Which soft font switch options are best?
The soft font switch options are Autoload, IdNames, Permanent, Temporary, and None. They are fully documented JetPCL User Guide. Choosing the options that are best for your application can be an important process since the output from JetPCL can vary based on these options!
Because JetPCL comes with a set of SFT files, it is recommended that the Autoload switch be used so that any SFT files on disk are autoloaded at the start of each job. Keep in mind that any SFT files created by JetPCL and saved after the job is finished will also be autoloaded when using the Autoload option.
Most older applications will download a complete HP downloadable soft font at the start of each job or at some printer initialization time. Any of these fonts will then be available for selection and printing during that job. For applications that follow this model the Autoload, IdNames and Permanent options causes JetPCL to be most efficient. This is because the Permanent option causes a SFT file to be created for each HP downloadable soft font that is encountered and the Autoload option allows them to be selectable in subsequent jobs as if they were previously downloaded. The IdNames option causes the SFT file names to be uniquely associated with its FontId number. This configuration would support users that download HP soft fonts to the printer at the start of the day and selected them throughout the day without re-downloading them at the start of each job. This configuration is also efficient because soft fonts are converted from HP format to JetPCL format only once and are thereafter used very quickly. For these reasons we recommend using the -Saip switch for applications that follow this model.
Unfortunately, most newer applications do not follow this model! In some newer applications the PCL produced may download HP soft fonts that are incomplete, inaccurate, or contain incorrect font selection data. When an application is doing this JetPCL may produce incorrect output, because fonts are stored according to their selection data, and because future jobs may think that a .SFT file that was created under these circumstances is complete when, in fact, it is not. Fortunately, this situation can be avoided by using the Temporary option. The Temporary option will force all HP downloaded soft fonts to be stored according to it's PCL font id and erased after each job. This is not as efficient but is safe. For this reason we recommend using the -Sait switch options.
The very best setup would be as follows:
• Make a list of all the HP PCL downloadable soft fonts on your system.
• Process each of these files using JetPCL with the -Snp switch and erasing the resulting output file. This will create .SFT files for each of their real HP PCL downloadable files. These files will use the attribute naming convention.
• Set all future JetPCL jobs to use the -Saip or -Sait switch options. This will cause all the newly created .SFT files to be used by autoloading. Any new HP PCL downloaded soft fonts that the application might sent to the printer will be treated as either permanent font Id related (in the first case, Saip) or as font Id related temporary files (in the second case, Sait). In either case the newly created SFT files will use the font Id naming convention.