Xref: utzoo comp.text:1384 comp.lang.postscript:69
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!sdcsvax!nosc!humu!uhmanoa!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: versatec font -> Postscript
Message-ID: <1358@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 21 Dec 87 12:48:53 GMT
References: <158@asuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)
Lines: 29
Keywords: postscript, Berkeley Font Catalog
Summary: Hershey data -> Postscript

In article <158@asuvax.UUCP> system@asuvax.UUCP (Marc Lesure) writes:
>Has anyone tried to convert the Berkeley Font Catalog to Postscript?
>Our old versatec has been replaced with a postscript laser printer and we
>... ptroff ...

Well, some of those fonts are derived from the Hershey data base, and
there is a way to construct PostScript fonts from that.  The fonts are
analytic, in the form of a PS program, and are constructed of lines.
I don't know whether they can be used with ptroff (you'd have to
construct appropriate files with character-size data, somehow), but
they can be used with TeX.  Probably somebody has a better way -- this
is rather involved ...

You need:
  (1) the Hershey database, which is in the mod.sources archive,
      volume 4, named "hershey" (in 5 parts),
  (2) Hershey utilities, in the mod.sources/comp.sources.unix
      archive, volume 12, issues 40-44, named "hershtools", and
  (3) Hershey utilities update, perhaps to appear soon in
      comp.sources.unix, or if not, in comp.sources.bugs, or
      available by email from me, on request.

Then perhaps after some exploration to see what characters are
available in the database (which includes thousands of "oriental"
characters) and constructing various intermediate files, you
can construct the PS fonts, and also pl files which can be
turned into TeX tfm files with the pltotf utility.

Greg Lee, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu