Version 0.95, 23 June 2000
Many people seem to have problems installing additional Type1 or True Type fonts [TM] for proper use with StarOffice. I was one of them. Thanks to many helpful people I have learned how to install them in order to use them with StarOffice. To make it easier for others with the same problem I wrote this text. There are other sources dealing with the same matter. You will find them in the section Other StarOffice font installation sources.
What you can learn here is the manual way of doing things. You will need to be able to operate an text editor. I am not going to use the tool spadmin coming with the StarOffice 5.1 package. It is strongly recommended not to use the tool psetup coming with StarOffice versions before 5.1. It basically did not work for plenty of people.
A short remark on converting TrueType fonts to Type 1 fonts. I recommend that only if you are feeding a PostScript printer with what comes out of StarOffice. The problem here is that especially small font sizes will not be as accurate as if you use the original TTF. How to do it is explained e. g. in the StarOffice installation handbook. If someone might have told you that scalable fonts are called scalable since they are scalable it is not the full truth.
BTW, my X Server is Xfree86 4.0. It comes with the xfsft TrueType font server already built in.
I would like to thank all the folks who have taught me what you can read here and who have helped me with this document. A special thank goes to Sun for providing StarOffice for free.
The following will tell you how to install Adobe Type 1 fonts and True Type Fonts (TTF) in order to use them with Sun StarOffice 4/5 (www.sun.com/staroffice). For the True Type Fonts you will need an TTF server. I am using xfstt v 1.0. You can find xfstt here. In order to compile it, you must have the C++ compiler installed on your Linux machine.
You do not have to read the following, but it could be helpful.
SETUP.pdf, page 40 pp. coming with StarOffice5. It also might be called installation.pdf or whatever. It resides in the documentation directory of the StarOffice source package.
The README in the StarOffice main directory.
At least the ones I am aware of:
TeamStarOffice: Where you always should start to look for StarOffice related stuff.
A Slightly different description of what I am trying to say here.
Tips zum Installieren von PostScript-Type1-Schriftarten in StarOffice 5.0 Preview für Linux (German)
TrueType Fonts für Linux X-Windows und StarOffice4.0(German)
For TrueType fonts support of SO5 under Linux: http://www.mindspring.net/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html
Fonts at The Gimp.
Jim's
Fonts for X.
Be aware of the TrueType-HOWTO for people planning to use TTFs. It also has a section for StarOffice.
The Xfstt True-Type Font Server Get it e. g. from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/%21INDEX.html
AnotherTrueType Server: xfsft It is the one in Xfree86 4.0. To generate a needs a fonts.dir file in the TrueType directory. It is easily done using the tool ttmkfdir. (You need to click the here link.)
That is where some stuff is installed in the case of StarOffice 4.0 up to 5.1. As you can see I also installed Ghostscript. Further on I only will use the defined shell variables.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Description |Variable in | | | |this document | Location | |----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------| |main SO5 installation | $SO5 | /opt/Office51 | |local SO5 user installation | $SO5_u | /home/user/Office51 | |Ghostscript home directory | $GS | /usr/share/ghostscript | |X-Server Type1 font path | $XT1 | /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the case of StarOffice 5.2 some locations are a bit different.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Description |Variable in | | | |this document | Location | |----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------| |main SO5 installation | $SO5 | /opt/office52 | |local SO5 user installation | $SO5_u | /home/user/office52 | |SO 5.2 printing stuff | $SO5_p | /opt/office52/share/xp3 | |Ghostscript home directory | $GS | /usr/share/ghostscript | |X-Server Type1 font path | $XT1 | /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Save copies of
$SO5_p/psstd.fonts $SO5_u/xp3/psstd.fonts $XT1/fonts.scale $GS/5.50/Fontmap (or whatever Ghostscript version > 5.0 you are using)
and whatever you are editing.
I hope you know that a backup can save your neck.
Check the fontpath used by your X server.
You can display it
byxset q
It is usually defined in /etc/XF86Config.
The order of
the entries is important! (first :unscaled, after that
Type1, at the end scalable)
The entries in /etc/X11/XF86Config (or /etc/X11/XF86Config for XFree86 < 4.0) could look like:
Section "Files" RgbPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/URW/" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" FontPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi" EndSection
If you change it, doxset fp rehash
afterwards.
If you are already using the xfstt True Type font server, the corresponding entry in /etc/XF86Config is something like
FontPath "tcp/localhost:7100"
Of course, instead of localhost you could have any machine in a network. In that case you must make sure that the font server's configuration file contains the correct font path. The configuration file is usually /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/config.
