Instructions for font installation - Linux
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If you download and attempt to compile AbiWord, you will be 
able to do the Make, but on launch, AbiWord will die with a 
warning about not being able to find fonts, or perhaps not 
being able to find the fonts.dir file. 

With version 0.3.3 of AbiWord for Linux (and other UNIXen), 
font support has been revamped with the goal of being able 
to support true WYSIWYG printing. You'll need to do a little 
bit of work to get things working. Later, when we do pre-built 
binaries, we'll make it easier for normal users by providing 
some sort of installer to help. For now, we assume that if 
you're running AbiWord, you're a Hacker like us. :-)

AbiWord on Linux now requires Type1 PostScript fonts. This 
requirement allows us to ensure that the same font is being 
used for printing as is being used on the screen. The net 
effect is WYSIWYG printing, an effect which Windows and Mac 
users take for granted, but which is not always easy to achieve 
on UNIX-like systems.

AbiWord can use any Type1 font, as long as you have the pfa 
file AND the afm file. AbiWord uses the afm file to obtain 
metrics for printing purposes. AbiWord continues to use the 
X11 server for actual font drawing support. So, it the key 
configuration issue is that both AbiWord and your X server 
must be able to find the fonts.


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In all, getting this setup requires three easy steps:

STEP ONE: Get your fonts and put them somewhere. For your 
convenience, a collection of type1 fonts are available from 
AbiSource as a separate tarball in the downloads directory. 
We usually put them in the Abi source tree under 
abi/src/wp/lib/unix/fonts, and there is a fonts.dir file at 
that place in the tree which matches the fonts we distribute. 
In fact, the fonts tarball is intended to be untarred at the 
same level as the AbiWord source code tarball, and will 
automatically place the fonts in that location. BTW, the fonts 
in our tarball were obtained from the GhostScript distribution.

STEP TWO: Make sure the X server can find your fonts. To 
accomplish this, you need to configure your X server's font 
path. One way to do this is

xset fp+ $(DIR_CONTAINING_THE_FONTS) 

Make sure that the directory containing the fonts has a fonts.dir 
file. As you X gurus already know, the X server uses this file 
to figure out which fonts to use.

Note that the source tree contains a fonts.dir file which is 
already configured for all of the fonts in abi-fonts.tar.gz.

STEP THREE: Make sure that AbiWord can find your fonts. To 
accomplish this, you need to set the ABIWORD_FONTPATH environment 
variable to contain the directory where your fonts.dir file is.

So, as an example, let's suppose that you have already untarred 
your AbiWord 0.3.3 tarball in ~/src. Something like the following 
should get you up and running with no problems (assuming a bash 
shell):

cd ~/src
wget http://www.abisource.com/downloads/abi-fonts.tar.gz
gunzip abi-fonts.tar.gz
tar -xf abi-fonts.tar
xset fp+ /home/USERNAME/src/abi/src/wp/lib/unix/fonts
export ABIWORD_FONTPATH=/home/USERNAME/src/abi/src/wp/lib/unix/fonts
./abi/src/wp/main/unix/AbiWord ./abi/src/wp/samples/Interview.abw

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Yes, it is still possible to run AbiWord on a remote display. 
However, you'll have to either setup a font server, or install 
the same fonts on both the client and the server. Doing so is 
left as an exercise for the Hacker.

Yes, it is possible to use your own fonts with AbiWord, as long 
as they are PostScript Type1, and as long as you have both the 
pfa file and the matching afm file. You'll need to make sure 
that your font is included in the fonts.dir file.

You'll notice a distinct increase in the size of the PostScript 
files generated by AbiWord now. This because the Type1 font is 
being included right there in the PostScript stream. Some users 
will want AbiWord to actually use the fonts pre-installed in 
their Adobe PostScript printer, without the need to bloat the 
PS file by including it. We'll probably be adding this kind of 
functionality later.
 