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From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: TeX vs. PS (.tfm files)
Message-ID: <4247@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 89 12:27:18 GMT
References: <8634@cadnetix.COM>
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 23

From article <8634@cadnetix.COM>, by pem@cadnetix.COM (Paul Meyer):
" ...
" 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. ...

That's odd.  I don't have the latest version of TeX, but mine looks for
any file <name>.tfm you give it, by issuing a command
`\font\myfont=<name>'.  If the command was `\font\myfont=Helvetica',
then, TeX should look for the file named Helvetica.tfm, and would assume
a point size given as the default or design size within that .tfm file,
probably 10 points.  Since Adobe fonts are scalable, the natural way to
specify a different point size is with the `at' argument, as in
`\font\myfont=Helvetica at 9pt', in which case TeX will scale the
dimensions given in the Helvetica.tfm file down (in this case)
appropriately, and it's up to your PS driver program to pick up the
information TeX leaves in the .dvi file and issue corresponding PS
commands that ask for 9 point Helvetica (or whatever size gives that in
effect).  At least, this is how my version of dvi2ps works -- I haven't
used psdvi.

			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu