Re: [matplotlib-devel] Subsetting fonts in Postscript

[Michael D. <md...@st...>]

Carl Worth wrote:
> You might take a look at what kind of PostScript and PDF output you
> get from cairo right now, (since cairo has many different kinds of
> font subsetting, (type3, type42 and others), and it's regularly being
> tested on as many PostScript and PDF viewers as possible).
>   
Thanks for the tip.  Indeed, using the unicode_test.py example (which 
probably has a greater than average amount of text in it), the file 
sizes are (with the size of the font section is parentheses):

    backend_ps.py:  135763 (127211)
    cairo: 49102 (39669)

Interestingly, the non-font part is slightly larger for Cairo (9433 vs. 
8552)
> I don't know if there's anything special about the PostScript output
> you're currently producing that wouldn't make it acceptable to use
> cairo's PostScript output directly. But even if you just want code,
> it's inside cairo under the LGPL.
>   
It may be worthwhile to look at Cairo's font subsetting code if it's 
determined that the Python Postscript backend has other advantages.  I'm 
sure people who've been here longer than I have can better speak to 
those pros and cons.

Cheers,
Mike