International Language Environments Guide

`mp` Print Filter Enhancement Overview

The mp print filter is enhanced in the Solaris 9 release. The latest mp can work internally in three different modes to produce the output file in a locale to print international text. The available modes are:

mp working with locale-specific font configuration file mp.conf.
mp working with locale-specific PostScript prolog file prolog.ps.
mp working as an Xprt (X Print Server ) client.

The following sections describe when to use a specific printing method and which configuration and supporting files are used by mp for these printing methods.

Using `mp` with the Locale Specific Font Configuration File `mp.conf`

If the -D or -P option is not given in the command line, this printing method is the default method, unless the prolog.ps file is present in either of the/usr/openwin/lib/locale/$LANG/print or /usr/lib/lp/locale/$LANG/mp directories. The prolog.ps file forces mp to print using PostScript embedded fonts in the file. Even if a prolog.ps exists in a locale, using the -M option ignores the prolog.ps file and uses a mp.conf file, if it exists, instead.

This method uses the /usr/lib/lp/locale/$LANG/mp/mp.conf font configuration file. You may not need to change this file unless you need to print using alternate fonts. This file can be configured with TrueType, Type 1 or .pcf fonts. /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/ contains .ps print page layout files common for this mode of printing as well as the next method. A description of how to customize these files is provided in Customizing Existing prolog Files and Adding New prolog Files.

Using `mp` With the Locale-specific PostScript Prologue Files

If the -D or -P option is not given in the command line, and /usr/openwin/lib/locale/$LANG/print/prolog.ps exists, then the prolog.ps file is prepended to the output. Depending upon the print style of the .ps prolog page, the layout file is also prepended to the output.

This method of printing makes use of PostScript font files only. Customization of prolog.ps files is described in Using mp as an Xprt (X Print Server) Client.

Using `mp` as an Xprt (X Print Server) Client

This support enables mp to print output for any printer connected to the network supported by an X Print Server. PostScript and many versions of PCL are also supported with this command.

If either the -D or -P command opton is used, and no XPDISPLAY variable is set in your environment, the print server startup script starts an Xprt server at port 2100 in the machine in which the client is running. The script also terminates the print server after mp completes. If XPDISPLAY is set, the mp client tries to contact the print server running at XPDISPLAY. In this case, no attempt is made to start the server if it is not running.

.The /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp directory contains .xpr print page layout files for mp working as the Xprt client. These are sample files created for 300 dpi printers. If the target printer has a different dpi value, the dpi value will automatically be converted to the target printer's resolution.

Localization of the Configuration File

Configuration files provide the flexibility for adding or changing font entries, or font group entries.

The system default configuration file /usr/lib/lp/locale/$LANG/mp/mp.conf where $LANG is a locale environment variable in the locale in which printing occurs. Users can have a personal configuration file that can be specified by the -u config.file path option.

A ligature or variant glyph that has been encoded as a character for compatibility is called a presentation form. The mp.conf file is used mainly for mapping the intermediate code points in a locale to the presentation forms in the encoding of the font that is used to print that code point.

Intermediate code points can either be wide characters, or output of the Portable Layout Services (PLS) layer. Complex Text Layout printing requires that the intermediate code points be PLS output. The default intermediate code generated by mp(1) is PLS output.

Font formats currently supported are Portable Compiled Format (PCF), TrueType, and Type1 format. Both system-resident and printer-resident Type1 fonts are supported. Keep in mind the following about the format and contents of the mp.conf configuration file:

Lines must begin with a valid keyword (directive).
Arguments to a keyword must appear on the same line as the keyword.
Lines that begin with a # character are treated as comments until the end of the line.
Numeric arguments that begin with 0x are interpreted as a hexadecimal number.

The different sections in the mp.conf file include:

Font aliasing
Font group definition
Mapping from the intermediate code ranges to the font group in a locale
Associating each font with the shared object that maps the intermediate code points to the presentation forms in the font encoding

Font Aliasing

The font aliasing section of the mp.conf file is used to define alias names for each font used for printing. Each line in this section is of the form:

FontNameAlias font-alias-name font-type font-path

font-alias-name

The usual convention for aliasing a font name is to specify the encoding/script name of the font followed by a letter that indicates whether the font is Roman, Bold, Italic, or BoldItalic (R, B, I or BI).

