The user reinstalls fonts with PFM files that were initially generated by the installer.In some situations, such as when the user reinstalls existing fonts without the aid of the FINSTALL.DIR file, the installer automatically protects against generating duplicate PFM files. There are two potential situations:
The user reinstalls fonts with PFM files that were initially generated by the installer.
The user reinstalls fonts that were initially provided by the font vendor (that is, either on the distribution disks, or built by a utility provided by the font vendor).
To reinstall fonts, the user starts the Printer Font Installer, chooses the Add Fonts button, and directs the installer to read font information from the directory containing already installed fonts. Then the user installs fonts into the same directory. The installer prompts the user if fonts should be replaced. If the user responds yes, the installer proceeds to replace every font.
The installer provides a unique name for each PFM file. In this situation, the
installer would give a unique name to a PFM file that was a duplicate of an
existing PFM file. For example, suppose the first time a user installed a font, the installer generated a PFM filename XYZ0.PFM. When the user reinstalled the font, the installer would generate a second, identical PFM file named XYZ1.PFM.
To prevent duplicate PFM files on the disk, the installer contains a protection mechanism. If the “magic number” in the PFM filename is not zero, then the installer compares the contents of the PFM file to the other PFM files sharing the same name. If it finds a duplicate, it erases the PFM file it just built and uses the already existing PFM file.
This mechanism prevents the installer from placing duplicate PFM files on the disk. However, it does not address duplicate names when PFM files were originally supplied by the font vendor.
Note:
If the user originally installs fonts provided by a font vendor and then reinstalls without use of an FINSTALL.DIR file, the installer will replace the vendor-supplied PFM files with its own generated PFM files. It does not re-move the PFM files from disk; rather it adds its own PFM files and uses them. Because the installer's PFM generator is not as accurate as the font vendor's PFM files, the installer may actually end up renaming the fonts, which causes confusion for the user.
The user should never reinstall soft fonts from and to the same directory without the aid of an FINSTALL.DIR file. Because the installer contains the ability to automatically generate an FINSTALL.DIR file of the already loaded fonts, there really is no reason for reinstalling fonts without the use of an FINSTALL.DIR file.