TeX fonts, part one [Was: Re: [Fedora-packaging] Proposed amendment to general packaging guidelines: no bundling of fonts in other packages]

[Vasile Gaburici]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 7:25 PM, Vasile Gaburici <vgaburici at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Jonathan Underwood
>>> TrueType fonts can be used used without conversion by pdftex, but TeX
>>> metrics still have to be generated. Other TeX drivers, like dvips and
>>> dvipdfm, can use TrueType fonts only if they are converted to bitmaps;
>>> I don't think this is worth the hassle since the output would suck on
>>> screen.
>>
>> I agree they suck.. but, not doing so would be a problem for legacy
>> users, I fear...
>
> I doubt any legacy user uses »TrueType« fonts while generating
> PostScript from TeX. Most legacy users that still rely on PostScript
> output stick with Type 1 fonts, usually those that come with TeX
> (Computer Modern, standard 35 PostScript fonts), because these can be
> embedded as outlines in PostScript. Using TrueType fonts in TeX for
> PostSript output is no different than using METAFONT fonts: PK bitmaps
> have to be generated at the output resolution. Now, TeX doesn't ship
> any bitmap PK fonts when METAFONT sources are available. TeX generates
> (and caches) them as needed. Remember the old days when you had to
> wait for "kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ..." I'm not aware of any
> program that can do the magic for TrueType fonts, but I haven't used
> TrueType fonts for PostScript output either. My point is that PK
> bitmap generation is not something we want to do at packaging time!

There is actually a way to embed TrueType fonts in PostScript as
outlines: Type 42 is a container that gets sent to the printer as-is;
the printer's PS interpreter needs to be able to handle Type 42 fonts
though. AFAICT ghostscript supports type 42. There are even some FOSS
tools to covert between TrueType and Type 42. It seems nobody bothered
to automate the process for dvips though.

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/programs/xfsft/printing.html
http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/type42.html