In order to print your documents containing the newly installed fonts, you need a proper metric file, called AFM (Adobe Font Metric).
In general, if you want to use Type1 fonts the AFM will be provided by your font collection. However, be warned. The provided AFM might be found faulty by StarOffice even if other applications may not complain.
In the case of TrueType fonts you must create one. There are several tools that can generate it. Unfortunately, StarOffice seems to be quite picky about AFMs. E.g. if your AFM contains the ^M from MS DOS files it will not work. Anyway, the afmmaker.ps script has proven to be quite useful in generating AFMs which StarOffice likes. And the good news is: In most cases you can create an AFM yourself.
Insert the following entry
/abc-roman (abc.pfb) ;
into your Ghostscript Fontmap file $GS/5.50/Fontmap
In afmmaker.ps, change the section (line 14 in my copy) to
/fontName /abc-roman def % font name
Also follow the comments in afmmaker.ps!
Now do
gs -q -sNODISPLAY -dBATCH afmmaker.ps > abc.afm
You should get a file called abc.afm. Make sure that the fontname in it is exactly the same as the one in $GS/5.50/Fontmap.
Here is an example how the beginning of such an AFM file might look like:
StartFontMetrics 2.0 Comment Generated by afmmaker.ps, Copyright(c) Yeong Yu FontName Arial FullName Arial FamilyName Arial Weight Medium ItalicAngle 0.0 IsFixedPitch false FontBBox -0.709473 -0.324707 1.07178 1.03711 UnderlinePosition -0.105957 UnderlineThickness 0.0732422 Notice Typeface © The Monotype Corporation plc. Data © The Monotype Corporation plc/Type Solutions Inc. 1990-1992. All Rights Reserved EncodingScheme ISOLatin1Encoding StartCharMetrics 201 C 32 ; WX 277 ; N space ; B 277 0 278 0 ; ...
In this chapter you will learn how to install a Type1 font to display and print it with StarOffice.
Make sure you followed the steps in Chapter 3. Preparation.
First you need the font file abc.pfb or whatever font you want to install of course.
Check if the font is already installed on your X-Server and you can select it with e. g. xfontsel, gfontsel (GNOME), kfontmanager (KDE) etc. (If the font is not installed get type1inst-0.6.1.tar.gz. It has its own description.)
Link abc.pfb to $SO5/xp3/pssoftfonts:
ln -s $XT1/abc.pfb $SO5/xp3/pssoftfonts
(Note: If you don't see your font in StarWriter or they are not printed you might have not done that step. Or there might be a problem with the AFM. But wait...)
Open $XT1/fonts.scale in a texteditor.
Find a line similar to
abc.pfb -abc_foundry-abcroman-regular-n-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
Note that this is one single physical line although the text above might appear as several lines in your browser. Append it to $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts like this
more $XT1/fonts.scale |
grep abc.pfb >> $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts
Change this line in $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts to
abc, -abc_foundry-abcroman-regular-n-normal--%d-%d-%d-%d-p-0-iso8859-1
Again, this is one single physical line in the file! That means replace
--0-0-0-0-p-0-
by
--%d-%d-%d-%d-p-0-
and
.pfb
by a comma.
You can achieve that easily with sed like that:
sed s/.pfb/,/g $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts >
$SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts.temp
sed s/--0-0-0-0-p-0-/--%d-%d-%d-%d-p-0-/g $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts.temp >
$SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts
If you don't have an AFM file, read section 3.3 Compile an AFM! first.
Now link the AFM file abc.afm to $SO5/xp3/fontmetrics/afm/
ln -s $XT1/afm/abc.afm $SO5/xp3/fontmetrics/afm/
If you already have such an AFM file check that it does not contain "^M" at the end of every line. You can fix it by converting the AFM file form DOS to Unix format.
unix2dos abc.afm
Note! In order to let Ghostscript know about that font you have to put it into the Fontmap ($GS/5.50/Fontmap) as
/abc-roman (abc.pfb);
Chapter 6. Test your new Font will tell you how to prove your installed font.
Maybe you skipped the part about Installation of Type1 Fonts. In that case I strongly recommend to have a short look at it. To install TTFs is quite similar.
I am using xfstt v1.0 on Xfree86 3.3.5. I don't think any other TTF server will cause problems. If you installed TTFs successfully on a different TTF-server I am happy to mention that here. Just drop me an E-mail.