For example, /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/courR18.pcf.Z, because it is an iso88591 Roman font, can be given the alias name iso88591R.

font-type

Specify PCF for .pcf fonts, Type1 for Adobe Type1 fonts, and TrueType for truetype fonts. Only these three kinds of fonts can be configured in this mp.config file.

font-path

Give the absolute path name for the font files here. For Type1 printer-resident fonts, just specify the font name, such as Helvetica.

For example,

FontNameAlias   prnHelveticaR   Type1   Helvetica

Font Group Definition

You can combine same-type fonts to form a font group. The format of the font group is as follows.

keyword: FontGroup.
fontgroupname: The group name for the fonts.
GroupType: The font type. Create font groups for the same type of fonts only (PCF, Type1, TrueType).
Roman: The Roman Font name in the font group.
Bold: The Bold Font name in the font group.
Italic: The Italic Font name in the font group.
BoldItalic: The BoldItalic Font name in the font group.

For creating a group, only a Roman font entry is required. The Bold, Italic, and BoldItalic fonts are optional. The different types of fonts are used to display the header lines for mail/news articles, for example. If only the Roman font is defined, it is used in place of other fonts.

Mapping Section

The mapping section of the mp.conf files maps from the intermediate code ranges to the font group in a locale. Each line in this section is as follows.

keyword: MapCode2Font.
range_start: A 4–byte hexadecimal value that starts with 0x, that indicates the start of the code range to map to one or more font group.
range_end: Indicates the end of the code range to map. It can be '-' in which case only a single intermediate code point is mapped to the target font.
group: A Type1, PCF, or TrueType font group, with which the presentation forms are to be printed.

Association Section

The association section of the mp.conf file associates each font with the shared object that maps the intermediate code points to the presentation forms in the fonts encoding. Each line in this section is as follows.

keyword: CnvCode2Font.
font alias name: The alias name defined for the font.
mapping function: Takes in the intermediate code and returns presentation forms in fonts encoding, which is in turn used to get the glyph index, and draw the glyph.
file path having mapping function: The .so file name that contains the mapping function. You can use the utility in dumpcs to find out the intermediate codeset for EUC locales.

Note –

The current TrueType engine used by mp (1) can deal only with format 4 and PlatformID 3 cmap. That is, you can only configure Microsoft .ttf files. Additionally, the character map encoding has to be Unicode or Symbol for the TrueType font engine to work correctly. Because most of the .ttf fonts in the Solaris environment obey these restrictions, you can map all TrueType fonts in Solaris software within the mp.conf file.

When you create a shared object for mapping a font that corresponds to a PCF type1 X Logical Fonts Description (XLFD), then create the shared object that maps from the intermediate code range to the encoding specified by XLFD. For example:

-monotype-arial-bold-r-normal-bitmap-10-100-75-75-p-54-iso8859-8

The corresponding PCF font is:

/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_8/X11/fonts/75dpi/ariabd10.pcf.Z

This font is encoded in isoISO 8859-8, so shared objects have to map between intermediate code and corresponding ISO 8859-8 code points.

If a TrueType font with XLFD:

-monotype-arial-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-8

has the corresponding font:

/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_8/X11/fonts/TrueType/arial__h.ttf

you should map between the intermediate code and Unicode, because the cmap encoding for the previous TrueType font is in Unicode. In the example of this TrueType font, suppose a sample intermediate code in the en_US.UTF-8 locale that corresponds to a Hebrew character (produced by the PLS layer) is 0xe50000e9. Because the font is Unicode encoded, design the function within the corresponding .so module in such a way that when you are passing 0xe50000e9, the output corresponds to presentation form in Unicode. The example here is 0x000005d9.

The function prototype for the mapping function should be:

unsigned int function(unsigned int inter_code_pt)

The following are optional keyword/value pairs that you can use in mp.conf:

PresentationForm        WC/PLSOutput

The default value is PLSOutput. If the user specifies WC, then the intermediate code points that are generated are wide characters. For CTL printing, this default value should be used.

If the locale is a non-CTL locale and has the keyboard value is PLSOutput, that value is ignored and the mp(1) generates wide-character codes instead.

You can use the optional keyword/value pairs listed in the following table if the locale supports CTL. These variables can assume any of the possible values given in the middle column of the table.

