few ways to provide
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142 | the characters:
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143 | <p>
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144 |
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145 | First, if you use GhostScript you may configure proper
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146 | aliases in the GhostScript configuration file. We will
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147 | consider this variant trivial and won't discuss it furter
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148 | except for one caveat: Netscape tries to re-encode the
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149 | fonts per the ISO Latin-1 encoding. If the primary encoding
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150 | of the font is different this cause unexpected effects.
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151 | So you still may consider using the filters (at least in a
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152 | simplified form) to solve this problem.
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153 | <p>
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154 |
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155 | Second, load the fonts right into your printer. This is
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156 | very much like configuring GhostScript.
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157 | <p>
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158 |
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159 | Third, use the provided filters. The script `<tt>nsfilter</tt>'
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160 | reads the output of Netscape on its standard input and
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161 | puts the result to its standard output. It uses the same
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162 | configuration file `<tt>psfonts.cf</tt>' as `<tt>nsfix</tt>'. First it
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163 | looks for the configuration file in the user's home
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164 | directory (<tt>$HOME/.netscape/psfonts.cf</tt>) and if the
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165 | file it not there then the second guess is the system-wide
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166 | configuration file <tt>/usr/local/etc/psfonts.cf</tt>. The
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167 | script inserts the fonts into the output and also
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168 | removes the Netscape's experiments with the encodings.
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169 | <p>
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170 |
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171 | `<tt>nsfilter</tt>' is generally intended to be ran by user, not by the
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172 | printing subsystem. The reason is that the user may have
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173 | changed fonts in his Netscape and the printing subsystem
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174 | would have no way to access user's configuration file.
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175 | But if all the users are using the same fonts then it
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176 | may be incorporated into the printing subsystem and use
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177 | the system-wide configuration file.
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178 | <p>
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179 |
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180 | The script `<tt>nsprint</tt>' is purely for convenience, to type it
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181 | as a printing command in the Netscape printing window.
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182 | It just pipelines the data through `<tt>nsfilter</tt>' to the
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183 | printing program which also gets all the arguments. Please
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184 | note that the SystemV-style and BSD-style systems use different
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185 | printing programs (although they commonly provide compatibility
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186 | with the other style too). The script tries to guess the
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187 | type of system and use its native print program, `<tt>lp</tt>' or
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188 | `<tt>lpr</tt>'. But in case it guesses wrong you may want
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189 | to change this in the script. Also if the printer does not support
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190 | PostScript directly this script may be a good place to
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191 | insert a call to GhostScript.
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192 | <p>
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193 |
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194 | <h4><tt>
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195 | notscape<br>
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196 | fontsz.cf
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197 | </tt></h4>
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198 | <p>
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199 |
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200 | Netscape on Unix has a very annoying "feature", it does
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201 | not remember the desired base size of the scalable screen
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202 | fonts and always resets it to 12.0 points. Even if the size
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203 | is changed manually in its preferences file, Netscape
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204 | forgets it after it exits.
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205 | <p>
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206 |
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207 | So my solution was to write a program which would change
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208 | the size to my favorite one every time right before
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209 | starting Netscape. `<tt>notscape</tt>' is exactly such a program,
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210 | it sets the font sizes an then transparently executes
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211 | netscape. It takes the font sizes from the file
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212 | `<tt>$HOME/.netscape/fontsz.cf</tt>' . An example of such file
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213 | is provided. The format of the file is quite self-explanatory,
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214 | for example the lines
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215 | <p>
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216 |
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217 | <tt>
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218 | fixed-koi8-r 140<br>
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219 | prop-koi8-r 150
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220 | </tt>
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221 | <p>
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222 |
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223 | mean "set the size of the fixed-width screen font in the
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224 | encoding koi8-r to 14.0 points; set the size of the proportional
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225 | (variable-width) font in the encoding koi8-r to 15.0 points".
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226 | <p>
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227 |
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228 |
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229 | <h3><tt>
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230 | nspr
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231 | </tt><br>
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232 | by Zvezdan Petkovic</h3>
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233 | <p>
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234 |
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235 | To print from Netscape, I usually print to the Postscript file first.
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236 | Then I use this small script to change the names of Times and Courier fonts
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237 | in the file and remove `/Encoding' lines. After that the file can be
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238 | sent to printer.
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239 | <p>
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240 | </BODY>
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241 | </HTML>
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242 |
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