Hi Hasan,
please have a look.

HI->PL: Do we have a problem here?

So which fonts does it not find ? Please not (fixed) issue 12936 which
left certain type 1 fonts unfound.

Please read that "note" instead of "not"

I just sent an attachment illustrating the issue (using 1.1beta2 -- same problem in 1.0.1 and 1.0.3.1).  
I have 346 fonts installed, with about one-third Type 1 fonts and the rest True Type fonts.  The ones 
showing in the previously sent .png file are the only ones to show up in any version.  I want my font 
replacements to match those in OOo documents, not a very limited sub-set of them.

I can understand that. But where are the unfound fonts ? Are they to
be found in the X font path ? Can they be found using
/usr/sbin/chkfontpath ? Or are they stored somewhere else entirely ?

I don't have chkfontpath.  Don't need it.  All my fonts are found in 
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType and (same directories)/Type1.  Every 
program finds them.  OOo finds and uses them.  Only spadmin cannot use 
them.  BTW, this has been the case in 1.0.1, 1.0.3.1 and now 1.1b2.  
It shows a very limited set of fonts.  I have no fonts anywhere else 
except in the OOo font directory (where I had to put the TrueType 
fonts since OOo 1.1b2 could only find Type1 fonts -- which is another 
issue as 1.0.1 and 1.0.3.1 found both types).

Are you talking about the "To" box on the font substitution page ? If
yes, then the limited choice contains what it should: the printer's
builtin fonts. This is what the printer fontsubstitution was designed
for: it should enable you to transparently map specific fonts to
printer builtin fonts to make the PostScript file produced smaller
(e.g. replace "Arial" by "Helvetica" which looks the same but is built
into the printer so you don't need to download "Arial"). The printer
font substitution is not a replacement for the font substitution
inside OOo which you get with tools->options->OpenOffice.org->Fonts,
that one enables you to replace arbitrary fonts by other fonts.

No!!  It's not in OOo, itself, but in spadmin > Properties.  Clicking 
the Font Replacement tab brings up a table with four boxes underneat.  
The one marked "by printer font" has a VERY limited number of fonts.  
It does not have all the Type1 fonts nor any of the TrueType fonts, 
and the Epson C80 will support one heck of a lot more fonts than are 
shown.

That's exactly what i said: the font substitution in spadmin is
supposed to enable you to replace fonts by printer builtin fonts; that
is why the "to" box only contains the fonts built into the printer.
For the same reason the printer's builtin fonts are missing from the
"from" box. This is simply meant as a replacement for fonts that can
be simply replaced by the printer's builtin fonts. Builtin fonts are
neither TrueType nor Type1 fonts, they don't need to be downloaded to
the printer (which is the whole point of the font replacement in
spadmin). If your printer supports more builtin fonts than are
available then you should use the correct driver (actually a PPD file)
that states to spadmin which fonts are built into the printer. But
actually i doubt that your Epson C 80 contains any printer builtin
fonts as it is an inkjet; these depend mostly on downloaded fonts. The
fonts you are seeing at all come from the "Generic PostScript" driver
you are using - which is actually a good approximation as the
"builtin" fonts in this case actually are built into ghostscript which
renders the PostScript output of OOo to the binary format your printer
will understand.

If you want to substitute arbitrary fonts for other fonts because of
design reasons, you can (and should) do this directly in OOo on the
font substitution page of the tools->options dialogue.

Okay.  Where am I getting something wrong here?  Ghostscript shows all my fonts. 
 As this is the base driver for my printer, I would think that would dominate.  
On the other hand, I use cups for almost all my printing (rather than lpr) and 
that, too, has all the fonts.

I may have an idea, but it's too ill-formed to express.  I will check with 
another source and, if it's verified, than I will accept that the problem is a 
system one rather than a problem with OOo.

Let me rephrase: what is the feature you hope to gain from the font
replacement table in spadmin ? Why do think, all your system's fonts
should appear in the "to" box of the font replacement table ?

To print what I want to print, how I want it to print, I have to delete a number 
of "substitutions" found in spadmin.  Some I want to replace with Times New 
Roman (Times does not look the same), and Arial instead of Helvetica.  I cannot 
do that with the limited set of fonts.  Apparently this is something very 
difficult.

But that you can easily do within OOo itself on the font subtitution
table in tools->options ?

According to these comments, there is absolutely no need for a 
substitute font or font replacement in spadmin.  I was under the 
apparently mistaken impression that setting font replacements here was 
for overall ease in printing documents sent by others.  If I am 
correct and spadmin is simply an unnecessary extra tag-along in 
spadmin, why not get rid of it entirely?

