System for downloading fonts

An apparatus for transmitting a font available from a computer system to an output device capable of interpreting a page description language, said page description language having a download format, said font having a character set and characterized by a plurality of glyphs, comprising:

• a processor;
• a communication port coupled to the processor and coupleable to the output device;
• a data storage device coupled to the processor and containing code for:
• determining whether the character set can be represented in a first storage capacity and if so, downloading the font to the output device using a first font format;
• and otherwise
• determining whether the number of glyphs in the font is below a threshold and
• if so, downloading the font to the output device using the download format;
• and otherwise
• breaking the font glyphs into one or more blocks of glyphs, each of said block having fewer glyphs than the threshold and downloading the blocks to the output device using the download format.

A computer readable medium with instructions for transmitting a font available on a computer to an output device supporting a page description language, said page description language having a download format, said font having a character set and characterized by a plurality of glyphs, comprising:

• code for determining whether the character set can be represented in a first storage capacity and if so, downloading the font to the output device using a first font format;
• and
• code for determining whether the number of glyphs in the font is below a threshold and if so, downloading the font to the output device using the download format;
• and otherwise breaking the font glyph data into one or more blocks of glyph data, each of said block having fewer glyphs than the threshold and downloading the blocks to the output device using the download format.

A method for transmitting a font available on a computer to an output device supporting a PostScript® page description language, said PostScript® page description language having a CIDFont download format, said font having a character set and characterized by a plurality of glyphs, comprising:

• determining whether the character set can be represented in a byte and if so, downloading the font to the output device using the PostScript® format;
• and otherwise determining whether the number of glyphs in the font is below 214 and
• if so, downloading the font to the output device using the CIDFont format;
• and otherwise
• breaking the font glyph data into one or more blocks of glyph data, each of said block having less than 16K glyphs and downloading the blocks to the output device using the CIDFont format.

A method for transmitting a font available on a computer to an output device supporting a PostScript® page description language, said PostScript® page description language having a CIDFont download format, said font having a character set and characterized by a plurality of glyphs, comprising:

• breaking the font glyph data into one or more blocks of glyph data;
• downloading the blocks to the output device using the PostScript® CIDFont format;
• and
• in the output device, stitching the referenced composite glyphs together with glyphs in the current block to define all composite glyphs.