Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!jarthur!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!davidra
From: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: using Fraktur for text
Message-ID: <7701@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 1 Jul 90 23:26:23 GMT
Sender: news@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
Reply-To: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu
Distribution: comp
Organization: Harvey Mudd College
Lines: 51

In article <10495@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, davidra@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (David Rabson) writes...
>Mr. Hosek (dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu) asks us not to use Euler Fraktur for
>text.  Understanding his concern, I will yet point out that one gets
>reasonably good results by changing a few parameters:
>\magnification=1000
>\baselineskip=16.8pt

>\font\eufm=eufm14                               %Black Forest Font

>\fontdimen2\eufm=.333em
>\fontdimen3\eufm=.166em
>\fontdimen4\eufm=.110em
>{\eufm
>Once upon a time, in the great Black Forest by the Rhine,
>there lived an evil sorcerer feared
>equally by the villagefolk and by

>etc.
>}
>To my untrained eyes, at any rate, this doesn't look so bad.

Some specific problems with Euler Fraktur as a text font:

  - Interword spacing is fixed... the \fontdimen stuff above does
    a fair job of dealing with this but it must be done promptly
    after loading the font.   
  - There is very limited punctuation provided. One of the more
    notable omissions is the hyphen. \hyphenchar=-1, better
    increase \fontdimen3 a little more.
  - There is no diaresis (umlaut). Now, if you're writing in
    English, this wouldn't be a problem (unless you're writing
    for the New Yorker, in which case you wouldn't be so
    na\"{\i}ve as to leave the diaresis of of ``pre\"empt'' but
    then, The New Yorker wouldn't print an article in Fraktur in
    a million years. However, Fraktur is a German face and is
    most likely to be used in a German context. And der
    Pr\"asident der DANTE (The German TeX Users Group) is not going 
    to be very happy if you try to call him der Prasident. 
  - The spacing around letter is wrong for quality text
    typesetting. In math fonts, it is desirable to have more
    interletter spacing than one normally has in text. This means
    that ${\frac F}(1) = 0$ will come out fine but {\frac ist
    nicht sehr guht}.

-dh

---
Don Hosek                         TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont Consulting and
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu         production work. Free Estimates.
dhosek@ymir.bitnet                
uunet!jarthur!ymir                Phone: 714-625-0147