Because the font substitution list in OOo does not know about printer
builtin fonts. The idea of the font replacement table in spadmin is
just that: replace arbitrary fonts by builtin fonts that look the same
to save PostScript file size (like Arial -> Helvetica, Times New Roman
-> Times). This depends on the individual printer and therefore must
be regulated on a per printer basis - which you do with spadmin on
Unix and inside your printer driver on Windows.

i hope we agree that the functionality already exists in OOo

closing

I understand now that I was correct in how I understood what spadmin did, and my 
original request for enhancement (or fixed bug) stands.  My printer natively 
supports Times New Roman (which prints quite differently from Times -- the 
appearance is much nicer in TNR than in Times).  It is also on my software, yet 
there is no way to use it as a substitute font in spadmin.  My only option (not 
explained anywhere) is to remove all substitution fonts from spadmin.  That is a 
workaround, but requires some careful thought on the part of the user.

If printer fonts are not in fact included in spadmin (two of the "substitution" 
fonts are NOT supported by my printer), then I need a way to add supported 
substitute fonts.  This is not possible in any current version of OOo.

Either it needs fixing or send a "won't fix" reply.

OOo takes the information which fonts are built into the printer from
the PPD (PostScript Print Description) file used. If Times New Roman
is not present, then the reason probably is that you are using the
"Generic  Printer" PPD which in that case would not be appropriate -
that is if your printer is a PostScript printer at all. If it is not,
then you will never ever see a font really built into your printer at
all since the PostScript will be rendered by ghostscript to accomodate
your printer which does not use builtin printer fonts at all.

Okay, let me get this straight.  spadmin only reports the correct fonts used by 
the printer if it is a postscript printer (a tiny fraction of those actually in 
use).  If this is true, it should be added to the description.

My guess is that this is not a true statement (at least not completely), but that 
there are a default set of substitutions hardcoded into spadmin and those 
substituted fonts are the only ones showing up as available for use as substitute 
fonts in OOo.  If that is the case, it would be helpful if it were noted 
somewhere and users would be directed to use the font substitution table in the 
main program rather than the font substitutions in spadmin.

Let me put it this way: I would rather have the option of using Helvetica or 
Arial rather than having spadmin assume that I always want Helvetica instead of 
Arial.  Having it hardcoded once caused weird behavior when I had a system 
without Helvetica or Arial -- apparently because both were in the font 
subsitution table of spadmin (that's a guess as to what was happening).

In other words, it seems poorly thought out, but, not understanding just what it 
is really intended to do (given the explanations I've gotten from this issue, I'm 
not sure it's clear if it is intended to do anything useful for most users), I 
can't make any suggestions for it.

It was my understanding that it provided a way to use a font that was supported 
by the software but not the hardware by enabling useable fonts that the printer 
could use.  I've got a number of these, but none of the substitutions are clearly 
marked where I would expect them to be -- in spadmin.

I suppose this might be a enhancement request to be resolved some time in the 
distant future. I now have a better idea what spadmin is supposed to do, but, 
having said that, my conclusion is that it is useless for most users (almost all, 
actually) and might create problems with some where the default spadmin 
substitutions are not what are wanted.  Given that most people have to be guided 
to use spadmin, I expect this is some of the reason that some users are unhappy 
with the printed results.

The default substitutions are not hard coded but reside in the
printers.conf file in the <office>/share/psprint directory. If you
don't want this replacement, simply remove it for your printer or turn
of the whole replacement table in spadmin for your printer.

And the font replacement is not for enabling soft fonts, it rather
replaces soft fonts by printer builtin fonts. There is no reason to
"enable" soft fonts as they work on any printer.

Okay.  I think I've got it.  I still don't see the purpose for
spadmin's font substitution table and I see it as a possible irritant
for some users who don't know it's there.  I guess we can consider it
a "Won't fix", but I find myself even more puzzled by why it exists at
all.  What issue is it addressing?

Just one further comment.  If spadmin normally gets its fonts from the
printer, wouldn't it be better for it to have no font substitutions
listed where they are not applicable to the printer?  As it is, I'm
not the only one confused by this as some emails I have seen indicate.

I still have no idea what the "printer fonts" on spadmin are supposed
to be as they do not reflect either the system or the actual printer
fonts, but it looks like no one wants to make this understandable (at
least to me -- I may be thick-headed), and it is certainly not an
issue with anyone else I've seen, so I'll just go ahead and change it
to Wontfix (I guess that's the correct setting).

closing issue