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From: greenber@swatsun (Peter Greenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Question about Troff Fonts
Message-ID: <1054@thebes.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Apr-87 18:35:06 EST
Article-I.D.: thebes.1054
Posted: Tue Apr 14 18:35:06 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 12:56:14 EST
References: <1906@epistemi.UUCP> <1987Apr9.191355.2792@sq.uucp>
Organization: Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA
Lines: 67
Summary: Have PostScript? Now you can print in any font your printer has.

In article <1987Apr9.191355.2792@sq.uucp>, murray@sq.UUCP writes:
> 
> In article <1906@epistemi.UUCP> rda@epistemi.UUCP (Robert Dale) writes:
> >Can anyone tell me how I would go about getting access to a proper
> >fixed-width font within troff?  
> >
> >We're using ptroff and an Apple LaserWriter.  I want something like
> >typewriter face that I can use for stuff like program examples; switching
> >into constant space mode while using either Times or Helvetica is pretty
> >ugly.  I'm sure lots of people must have come across this problem.  Have I
> >just not read the manual carefully enough?
> >
> In fact, it should be fairly straightforward.  Since you have an Apple,
> you also have Courier fonts.  I suspect that you should be able to use
> them by selecting Courier with .ft CR.  If, however, you do not have
> font tables for Courier, and your DESC file contains no reference to them,
> you will have to ask your supplier (or someone on the net) to provide
> the tables.

I agree, but you do not have to contact your supplier (unless you really
want to :-> ). 

When it comes to printing on a PostScript device (like LaserWriter)
with the TranScript package (of which ptroff is a part), having Adobe Font
Metrics (AFM) files for fonts is the key to happy typesetting. If you have
an AFM file for some font that your LaserWriter supports, then you can use
ptroff or enscript to set documents in that font. If you have
no such file, you can only access fonts for which you have no AFM files
directly through PostScript programs. That is kind of fun (writing in 
PostScript, that is) but not practical for real documents.

TranScript comes with AFM files for fonts in the Times, Helvetica, and Courier
families, as well as for the symbol font. The LaserWriter Plus also has
Helvetica-Narrow, Bookman, Palatino, AvantGarde and NewCenturySchlbk font
families as well as ZapfChancery and ZapfDingbats fonts. Since Adobe does not
distribute AFM's for these fonts (at least not to us), you cannot use these 
extra fonts with just vanilla TranScript, which is a shame.

IT IS A SIMPLE MATTER TO GET AFM's FOR ANY OF THESE FONTS, FOR FREE. Just snarf 
my getafm program from net.sources! It will ask your LW or other PostScript 
creature to make you an AFM for any font that it has, and send it back to you.
Just follow the instructions in the posting to get the AFM files. Now you can
use Adobe's enscript program in any of the new fonts. To use ptroff (or pscat,
the program that actually translates troff C/A/T output to PS and through
which ptroff pipes data) you must apply Adobe's own pscatmap program, which
makes troff width files from AFMs for fonts according to a special human-
readable .map file.

Adobe's docs, I think, fail to mention that in creating the .map file, you
never, ever have to touch anything in the character correspondence table (at
least I never did!) All you really have to do is change the font names and
codes in one of their supplied .map files (helvetica.map, for example) and then 
go with it according to the pscatmap man page.

As a final note: ptroff is flawed in the way that it handles requests for font
changes; this is noted on the man page. Don't use requests like .ft CR in
your files. Rather, use only four fonts, and refer to them as R, I, B, and S
(roman, italic, bold, and symbol). This is limiting, but such is life. Note
that with pscatmap, you or your sysadmin can make you "font families" cont-
aining any four fonts that you have AFM's for.


-- 
Peter Greenberg, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081 
AT&T:(215) 328-8384 or 8610
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