Path: utzoo!dciem!array!colin
From: colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Scalable weight fonts
Message-ID: <385@array.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 90 20:32:33 GMT
References: <357@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz>
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 20

This is an area where multi-parameter font generators like Metafont
and (from what I hear) Apple's Royal win big over Postscript and straight
linear scaling.

Somewhere around tenth on my "when I have a year to spare" list is building
myself a font, probably using Metafont.  Unlike the current Computer Modern
fonts, I'd like to try to produce orthogonal parameters, so I could increase
the point size, or change the aspect ratio or the weight of the font, without
changing anything else, and get a decent-looking font.

The way Computer Modern currently integrates several very different styles
(sans serif, typewriter, roman, etc.) into one font description file is
nice, but I'd like a system that didn't have any boolean variables, so
you could really produce a font that's semi-serifed.  Instead of a serifs
flag, a monospace flag, and a fixed-line-width flag, have a serif width
variable, a spacing uniformity variable, and a contrast variable.

Anyway, when I have a year to spare...
-- 
	-Colin