Xref: utzoo comp.fonts:362 comp.text:2669 comp.lang.postscript:1078 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!mrd From: mrd@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Michael DeCorte) Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.text,comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: METAFONT & PostScript Message-ID: Date: 25 Oct 88 22:46:32 GMT References: <902@cps3xx.UUCP> <10417@s.ms.uky.edu> Sender: mrd@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University Lines: 78 In-reply-to: sean@ms.uky.edu's message of 22 Oct 88 23:31:59 GMT smithda@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Daniel Smith) writes: >METAFONT translates source code describing fonts into bit maps, and so >does PostScript. The difference is that PostScript does it when the >document is printed, and METAFONT does it when the font itself is >created. I began to wonder if anyone has tried to make METAFONT spit >out PostScript outline fonts? [lots of other useful observations] I have been thinking of how to do this for quite some time now. There are a few things that have to be first examined: (I am calling these things .psf for PostScript fonts) 1) As I understand it, under postscript, when you scale a font you are doing the equivalent of magstep under TeX. This is unacceptable for TeX. Therefore it won't be possible to have cmr.psf but there is nothing to stop you from having cmr10.psf. There are several advantages to this: a) it is portable between different PS printers of different resolutions b) it should be portable between write-white and write-black engines c) the .psf file may be smaller than the cmr10.pk but I am only guessing d) the cmr10.psf file will DEFINITELY be smaller than the cmr10.pk @ magstep 0,0.5,2..5. (I really like this) e) it may be faster to download as you don't have to download multiple mag of the same font and it may even be possible to make the cmr10.psf very small by having a set of ps libraries that you download before any fonts 2) if we ever get a PostScript previewer on our Sun, I won't have to have fonts at every size and dots/inch know to mankind 3) this could be generalized for vector output devices in general. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to use that 4105 to preview? I suppose you could get plotters going also. 4) internal PostScript fonts will be easier to handle I assume, as they will be handled the same as external fonts. 5) it will be necessary to use the .tfm files or duplicate them in the .psf file. I think it is better to just use the .tfm file 6) this is probably portable but... Donald Knuth spent a lot of time figuring out how to make a { look like a }. Did Adobe? Rounding leads havoc on low res fonts. 7) we will have to redo LaTeX's definition of fonts. With all of these fonts that we now have available, it will be necessary to have a font defined in three parts: family, style, size. Eg. right now we have Computer Modern, Italic, 12. We will have Helvetica, Bold, 10. This means that you would to choose a font you would do something like \rm\it\large or \hv\bf\normalsize. If you only want to change the style of the font from bold to italic but nothing else you would only do \it. Likewise, to change the family but not the size or style you would only do \rm. One minor problem is that \rm stands for Computer Modern not Roman. 9) If the .psf fonts are defined correctly, it will be possible to use fonts from TeX in non TeX stuff. -- Michael DeCorte // (315)268-2292 // P.O. Box 652, Potsdam, NY 13676 Internet mrd@sun.soe.clarkson.edu // Bitnet mrd@clutx.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ Clarkson Archive Server archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu archive-server%sun.soe.clarkson.edu@omnigate.bitnet dumb1!dumb2!dumb3!smart!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!archive-server ------------------------------------------------------------