[Fontinst] How to install math fonts.

LarsHellström Lars.Hellstrom at math.umu.se
Sat Feb 1 23:59:59 CET 2003


At 07.23 +0100 2003-02-01, texjana wrote:
>Dear Subscribers,
>
>I have installed Adobe Garamond font using fontinst 1.8. This works
>well to typeset text. But to typeset math I need to install math
>fonts. I have tried MathInst. But it is not working properly on my
>system. I could not trace the problem. Can any one suggest how to
>install math fonts.

As Walter wrote, it requires experience, patience and hard work to create a
math font installation that matches a given set of fonts. I believe the two
main reasons are that:

* Most typefaces don't contain all the glyphs you need, so one has to
borrow glyphs from other typefaces.

* Even for the glyphs that are available, you don't know all the metrics
needed for math typesetting, since the font designers never determined them.

Therefore you cannot expect to make a decent installation without doing a
lot of fine tuning yourself.


However, when it comes to specific typefaces, there is always the chance
that someone else has already done most of the work. Marjan Jerman
mentioned having used one such set of fonts in her(?) PhD thesis. I
similarly wrote my PhD thesis [1] using a set of math fonts combining
AGaramond and the CM math fonts (mainly created by my colleague Frank
Wikström). I can certainly share the TFMs, VFs, FDs, and STYs with you, if
you think they can be of use. Perhaps Jerman could do the same; I have no
idea which set would look best.

Lars Hellström

[1] My thesis can be found in http://abel.math.umu.se/~lars/diamond/, in
case you want to see for yourself what the fonts look like.




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