Re: flexfax: textfmt

[David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>]

[ Re-wrapped to internet standards ]
> We are sending fax from text files that we print in compressed mode,
> i.e 132 colomns. Is there a $^%&%^ way to do it simply ? I tried to use
> smaller fonts etc..but it does not do what i want. This is too small. In
> fact, i try to find a way to reproduce dot matrix behavior when it
> compress the text. The font stays at the same height but is compress to
> fit in 132 colomns.

This may be inadvisable with faxes, because of the limited horizontal
resolution++, but, given that there isn't much demand for very narrow 
mono-spaced fonts, I think you will need to change the code to stretch
a normal font.  You can either change the prologue to use a postscript
scale operator to shrink everything in x direction, or you can specify an
asymmetric font transformation when you load the font (makefont instead
of scalefont).

In the former case, you may have to adjust the code that deals with
line lengths.  In the latter case, you may need to adjust the code that
deals with font metrics.

Before doing this, I would suggest trying the following:

- use a small font, but increase the line height to compensate;

- print in landscape with a small font (this is the most common solution to
  wide printout);

- set the text into postscript with an external utility.

Note, simple setting of mono-spaced text into postscript needs less than
a page of code if you don't parameterise it and don't do word wrapping.

++ standard faxes have a higher resolution horizontally than vertically,
   you are trying to compromise the resolution in the dimension in which
   the designers considered most resolution was needed.