If you do have a PostScript printer and there is no way in having a software-PS converter in between - very bad luck for you. There is currently no way to use TTFs with true PostScript printers. Since most of these beasts understand PCL anyway, you can still convert StarOffice's PostScript output to PCL. I am using Ghostscript for that. Make sure you are using a version >= 5.10!
The example font here is called Arial [TM]. Actually, there is no need for this font since Helvetica [TM] is the standard.
Make sure you followed the steps in Chapter 3. Preparation. Please mind especially section 3.3.
If you are using xfstt and you did the sample installation of it you also will have
unix/localhost:7101
in your X server's fontpath. If the font server is running on another port as 7101, you must of course use this port in the fontpath specification.
Please make sure that you do not use TTFs you already have as Type1 fonts. That might cause problems!
In order to be able to print your TTFs your PS-converter has to be aware of them. xfstt will generate a list of the installed TTFs by
xfstt --gslist --sync > /tmp/ttfgs.fontmap
Your file might contain entries like:
(Arioso Bold) (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/./arib____.ttf) ;
(Arial) (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/./arial.ttf) ;
That file has to be appended to $GS/5.50/Fontmap by
cat /tmp/ttfgs.fontmap >> $GS/5.50/Fontmap
The following steps are quite similar to what you already know from chapter 3. Don`t worry, I am going to explain it again:
Generate a $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts compatible list of your TTFs.
Get the TrueTypeUtilites running. All you need is tt2so.
tt2so /var/cache/xfstt/ttname.dir >
psstd.fonts.ttfFor a specific font you can use grep:
tt2so /var/cache/xfstt/ttname.dir | grep Arial >
psstd.fonts.arial.ttf
Append that file to $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts by
cat psstd.fonts.ttf >> $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts
Copy the created AFM file into the appropriate StarOffice directory.
cp arial.afm $SO5/xp3/fontmetrics/afm/
Alternatively, you may wish to create a symbolic link.
Make sure the name of the AFM file is exactly as given in $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts. That means if tt2so gives you
Arial,-ttf-arial-medium-r-normal-regular-%d-%d-%d-%d-p-0-iso8859-1
your AFM has to be named Arial.afm. If StarOffice cannot find the AFM it is looking for it will tell you in the shell you started it from.
Finally, you have to tell your PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file about the new fonts. This file is often called "the StarOffice printer driver" although that is not absolutely correct.
Find out which printer you are using. That might be a bit tricky.
If you did a multi-user installation (aka network-installation) and
a printer installation as that particular user you will find a file
~/.Xpdefaults. Otherwise use $SO5/xp3/Xpdefaults.
This
file will contain your installed printers. In its [windows]
section you will find the standard printer. In my case the entry is:
device=HP LJ 6L,SGENPRT PostScript,LPT1_queue.
The important part here is SGENPRT.
Now edit the file $SO5/xp3/ppds/SGENPRT.PS. In the section
include for StarOffice 5.0 or section Fonts
for StarOffice 5.1 insert a line similar to this:
*Font Font-Name: Standard "(001.000)" Standard ROM
In the case of our font arial.ttf it has to look like:
*Font Arial:Standard"(001.000)"StandardROM
Restart StarOffice and check if it works as described in 6. Test your new Font.
You might ask why StarWriter. Well, it is the only application that only offers what it can print. You might get quite disappointed when you assume that anything what e. g. StarCalc displays it also can print.
Start StarOffice from a shell, e. g.
$SO5_u/bin/soffice
Open a new StarWriter document.
Type
Something
mark "Something" and change the font to "abc roman"
Scale the Text to about 48 points.
Does it have the staircase effect (ugly steps)? Does the font
scale? Does StarOffice complain in the shell? Do you see the fonts in
StarCalc and StarWriter? Actually, only StarWriter counts.
If yes:
Congratulation.
If no: Check all the steps over and over
again.
Still not?: Sorry, no idea? Maybe the AFM file as most of
the times? I am not going to provide these pix with funny fonts
appearing in a StarOffice document here. Believe it or not it works
on my box.
Print the actual document. You are not forced to waste paper at all. Just divert the output into a PostScript file and display it with the PostScript viewer of your choice.
If you can see the fonts on the screen but not when you print your document: Print the document to a file first and feed this file directly to Ghostscript like gs <filename>. If Ghostscript complains about a font it doesn't find, double check its Fontmap and the font name in $SO5/xp3/psstd.fonts.
Well folks, that`s it. All what is left to say: Enjoy working with StarOffice!