i18n_printing(5) File Formats Manual i18n_printing(5)
NAME
i18n_printing - Introduction to internationalized printing support
DESCRIPTION
The operating system's optional subsets with worldwide support software provide special features to meet requirements for printing nonASCII
text. These features include: Print filters for codesets other than ASCII. Among these are generic PostScript print filters (pcfof and
wwpsof) that can be used with a variety of printers. Outline and bitmap fonts for different languages Software on-demand loading (SoftODL)
of user-defined character fonts for Asian bitmap printers Codeset conversion between source file and printer
This reference page describes these features and how to enable them.
GENERIC PRINT FILTERS
Unlike the print filters discussed in the following section, generic print filters are neither printer specific nor limited to printers
from a particular vendor.
The pcfof generic print filter operates on both text and PostScript input files and supports ANSI, PCL, and multilanguage PostScript print-
ers. Although fonts required for the print job must reside on the printer, the filter does include support for codeset conversion. See the
pcfof(8) reference page for information about setting up a printer with this filter.
The wwpsof generic print filter operates on PostScript files generated from CDE applications or text files. The filter uses settings in a
printer customization file (PCF) to find the font glyphs for local language characters and then embeds the font data in the PostScript file
sent to the printer. The filter uses PostScript outline fonts, if installed on the local system, or bitmap fonts, which the filter obtains
through a font server. This means that print jobs containing characters other than English do not have to be sent to printers where sup-
porting fonts are resident. Furthermore, because this filter works as a font server client, local language bitmap fonts do not have to
reside on the local system. The wwpsof filter verifies that the characters being printed are valid in the current locale and uses the
locale setting to find appropriate fonts. Therefore, locale must be set appropriately for print jobs handled by this filter.
The wwpsof filter requires that the printer support PostScript Level 2 (or higher) or PostScript Level 1 with the composite font extension.
See the wwpsof(8) reference page for information about setting up a printer with this filter. See xfs(1X) for information on setting up a
font server.
PRINTER-SPECIFIC PRINT FILTERS
The worldwide support software provides additional text and PostScript print filters for local language support. These filters are sensi-
tive to the user's locale setting and include country-specific features, such as space compensation mode for Thai printing.
The following list names the print filters and the printers with which they are used. Note that text filters do not support PostScript out-
put but PostScript filters can support both text and PostScript output. cp382dof, a text filter for the Traditional Chinese (Hanyu) CP832D
printer dl510kof, a text filter for the Korean DL510 printer la280of, a text filter for the Japanese LA280 printer la380cbof, a text filter
for the Simplified Chinese (Hanzi) LA380CB printer la380kof, a text filter for the Korean LA380K printer la380of, a text filter for the Ja-
panese LA380 printer la84of, a text filter for the Japanese LA84 printer la86of, a text filter for the Japanese LA86 printer la88cof, a
text filter for the Simplified Chinese (Hanzi) LA88C printer la88of, a text filter for the Japanese LA88 printer la90of, a text filter for
the Japanese LA90 printer ln03jaof, a text filter for the Japanese LN03JA printer ln05jaof, a text filter for the Japanese LN05JA printer
ln10jaof, a text filter for the Japanese LN10JA printer ln82rof, a PostScript filter supporting the DEC Kanji codeset for the LN82R printer
ln82rof_sdeckanji, a PostScript filter supporting the Super DEC Kanji codeset for the LN82R printer ln82rof_SJIS, a PostScript filter sup-
porting the Shift JIS codeset for the LN82R printer thailpof, a text (generic Thai bitmap) filter for the Epson 1050+ printer
Note
The Chinese text print filters, which print either Hanzi or Hanyu characters, can automatically convert between the two sets of characters.
Conversion is enabled when either the flocale value (set in the /etc/printcap file, lpr command, or lp command) or the user's locale set-
ting differs from the printer locale value. See printcap(4) and lpr(1) for more information about setting these values.
A reference page exists for each print filter; however, reference pages for the ln82rof, ln82rof_sdeckanji, and ln82rof_SJIS filters are
available only in Japanese.
The following table lists for printer-specific text filters the characteristics that can or must be defined in the /etc/printcap file. An
asterisk precedes keywords (defined through the ya symbol) or other symbols that are mandatory for the filter. Symbols are described in the
printcap(4) reference page. The keyword assignments for the ya symbol can also be specified as keyword assignments for the -A option on the
lpr command line. See the lpr(1) reference page for keyword descriptions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Text Filter Option Keywords for ya Symbol Other Symbols
-------------------------------------------------------------------
cp382of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
dl510kaof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la280of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la380cbof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la380kof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la380of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la84of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la86of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la88cof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la88of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
la90of flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
ln03jaof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
ln05jaof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
ln10jaof flocale,line,odldb,odlstyle,*plocale *ys,yt
thailpof line,onehalf,spcom,tacdata,plocale *yp
-------------------------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT OUTLINE FONTS
The worldwide support software provides a large set of outline fonts for printing files in various languages. Depending on how many local
language support subsets are installed on your system, there may be more than 150 outline fonts available.
Fonts are available according to codeset. To identify which fonts are available for the codeset of the file you want to print, see the sec-
tion on fonts in the reference page for that codeset. For example, to find out which outline fonts are available for DEC Hanyu, refer to
the section on fonts in dechanyu(5).
Note that Tru64 UNIX does not include PostScript outline fonts for the ISO8859-4 (Lithuanian) and Japanese codesets.
SOFTWARE ON-DEMAND FONT LOADING (SOFTODL)
SoftODL is a mechanism through which a terminal or a printer can download the relevant bitmap font information for a user-defined character
(UDC) at the time the character needs to be displayed or printed. The local language bitmap printers for multibyte languages (specifically
for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean) can support this feature. See odl(5) for more details on the SoftODL mechanism.
The following list names, by language, the print filters and printers that support the SoftODL mechanism: Chinese: For the CP382D Tradi-
tional Chinese dot-matrix printer controller For the LA88-C Simplified Chinese dot-matrix printer For the LA380-CB Simplified Chinese
graphic line printer Japanese: For the LA84-J dot-matrix printer For the LA86-J dot-matrix printer For the LA88-J dot-matrix printer For
the LA90-J dot-matrix printer For the LA280-J dot-matrix printer For the LA380-J graphic line printer For the LN03S-JA laser printer For
the DEClaser 2300 laser printer For the DEClaser 2400 laser printer Korean: For the LA380K graphic line printer
To enable SoftODL printing in these printers, the system manager can define the ys symbol in the /etc/printcap file. The value 256 is a
safe value for all the printers; however, printer-specific values are found in the reference pages for the print filters.
The system manager can also set the default SoftODL database, font style, and font size by defining the odldb and odlstyle keywords for the
ya symbol. Users can override these defaults including these keyword assignments in the argument to the -A option of the lpr command.
Refer to printcap(4) and lpr(1) for more information on defining symbols and assigning values to keywords..
CODESET CONVERSION
For languages such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese, which require multibyte codesets, there is sometimes more than one codeset in common
use for the language. The encoding scheme used by a local language printer cannot match all the codesets in use for a particular language.
The worldwide support software includes a codeset conversion mechanism to print text files that have a different encoding scheme from the
one used by the printer. Refer to i18n_intro(5) for an explanation of codesets, and iconv_intro(5) for introductory information on codeset
conversion.
For printer-specific filters, codeset conversion can be enabled in the /etc/printcap file or by using the lpr command. In the /etc/print-
cap file, the plocale and flocale keywords are defined for the ya symbol to specify the codeset conversion used by default. The plocale
keyword defines the locale (and indirectly, the codeset) of the printer, and the flocale keyword defines the locale (and indirectly, the
codeset) of the text file. When using the lpr command, which overrides any settings defined in the /etc/printcap file, the same keywords
are specified in the argument to the -A option. See printcap(4) for more information on defining the ya symbol, and lpr(1) for information
on using the -A option.
If the flocale keyword is not defined by the user, files to be printed are assumed to use the same codeset as the one for the user's cur-
rent locale. If the plocale keyword is not specified to indicate the locale of the printer, the locale is assumed to be POSIX. If codeset
conversion is not possible given the current combination of file and printer locale, the file is printed as is.
To print files using multibyte fonts that are built into the printer, the value assigned to the plocale keyword must match the codeset of
the builtin fonts. If fonts are downloaded at print time through the font-faulting mechanism, the plocale value should match the font that
is downloaded for the print job.
The following list specifies by language the print filter codeset and plocale value for printers with builtin fonts: Chinese printer code-
sets and plocale values DEC Hanyu codeset (zh_TW.dechanyu locale) DEC Hanzi codeset (zh_CN.dechanzi locale) Japanese printer codesets and
plocale values DEC Kanji codeset (ja_JP.deckanji locale) DEC Kanji codeset (ja_JP.deckanji locale) DEC Kanji codeset (ja_JP.deckanji
locale) DEC Kanji codeset (ja_JP.deckanji locale) Super DEC Kanji codeset (ja_JP.sdeckanji locale) Shift JIS codeset (ja_JP.SJIS locale)
Korean printer codeset and plocale values DEC Korean codeset (ko_KR.deckorean locale)
The following list specifies by language the codeset and associated plocale values for printers when fonts are downloaded at print time:
Chinese font codeset and plocale values DEC Hanyu codeset (zh_TW.dechanyu locale) DEC Hanyu codeset (zh_TW.dechanyu locale) DEC Hanzi code-
set (zh_CN.dechanzi locale) DEC Hanzi codeset (zh_CN.dechanzi locale) Korean font codeset and plocale value DEC Korean codeset (ko_KR.deck-
orean locale)
The wwpsof filter also does codeset conversion, if necessary. For example, the filter converts characters in Unicode format to characters
in codesets for which fonts are available on the system. However, wwpsof requires only the locale setting for the print job to do this type
of codeset conversion. The filter does not require information about which codeset the printer supports.
SEE ALSO
Commands: lpr(1), lprsetup(8)
Files: printcap(4)
Others: i18n_intro(5), iconv_intro(5), l10n_intro(5), odl(5)
Writing Software for the International Market
System Administration
i18n_printing(5)