Mapping printer-resident to host-resident font character sets

Often, when a spooled file is created on i5/OS, a font global identifier (FGID) or font ID is specified to be used when the spooled file is printed.

In the case of the 3820, 3825, 3827, 3828, 3829, 3831, 3835, and 3900 printers, font IDs are not supported. Therefore, when the spooled file is directed to these printers, the system substitutes font character sets that allow the spooled file to print on these printers.

The following table can help you determine what host-resident character sets (font character sets stored on the system) are downloaded to a 3820, 3825, 3827, 3828, 3829, 3831, 3835, or 3900 printer when your spooled file refers to a registered font identifier (font ID) instead of a host-resident font character set.

In the case of *CONTENT fidelity, depending on the registered font ID value, the font width value, and the font attributes that are requested for a particular font reference, the appropriate host-resident font character set is selected to match (as closely as possible) your font request.

In the case of *ABSOLUTE fidelity, depending on the registered font ID value, the font width value, and the font attributes that are requested for a particular font reference, the appropriate host-resident font character set is selected to match exactly your font request. The system also ensures, for *ABSOLUTE fidelity, that the character set is compatible with the code page when mapping from printer resident fonts to host-resident fonts.

If the FGID has an asterisk next to it, the appropriate identifier (CHRID) must be specified to match this entry in the font table regardless of what fidelity value has been specified.

The font width specifies the width of the blank character in 1440ths of an inch. This is an indicator of how many characters fit per inch of space on the paper.

Some FGIDs, such as 416, have multiple widths associated with them. The Font width column of the table is blank for these FGIDs. Also, the primary (first choice column in the table) and secondary (second choice column in the table) character set names of these FGIDs have an XX in the last two positions, which identify the size of the font. For uniformly spaced fonts, there are six widths: 84, 96, 120, 144, 168, and 240. For typographic fonts, there are 14 widths: 40, 47, 53, 60, 67, 73, 80, 93, 107, 120, 133, 160, 200 and 240. The system determines whether a uniformly spaced font or a typographic font is needed and then selects the host-resident character set name based on the width provided.

The first choice is used if it is present on your iSeries server. The second choice is used if the first choice cannot be found. The Map fidelity column indicates whether or not the first choice is considered to be an exact match to the printer resident font (font ID) that is requested in your spooled file. As a rule, the second choice is not considered to be an exact match.

If the first choice contains a metric-only font character set name, the system uses the second choice regardless of the fidelity setting. A metric-only font character set name begins with the characters C0E.

If code page (CPGID) 259 (which is the symbol font code page) has been specified, this table is not used. Instead, if the FGID specified is a 10-pitch font, the C0S0SYM2 character set is substituted; otherwise, if the FGID specified is anything other than a 10-pitch font, the C0S0SYM0 character set is substituted.