We addressed this issue back in the early 90s.  We even purchased the
predecessor of the Fantasia product (LJPLUS/3000) for form design.  While
LJPLUS had downloading capabilities it was not well suited for integrating
it into our application.

I wrote a number of SL resident routines, that are still used today, that
programmers can call to 'manage' soft fonts.  A stand alone utility was
also developed, using the same routines, to be used, in batch, by existing
applications.    Also a utility for creating "soft barcode fonts" of
different size was
developed to overcome the requirement of having those expensive barcode
cartridges.

The text below is from the 'help' option of said utility.

Regards
Paul Christidis

    PHC - Font Download Utility (V 98.09.10) FRI, JUN 15, 2001,  2:52 PM

LOADFONT is used to 'download' soft fonts to a laserjet printer. It
prompts for the needed information and sends the assembled data to
the printer without any CCTL characters.

run LOADFONT[;parm=n][;info='help'][;stdin=infile]

Where:
  parm=6 simulates the program's behavior in batch mode. (The only
     difference is that in batch the 'user' input is echoed to the
     $stdlist).

  'help' causes this information to be printed

  infile - name of file with replies, one reply per record, to the
        issued prompts for any number of soft fonts.  The contents
        of the file should 'adhere' to the following format:

         bcfont    !name of font file qualified as needed
         122       !id # to assign to the font ([0]-32767)
         P         !permanent/temporary ([P]/T)
         P         !primary/secondary ([P]/S)
         *list     !output file destination
         *****     !spec separator (if multiple specs)

NOTE:  If a font file has a file code of '601' then the utility
   assumes that said soft font is a CODE39 Bar code font created
   with the 'GENBCODE' utility and with the option that caused it
   to already contain the font ID#, permanent/temporary and
   primary/secondary settings.  For that reason the corresponding
   3 prompts will NOT be issued.

Paul H. Christidis                         Raytheon Systems Company
(310) 952-4666                       [log in to unmask]

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *