Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!rochester!ken
From: ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: TeX vs. PS (.tfm files)
Message-ID: <1989Jun28.175531.8966@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 89 17:55:31 GMT
References: <8634@cadnetix.COM>
Reply-To: ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap)
Distribution: comp
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 29

|	I am trying to bring up TeX on our system in cooperation with
|a Laserwriter-compatible printer.  Along with the UNIX TeX
|distribution, I received a tree of files relating to producing PS from
|TeX .dvi files using PS fonts (a filter called "psdvi").  The tree
|included loads of .tfm (TeX font metric) files with names like
|"Helvetica.tfm".  Unfortunately, TeX is looking for scaled files with
|names like "Helvetica9.tfm" for 9-point.  As most of TeX is a black
|box to me (TeX in yields dvi out, and hopefully the right filter
|yields postscript from that), could some kind soul tell me what I need
|to due to create the scaled .tfm files?

TeX is looking for Helvetica9 because somebody wrote the macros as

	\font\sf9=Helvetica9	(or something like that)

Instead, rewrite them as

	\font\sf9=Helvetica scaled 900

and you'll only need one tfm file per face. Naturally, the dvi backend
has to know the right thing to do.

|	The distribution stuff I got includes a version of dvi2ps, but
|I would much prefer to use psdvi and PS fonts, for cleaner, faster,
|and shorter print jobs.  The tape also included Metafont, a bunch of
|mf utilities, etc.

But keep in mind that math typesetting won't work well with PS fonts.
If you stick to ordinary stuff, you'll be ok.