Is this a bug?

Ulrik Vieth vieth@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 17:00:09 +0200


> Anyway...  I got fontinst to run on:

> \latinfamily{pck}{}% Caslon Book BE
> \latinfamily{pckx}{}% Caslon Book BE
> \latinfamily{pck9}{}% Caslon Book BE

> With these afms present:

> pckb7d.afm

I'd prefer to call it pckbj8a.afm, given that OsF fonts have a full
set of glyphs, of which only a few differ from the normal font.
Anyway, these fonts aren't used, as the oldstyle digits, if any,
are taken from the expert fonts.

> pckb8a.afm
> pckb8x.afm
> pcki7d.afm

Should be pckri7d.afm or pckrij8a.afm, but don't forget the `r'!

> pckm8a.afm
> pckm8x.afm
> pckmc8a.afm
> pckr8a.afm
> pckr8x.afm
> pckrc8a.afm
> pckri8a.afm
> pckri8x.afm

> And I noticed three strange things:

> Firstly, that fontinst seemed to be running something like 1/5 of
> the speed I'd seen previously.  Have the recent modifications slowed
> it down, or should I look for another cause?

I don't think it should have slowed it significantly, but the number
of kerns might have some effect.

> Secondly, the pck8r.fd was created correctly, but pckx8r.fd and
> pck98r.fd weren't.

It should have created 8rpck.fd, 8rpckx.fd and 8rpck9.fd, followed by
the same for OT1 and T1.

> And thirdly, the resulting fount families: pck, pckx, and pck9
> appear to be identical when I print a test sheet.  In particular, I
> only get oldstyle numerals with small caps, but I get them with pck,
> pckx, and pck9.

The first \latinfamily{pck}{} should have produced 7t and 8t fonts
without oldstyle, since the expert set isn't used.  Similarly, a 
\textcompfamily{pck}{} should produce 8c fonts with missing glyphs
in the slots for oldystyle digits.

The small caps fonts will have oldstyle digits as their default set.

The second \latinfamily{pckx}{} should have produced 9t and 9e fonts
with expert glyphs (e.g. ff-ligatures), but without oldstyle numbers.
\textcompfamily{pckx}{} should produce 9c fonts with oldstyle numbers
and perhaps a few more expert glyphs than are available in 8c.

The third \latinfamily{pck9}{} should have produced 9t and 9e fonts
with expert glyphs (e.g. ff-ligatures) and with oldstyle numbers.
These should actually be called 9o and 9d, as per Alan's v1.511.
\textcompfamily{pckx}{} should produce 9c fonts identical to the
previous case.

Independent, of whether or not you get expertized 9t or 9e fonts,
the small caps fonts will always have oldstyle digits by default.

> Can anyone explain these observations?

> In particular, I'd like to know exactly which (virtual) founts are
> supposed to end with oldstyle numerals, and what difference there is
> supposed to be between pck, pckx, and pck9.

Hope I just did.  

Cheers, Ulrik.

P.S.  Given that we already have 9* encoding names, I'd really like 
to get rid of using `9' as a variant letter.  Can we agree on 'j' ?

Furthermore, would it be acceptable to hack fontinst, so that
\latinfamily{<fam>9}{} automatically does \latinfamily{<fam>j}{} ?