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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!ora!camb.com!tinkelman
From: tinkelman@camb.com (Bob Tinkelman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.fonts,comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: REPOST: Making a small caps font
Message-ID: <1991May18.012759.39747@camb.com>
Date: 18 May 91 06:27:55 GMT
References: <1991May3.093653.8120@pronto.mh.nl>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.
Lines: 26

In <1991May3.093653.8120@pronto.mh.nl>, jv@mh.nl (Johan Vromans) writes:
 
> Given a downloadable PostScript font (PS and AFM file), is it
> possible to create a SmallCaps font for it, by munging the AFM file
> only? 

No.

Given the PostScript font, you can create another PostScript font, which
is `small caps'.  It's pretty straight forward.  I did it as one of my
first non-toy PostScript programs several years ago, when the DVI-to-PS we
were using didn't support small-caps.  Since then I've seen other people's
solutions to the same problem (there's now one in every dvi2ps, dvips,
dvitops, etc) and like most of them better than mine.  As I recall there
were a number of small gotchas that I didn't think of the first time
through.  One was ligatures.

You should be able to take the original AFM file and produce a new one
with font metrics based on the original, assuming the small-caps were
produced using a fixed scaling factor (eg. 0.6).  You can also produce
kerning info for the new small-caps by scaling the ones for the big-caps. 
However, I think you're stuck for the big-cap-to-small-cap kerning pairs. 
The old AFM just doesn't have the information you'd need to figure out the
kerning between a big-cap-T and a small-cap-H.
-- 
Bob Tinkelman, Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc., 212-425-5830, bob@camb.com