kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Lorenzo" <lomarcan@...>]

--- In kicad-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Thomas Spindler <tsp@...> wrote:

> The (minor) things that I would like to modify are:
> - use a glyph base that has at least some int. chars (UTF-8 0x00..0xff)

That's almost ready :P

> - usa a font that is in the "NORM" as some of our customers expect DIN-ISO 
> tech. drawings

The (in)famous 3098B... IIRC ISO reccomends Arial as a last choice if one HAS to use international characters (outside latin, cyrillic and greek). I actually modified the clamps in drawtxt for 1/10 pen size... I lost bold, but I like it more. Sadly Hersheys predates 3098, but it isn't TOO MUCH different. Of course someone could digitize the iso font (I don't have the shapes for cyrillic and greek anyway... I could give a shot for latin if we choose to not junk the stroke infrastructure; we - as a business - could use the iso font, too...).

> - use a font that has a TrueType instance that allows text search in pdf files 
> coming form kicad

That would happen if and only if the text would come from a show operator. Which means to attach a Type42 font as a resource... it is a can of worms in itself but could be done... this way you lose plotter independency, because gerber and hpgl would be done in a different way...

If I had to redesign the graphic layer I would use just ONE set of drawing routines, treating the screen as a plot area. It's stupid to have all the drawing code duplicated for plotting...

> I prepared a small document that compares the current hershey fonts (as used 
> in kicad now) with an ISO font glyph base and an old autodesk ISO truetype 
> font.

There is also a 'free' shx font, but it is free only for submission to ISO :((