[ale] Changing default font for lp command

[James P. Kinney III]

On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 19:07 +0000, John Wells wrote:
> ----- "Jeff Lightner" <jlightner at water.com> wrote:
> > The documentation is a good thing.  Unfortunately it doesn't talk
> > about
> > "fonts".
> 
> Thanks Jeff, but we're actually talking about the font. Looks like a courier-ish one coming out by default. I've never dove into this part of cups (and yes, we've consulted the docs). Is there now way or is this printer specific?
<dredging data from the dark, cobweb covered areas...>
The only time you can specif the font to use at the printer is when the
the data going to the printer is ascii text. Then the printer has to
have that font built in. 

Of course, the BIG question here is _how_ to access those built-in
fonts.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, lpadmin could be used to choose a
specific PPD file that can be tailored for specific fonts. It would
still be needed to route all ascii text through a filter like ascii2ps
or texttops to make use of this.

However, cups does not support all of the older functions of lp, lpr,
lpadmin, and friends.

However (again) the PPD files for my HP inkjet printers have stuff like:

*% =================================
*% Font Information
*% =================================
*DefaultFont: Courier
*Font AvantGarde-Book: Standard "(001.006S)" Standard ROM
*Font AvantGarde-BookOblique: Standard "(001.006S)" Standard ROM
*Font AvantGarde-Demi: Standard "(001.007S)" Standard ROM
*Font AvantGarde-DemiOblique: Standard "(001.007S)" Standard ROM
*Font Bookman-Demi: Standard "(001.004S)" Standard ROM
*Font Bookman-DemiItalic: Standard "(001.004S)" Standard ROM
*Font Bookman-Light: Standard "(001.004S)" Standard ROM
<snip>

which indicates that an edit may suffice to change the default font.

This makes sense (in a typically arcane *NIX printing sort of way). So
now, generate several printers that use the same physical device but
have edited PPD files and print to the different device to get different
fonts.

Yet, editing the PPD file on my cups system has no effect on the font
output from the test printing of a line of text from an echo command.

In fact, digging in lpadmin (that ships with cups) I was able to pull up
the options available for my printer(s) and changing the font used for
ascii was not an option.

I have a Panasonic KX-P2130 dot matrix that I can set the font on with
front panel buttons...
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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