Version: (using KDE 4.2.90) Installed from: Ubuntu Packages I just discovered this: http://www.ecofont.eu/en_pro_ecofont_professional.html A "new" method of manipulating fonts in the moment of print to save ink. It sounds really cool and it would be nice to have this implemented in the KDE printing system. It might be complex, I do not know how much, but its really cool, useful and ecological :-)
A fine idea assuming it does actually work, but unfortunately a proprietary closed solution that requires paying a fee. The secret sauce does appear to lie in making 'hole-y' versions of the fonts, then having an easy way to switch to them when rendering the print job. As such the bulk of the work would lie with the font designers producing the hole-y fonts and so it would be better starting with them. Someone like the Liberation font guys would be a good place to start. Once the fonts would be available, then some automatic font substitution method would be needed which we would have to investigate whether its best done or doable at app, Qt or CUPS level depending.
As I understand they do not provide new altered fonts. They have an algorithm manipulating the fonts the user is working with when he uses the print command. So the secret sauce would be not to create all these fonts, rather for someone to create such an algorithm and implement it.