Printer Fonts for HP Printers

Windows NT includes fonts for Hewlett-Packard PCL, DeskJet, and PaintJet printers.

HP LaserJet Printer Fonts

In Windows NT, all HPPCL (LaserJet) printers are supported by the HPPCL.DLL or HPPCL5MS.DLL minidrivers. Additional LaserJet III scalable outline fonts are available from Hewlett-Packard as cartridges or downloadable soft fonts. With the HPPCL drivers in Windows NT, downloadable outline fonts can be installed with the Font Installer.

HP DeskJet Printer Fonts

The HP DeskJet Printers are ink-jet printers. The Windows NT driver for the Hewlett-Packard DeskJet printer family supports Windows NT vector screen fonts, DeskJet internal fonts, soft fonts, and TrueType. DeskJet printers can print at resolutions of 75, 150, and 300 dpi. Without font cartridges, the DeskJet includes only the built-in Courier and LinePrinter fonts. Cartridges can be selected in the Printer Properties dialog box. At this time, font cartridges for DeskJet printers are available only from Hewlett-Packard.

DeskJet soft fonts are installed with the Font Installer. To use downloadable fonts on the DeskJet printers, you must install either HP22707A or HP22707B RAM cartridges. When you set printer memory in the Printer Properties dialog box, make sure to specify the total amount of RAM cartridge memory if more than one cartridge is installed.

DeskJet internal, downloadable, and cartridge fonts will not work in landscape orientation. This is a hardware, not a driver, limitation. For landscape mode, print with Windows NT vector screen fonts such as Modern or Roman.

HP PaintJet Printer Fonts

The HP PaintJet is a color ink-jet printer. The Hewlett-Packard PaintJet driver in Windows NT composes a full page at a time in 180x180 dpi resolution and outputs the page to the PaintJet as a large bitmap. This produces the highest possible quality of output, but results in very large spool files. For improved printing speed, it is recommended that you choose the Print Directly To Ports option in the Details dialog box in Printer Properties. This option prevents the creation of spool files.

The PaintJet driver supports the printing of PaintJet internal fonts, Windows NT raster and vector screen fonts, PaintJet soft fonts, and TrueType. The same considerations apply for printing raster screen fonts on the PaintJet as for using the 24-pin dot matrix printers in 180x180 dpi resolution (see "Dot Matrix Printer Fonts," earlier in this chapter). PaintJet soft fonts are not downloadable fonts. They are used internally by the driver, which places them as necessary into the full-page bitmap during page composition. The font itself is never sent to the printer, except as part of the full-page bitmap.

PaintJet soft fonts, which have a .PJF filename extension, are installed with the Font Installer. Windows NT supports PaintJet soft fonts for Courier 10-CPI and Letter Gothic 12-CPI and 18-CPI. Additional soft fonts can be obtained from Hewlett-Packard. Scalable PaintJet soft fonts are also available from Hewlett-Packard in the HP Color PrintKit (HP part number 17390A).