[SLL] Courier 10 Pitch for openoffice 2? font/type detection tools?

[Jeremy C. Reed]

> What tools can I use to look at a TTF, afm, or other files to see what 
> they provide?

Never looked into that yet, but ...

> How can I get Courier 10 Pitch to be recognized with openoffice 2?

I figured this out. (The following is from my blog.)

   I am about to teach a lecture using an Impress presentation, but viewing
   in Openoffice.org 2 looked bad since was apparently missing Courier 10
   Pitch. No message warning me or asking me to suggest replacement. The
   document also uses Courier New and that works fine.

   (I had downgraded from openoffice 3 as the document formatting is broken
   with that and we can't reformat the 500+ slides before upcoming lectures.
   So need to stay with openoffice 2 for now.)

   I see openoffice 2 is bundled with many fonts / types including
   LiberationMono-Regular.ttf which I believe provides my "Courier New". My
   NetBSD system had the other font that I needed:

 $ fc-list : family file | grep -i courier | grep -i pitch
 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/c0583bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch
 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/c0582bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch
 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/c0611bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch
 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/c0419bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch

   (The font-bitstream-type1 package also has these.)

   I searched and searched and read many docs but couldn't find intructions
   for this. The openoffice site was overwhelming and the searching there was
   no help. Finally google led me [11]to this openoffice.org page. I had
   looked at the Printer Administration tool before but didn't notice it was
   for fonts too.

   So here are my steps to get openoffice2 work for Courier 10 Pitch (and
   some other fonts too).

   Ran /usr/pkg/lib/OpenOffice.org2.4.2/program/spadmin tool. Click Fonts...
   button and it showed my current fonts (known to openoffice2). I clicked
   Add... and the checked the "Create soft links only" checkbox. Then clicked
   '...' button for Source directory. Chose new Source directory
   (/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/) and pressed Select and it then showed a
   list of fonts including ones I needed. I chose "Select All" and then "Ok".
   A popup said 28 new fonts were added.

   Symlinks were created in ~/.openoffice.org2/user/fonts/ for .pfa and .pfb
   PostScript Type 1 font files and .afm files. I had to restart openoffice
   for it to recognize this new symlinks -- and it worked.

   Sure seems wrong for openoffice (even version 3) to bundle a huge amount
   of fonts and do its own font management.

  11. http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Font-FAQ#How_do_I_add_fonts_to_OpenOffice.org_2_exclusively
  12. mailto:spamtrap at reedmedia.net