How to Generate Font Reports as PDF Documents

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Erwin Denissen
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How to Generate Font Reports as PDF Documents

Post by Erwin Denissen »

It is very easy to generate PDF documents that contain font reports. You need to have a virtual printer driver installed that creates PDF files instead of printed output. There are numerous products that can do this, for example pdf995 and pdfFactory. Now within MainType print a font report, and make sure you have selected the virtual printer driver that creates a PDF file.

Note: Printing to a virtual printer can cause problems due to bugs in the virtual printer driver. Also printing inactive fonts through a virtual printer that doesn't embed fonts will most likely fail. Updating the driver might help.
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

Bhikkhu Pesala has designed several fonts. One of them is Garava that has been specifically designed for body text in Buddhist Publications. Here is a PDF document of the Garava Character Set that was printed with MainType.
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

Here is another PDF document that contains the Verajja Character Set. Bhikkhu Pesala used MainType to print the Character Set to pdf995. Pdf995 is a printer driver that does not really print to a printer but creates documents in the popular PDF file format.
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Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

I found that CutePDF seems to do just as good a job as PDF995, but without the nag screens. It also seems to be faster, and very much faster than PDF Factory.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

Yes that one is probably one of the best PDF document creators.
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Re: How to Generate Font Reports as PDF Documents

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Erwin Denissen wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:05 pmNote: Printing to a virtual printer can cause problems due to bugs in the virtual printer driver.
While testing this I ran into a critical bug with the Foxit Reader Printer driver. I deleted Foxit Reader some time ago, but the printer driver was still listed.

All seemed to be going well for about half of the 34 pages, then Windows showed the blue screen of death. I have now removed the printer driver, and have no wish to try again. If you have an up-to-date version of Foxit Reader installed, and want to try printing font samples to a PDF file, be aware that there might be a problem. CutePDF worked just fine for me.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
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