ANNOUNCE: Xprint version 009 released!
Roland Mainz
* About Xprint:
"Xprint" is an advanced printing API based on the X11 protocol
which enables applications like Mozilla/FireFox or ThunderBird
to use devices like printers, FAX or create documents in formats
like PostScript, PCL, PDF, etc.
(see http://xprint.mozdev.org/docs/Xprint_FAQ.html#what_is_xprint
for the long explanation... :)
* What's new in version 009:
- New "Ancalagon" font download engine for the PostScript driver
which can download any outline font as subsetted PS Type1 or
PS Type3 fonts, enhancing font quality, printer memory
consumption and gurantees PostScript Level 2+3 compatibility
- PDF output is now supported
- Enhanced support for CUPS
- Spooler autodetection on Linux now allows to select either
CUPS, LPRng or BSD print spoolers automagically
- All platforms (incl. Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD etc.) now fully
support TrueType/OpenType fonts (previously this was only
supported for Linux)
- The XTT font API extensions are now fully supported
- Glyph rasterisation is now much better in both quality
and performance
- The default Xprint configuration now uses all fonts defined
by "XF86Config" automatically without the need for manual
adjustments
* Features and benefits:
- Automatic configuration and lookup of available local and
remote printers (which works with all spooler systems on all
Unix/Linux platforms, including CUPS, LPRng, AIX, *BSD, HP-UX,
Solaris, etc.)
- Support for (per-printer/per-locale/per-server/etc.) custom
printer configurations (incl. values like list of available
paper sizes, trays, orientations, fonts, resolutions etc. etc.)
- Support for printing MathML
- Support for printing with any fonts supported by the X11
subsystem (e.g. TrueType, OpenType, PS Type1, PCF, BDF, etc.),
enabling applications to print languages and scripts like
Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Indic (Devanagari,
Tamil, etc.), Japanese, Korean, Polish, etc.
- Support for printing on printers which do not have the required
fonts installed (e.g. automated font download)
- Support for very flexible, fine-grained central and/or per-user
configuration (e.g. per-user, per-machine, per-network,
per-locale etc.)
- Support for localisation (l10n) and locale-specific preferences
(for example: en_US locale uses US-Letter as default paper
size, de_DE uses DIN-A4 etc.)
- No update of Mozilla/FireFox/ThunderBird required - the new
version of Xprint even works with old Mozilla versions like
Mozilla release 0.9.8 (=you only need to update the Xprint
server to get the new features on the client side) ...
* Links:
- General information:
- Main site (info, documentation, downloads, bug reporting,
mailinglist etc.):
http://xprint.mozdev.org/
- Xprint FAQ:
http://xprint.mozdev.org/docs/Xprint_FAQ.html
- Mozilla.org's Xprint module project pages:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xprint/
* Downloads:
- Release page + release notes:
http://xprint.mozdev.org/releases/
- SourceForge download page (Linux RPM/SRPM/tar.gz, etc.):
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=50927&package_id=44655&release_id=225712
- Xprint Debian package page:
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xprt-xprintorg
* FireFox 0.8 Linux/x86 users: Please READ
http://xprint.mozdev.org/pipermail/xprint/2004-April/000194.html first!
--
__ . . __
(o.\ \/ /.o) roland...@nrubsig.org
\__\/\/__/ MPEG specialist, C&&JAVA&&Sun&&Unix programmer
/O /==\ O\ TEL +49 2426 901568 FAX +49 2426 901569
(;O/ \/ \O;)