Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!umb!candy
From: candy@umb.umb.edu (declarer/Karl B./dummy)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Standard font formats.
Message-ID: <626@umb.umb.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 88 21:16:29 GMT
Organization: UMASS-Boston, Boston, MA
Lines: 16

The gf (generic font) and tfm (TeX font metric) font formats developed
as part of the TeX project are standards to a certain extent. Such
files do not depend on the host architecture, are completely in the
public domain, along with code that reads and writes them, and were
developed over a period of about eight years (for gf) and four (for
tfm). In particular, tfm files are more general and technically
superior to afm (Adobe font metric) files, except (possibly) for being
binary instead of ASCII. (I personally don't read AFM files for
entertainment very often, so it doesn't matter much to me; I'd rather
be able to read binary files faster. Font files are never going to be
on the bestseller list.) Perhaps the biggest problem with tfm files is
that they are limited to 256 characters; many programs like having a
few fonts that are huge (e.g., Interleaf and Bitstream) instead of
many fonts that are relatively small.

Karl.    karl@umb.edu     ...!harvard!umb!karl