existence of "pcl2text"??

Henry Spencer henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org
Mon Oct 27 22:33:11 UTC 2003


On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, Peter L. Peres wrote:
> > And the same is true of PostScript, but nevertheless it is *usually*
> > possible to extract the text from PostScript.  Most PCL output has text
> > as characters, not as graphics.
> 
> Maybe but not the one I saw. Since PCL cannot download fonts (it can
> download bitmaps and use them as tiles I think but only some versions)...

Sorry, not correct, PCL has provisions for downloading both bitmap and
scalable fonts.  Don't confuse the limited implementation present in some
printers with what's possible in a printer that implements the whole thing.
See chapters 9 and 10 in "HP PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference
Manual".

> ...Post Script is different because the
> font set for Post Script is standard and infinitely scalable (vector fonts
> rendered at the desired resolution by the print engine).

A full PCL implementation can do that too, although admittedly that's
rather less common than merely the ability to download bitmap fonts
(which a lot of PCL printers can do).

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org


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