Table 7–1 Optional Keyword/Value Pairs


Optional Keyword	Optional Value	Default
`Orientation`	`ORIENTATION_LTR/` `ORIENTATION_RTL/` `ORIENTATION_CONTEXTUAL`	`ORIENTATION_LTR`
`Numerals`	`NUMERALS_NOMINAL/` `NUMERALS_NATIONAL/` `NUMERALS_CONTEXTUAL`	`NUMERALS_NOMINAL`
`TextShaping`	`TEXT_SHAPED/` `TEXT_NOMINAL/` `TEXT_SHFORM1/` `TEXT_SHFORM2/` `TEXT_SHFORM3/` `TEXT_SHFORM4`	`TEXT_SHAPED`

Adding a Printer-resident Font

The following example illustrates the steps that you need to follow when you add a new PCF, TrueType, or Type1 printer-resident font to the configuration file.

Replace the font for displaying characters in the range 0x00000021 - 0x0000007f with a TrueType font instead of the currently configured PCF font.

Before adding a new font, look at various components in the configuration file that correspond to the currently configured font, as shown next.

FontNameAlias iso88591R  PCF  /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/courR18PCF.Z
FontNameAlias iso88591B  PCF  /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/courB18PCF.Z
.
.
.
FontGroup       iso88591         PCF       iso88591R iso88591B
.
.
.
MapCode2Font    0x00000020      0x0000007f      iso88591
.
.
.
CnvCode2Font iso88591R _xuiso88591 /usr/lib/lp/locale/$LANG/mp/xuiso88591.so
CnvCode2Font iso88591B _xuiso88591 /usr/lib/lp/locale/$LANG/mp/xuiso88591.so

Suppose you selected /usr/openwin/lib/locale/ja/X11/fonts/TT/HG-MinchoL.ttf as your candidate for doing the mapping in the en_US.UTF-8 locale. Because this is a Unicode character-mapped TrueType font file, in the mapping function within the .so module you only need to have a function that directly returns the incoming ucs-2 code points.

unsigned short _ttfjis0201(unsigned short ucs2) {
                 return(ucs2);
         }

Save this in a ttfjis0201.c file. Create a shared object as follows.

cc -G -Kpic -o ttfjis0201.so ttfjis0201.c

But if you are mapping a PCF file, such as /usr/openwin/lib/locale/ja/X11/fonts/75dpi/gotmrk20.pcf.Z, then look in the fonts.dir file in the /usr/openwin/lib/locale/ja/X11/fonts/75dpi/ directory. Become familiar with the encoding, corresponding to XLFD, which is:

-sun-gothic-medium-r-normal--22-200-75-75-c-100-jisx0201.1976-0

If jisx0201 is the encoding, prepare a shared object that maps from ucs-2 to jisx0201. You need to obtain the mapping table for creating the .so module (if one is not already provided). For a Unicode locale, find the mappings from the many charsets to Unicode under ftp.unicode.org/pub/MAPPINGS/. Follow these mappings(1)(1) in order to write a xu2jis0201.c file:

 unsigned short _xu2jis0201(unsigned short ucs2) {
                         if(ucs2 >= 0x20 && ucs2 <= 0x7d )
                                 return (ucs2);
                         if(ucs2==0x203e)
                                 return (0x7e);
                         if(ucs2 >= 0xff61 && ucs2 <= 0xff9f)
                                 return (ucs2 - 0xff60 + 0xa0);
                        return(0);
                 }

When you create a mapping file, include all the UCS-2 to jisx0201 cases.

cc  -G -o xu2jis0201.so xu2jis0201.c

Creating a Shared Object File

This example creates a shared object file.

Add this font by adding the following lines to the corresponding sections of mp.conf. The following example shows how to add the TrueType font. The PCF font follows the same pattern except that you change the keyword to PCF instead of TrueType.

FontNameAlias   jis0201R TrueType /home/fn/HG-Minchol.ttf
FontGroup     jis0201 TrueType jis0201R
MapCode2Font  0x0020 	0x007f  jis0201
CnvCode2Font   jis0201R 	 _ttfjis0201 <.so path>

where the .so path points to the xu2jis0201.so file.

Invoking mp(1) with the changed mp.conf file causes the range 0x0020-0x007f to be printed in the new font. Map the other Japanese character ranges too with the same .so file, for example, the range 0x0000FF61 0x0000FF9F.

To maintain backward compatibility, the /usr/openwin/lib/locale/$LANG/print/prolog.ps file, if it exists, is used to create output in the current locale, where $LANG is one of the locale components. In that situation, no configuration file mechanism is used.

Refer to /usr/lib/lp/locale/en_US.UTF-8/mp/mp.conf, which is a sample mp.conf file.

mp Print Filter Enhancement Overview

Using mp with the Locale Specific Font Configuration File mp.conf

Using mp With the Locale-specific PostScript Prologue Files

Using mp as an Xprt (X Print Server) Client