PWG Mail Archive: PWG> Re: PWG-ANNOUNCE> Character repert

PWG> Re: PWG-ANNOUNCE> Character repertoires in printers

From: ElliottBradshaw@oaktech.com
Date: Fri Oct 25 2002 - 10:00:10 EDT

  • Next message: don@lexmark.com: "PWG> Re: Character repertoires in printers"

    Don,

    That's a good question. I think (hope) the set-of-fonts question is
    orthogonal to the set-of-glyphs question.

    In XHTML-Print, the set-of-fonts question is handled by the statement in
    CSS [see Jim's email] that a user agent should support five generic names
    (however, I will buy you a beverage of your choice if you can tell me what
    "fantasy" is actually used for). But, I find nothing in CSS that tells me
    which particular Unicode values will be successfully rendered by the user
    agent.

    If we had a set of Unicode-based repertoires, maybe something like
    PWG-Latin-Basic, PWG-Latin-Extended, PWG-Cyrillic, PWG-Japanese,
    PWG-Symbols, etc. then XHTML-Print could refer to them and say something
    like:

         A complying printer must successfully render each of the codepoints
    from the repertoires PWG-Latin-Basic and PWG-Symbols. For the codepoints
    in PWG-Latin-Basic, the rendered glyph should be visibly different in each
    of the generic fonts Serif, Sans Serif, Monospace, and Cursive. For a
    Symbol it is acceptable for a complying printer to render it the same way
    in all fonts.

    But:

    1. This is just one solution; I don't want to prejudice the discussion.
    2. It would be better to select existing repertoires from somewhere rather
    than invent our own.

      -E.

    ------------------------------------------
    Elliott Bradshaw
    Director, Software Engineering
    Oak Technology Imaging Group
    781 638-7534

                                                                                                   
                        don@lexmark.co
                        m To: ElliottBradshaw@oaktech.com
                                             cc: pwg@pwg.org
                        10/25/2002 Subject: Re: PWG-ANNOUNCE> Character repertoires
                        09:41 AM in printers
                                                                                                   
                                                                                                   

    Elliott:

    Would you envision this to include a set of mandatory fonts or font
    families or just a list of mandatory charactor sets (groups of glyphs)?

    **********************************************
     Don Wright don@lexmark.com

     Member, IEEE SA Standards Board
             PatCom Chair, SCC Liaison
     Member, IEEE-ISTO Board of Directors
     f.wright@ieee.org / f.wright@computer.org

     Director, Alliances & Standards
     Lexmark International
     740 New Circle Rd
     Lexington, Ky 40550
     859-825-4808 (phone) 603-963-8352 (fax)
    **********************************************

    ElliottBradshaw@oaktech.com@pwg.org on 10/21/2002 01:00:51 PM

    Sent by: owner-pwg-announce@pwg.org

    To: pwg-announce@pwg.org
    cc:
    Subject: PWG-ANNOUNCE> Character repertoires in printers

    Folks,

    As we discussed in Santa Fe, I am interested in the possibility of defining
    standard printer character repertoires for interoperability.

    For discussion, a draft charter of a hypothetical working group follows:

    <charter>
    In traditional printing environments, clients rely on font downloads when
    they are not sure a given character is embedded in the printer. As
    printing moves to small clients, downloading may not be an option and
    clients have a need to know what characters are available in a given
    device.

    The purpose of this group is to:
    1. Survey existing methods for indicating available characters, such as
    those used in the Bluetooth BPP
    2. Define needs for printing character repertoires, considering such
    factors as country locations and wingding-type symbols
    3. Using Unicode, select or define a list of useful repertoires for
    printing
    4. Recommend a basic repertoire for inclusion in any printer that supports
    embedded Unicode-accessable characters
    5. Propose an extension to the PWG Semantic Model for obtaining the
    character repertoires available in a printer
    6. Work with UPnP and other groups to add repertoire support as needed
    </charter>

    Before proceeding, I would like any and all feedback on these questions:

    1. Is this a problem worth solving? (vs. vendor-specific solutions)
    2. Should it be treated as part of XHTML-Print, UPnP, or some other group?
    (as opposed to a separate working group)
    3. Who is interested in participarting, as author or reviewer?

    If there is sufficient interest I will prepare a more complete proposal.

      Thanks,
      Elliott

    ------------------------------------------
    Elliott Bradshaw
    Director, Software Engineering
    Oak Technology Imaging Group
    781 638-7534



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