[GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS GIS] #1349: Ps.map supports only english

[GRASS GIS]

#1349: Ps.map supports only english
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 Reporter:  annakrat     |       Owner:  grass-dev@…              
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new                      
 Priority:  minor        |   Milestone:  6.5.0                    
Component:  Ps.map       |     Version:  unspecified              
 Keywords:  encoding     |    Platform:  Unspecified              
      Cpu:  Unspecified  |  
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Comment(by glynn):

 Replying to [comment:2 mlennert]:

 > The problem is that
 >
 {{{
 iconv -f UTF-8 -t ISO_8859-1 utf_file > iso_file
 }}}
 >
 > will not work if the utf_file contains special caracters which are
 defined in ISO-8859-2.
 >
 > I don't know how/if Postscript handles UTF-8. a2ps and enscript can
 create Postscript files from text encoded in ISO-8859-2, but they cannot
 transform UTF-8 text into Postscript files.

 The '''real''' problem is that !PostScript's handling of encodings is an
 unmitigated fiasco.

 !PostScript itself defines precisely 2 encodings: !StandardEncoding is a
 decidedly non-standard encoding used by !PostScript alone, while
 !ISOLatin1Encoding is ISO-8859-1.

 The !PostScript Language Reference Manual also describes some additional
 encodings which aren't actually part of the language: CE (Central
 European) is Windows codepage 1250, Symbol was designed mainly for the
 Zapf Dingbats symbol font (similar to Wingdings on Windows), while Expert
 and !ExpertSubset are basically ASCII plus an entirely arbitrary set of
 symbols. These additional encodings aren't part of the language or the
 implementation; they're just recommendations for font creators.

 !StandardEncoding and !ISOLatin1Encoding are predefined names in
 systemdict, whose values are encoding vectors (arrays of names, usable as
 the Encoding property in a font dictionary). If you want to use any other
 encoding, you first have to define the encoding vector yourself (which
 requires knowing the !PostScript names for the various glyphs).

 You also have to know the name of a font which has those glyphs and which
 you can reasonably expect to be provided by the implementation (i.e. the
 printer or the user's Ghostscript installation). The language only
 requires the existence of Times, Helvetica, and Courier (and bold and
 italic or oblique versions thereof) plus Symbol, and only requires those
 fonts to provide the glyphs required for !StandardEncoding and
 ISOLatin1Encoding (or, for the Symbol font, the Symbol encoding).

 Version 3 of the reference manual also documents CID-keyed fonts, which
 are required for languages with many glyphs (i.e. Chinese, Japanese,
 Korean). However, it only documents the overall mechanism, not any
 particular encodings. It's also rather incomplete, directing the reader to
 Adobe technical notes on several occasions. Anyone who actually
 understands this stuff probably works for either Adobe or a Japanese
 printer manufacturer.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1349#comment:3>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>