[XeTeX] Multiple Master Fonts

Jonathan Kew jonathan_kew at sil.org
Wed Mar 30 16:55:29 CEST 2005


On 30 Mar 2005, at 3:10 pm, Will Robertson wrote:

>
> On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:21 PM, Jonathan Nicholl wrote:
>
>>> What format do MM fonts need to be in to work in Mac OS X, and where 
>>> did you come across them? They're no longer for sale, right? :(
>>
>> MM fonts are still for sale. You can get them from www.fonts.com. 
>> (Just do a search for 'MM' in the 'Quick Font Search' box.) What's 
>> more they are relatively cheap. ($22 or $44 for the basic fonts, 
>> somewhat more for the expert sets.) OS X seems to treat Adobe MM 
>> fonts just like any other Postscript Type 1 font. You need the 
>> outline fonts and the font suitcases.
>
> Thanks, that's heaps good!
> Let's see...
> Adobe Jenson MM Volume is $44 and Adobe Jenson MM Expert Volume costs 
> $79.20. Minion MM Expert Volume is $118.80. Not too cheap, but not 
> that expensive, either. About right, I guess.
>
> Does anyone know if Jenson works correctly in Mac OS X (it has three 
> points defined on its optical axis scale, rather than two, making it 
> _weird_).

I'm only guessing, but I don't see why this would be a problem.

>
> And how "OpenType-like" are they? Is the expert stuff accessible in 
> XeTeX with +smcp, for example?

No. There won't be any OpenType Layout tables in LWFN-packaged fonts, 
they'd have to be repackaged as OTF/CFF in order to add those.

And if there were GSUB/GPOS tables, and you load them in XeTeX using 
the ICU engine to get OT layout support, then you wouldn't have access 
to the MM axes, as that's provided through ATSUI.

Sorry... you can't have both!

> On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:30 PM, Jonathan Kew wrote:
>>
>> But in any case, they should probably be considered a historical 
>> curiosity. At some future point, they'll probably break, and it'll be 
>> hard to get anyone to take responsibility for fixing things.
>>
>> Which is too bad. :-(
>
> Indeed, but they're fun while they last!
>
> Mac OS X will be around for a while, I assume though, so while it 
> lives there'll at least be a bit of support for them.

My concern is that I suspect if the existing MM functionality in ATSUI 
on Mac OS X were to break as a result of some other change, Apple might 
not be prepared to invest much in fixing it. They may not deliberately 
withdraw support, but my feeling is that it's not guaranteed to last.

>  Doesn't the Adobe Creative Suite still support them? You never know, 
> they might be reborn one day :)

Not sure, don't have ACS. Yes, that would be very neat. But from how 
Adobe talks, it seems unlikely.

JK



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