psfonts.beta

[Drahoslav Lim <drahosla@isi.ee.ethz.ch>]

Hello All!

(Please forgive any ignorance, I just got on the list.)

One often hears the phrase `despite all of its problems' about
T1 encoding; other than not having misc. symbols (which aren't
_letters_ anyway) *what* are the problems? - I run a modest-sized
(La)TeX setup, and in my experience using T1 makes the whole thing
rather idiot-proof, in addition to non-English support, etc.
I have made T1 the default, and there haven't been *any* problems
about something breaking (in a year, 50 users and 5 languages).
I just tell users to export PostScript, at 1200dpi if they have to,
not DVIs, precisely because one cannot assume other installations
have T1 fonts at all, and most users don't know T1 encoding
from a T1 tank;-)  Couldn't one just declare 8r as `U' and use it
only for the symbols it has, rather than a `text' font?

A related subject, (which was mentioned yesterday), is
the problem of accent placement: If T1 is really going to be accepted
as a standard on par with ISOLatin-x, the accented letters
have to look as perfect as can be. This is tricky, because the
accents need slightly different placement at different magnifications.
Now almost anything is better than \v{C} in OT1 (as was mentioned by
Metod Kozelj). Still, a few letters, particularly the ones which are
not in 8r directly nor have a PCC description, look rather out
of kilter compared to well typeset books, and could be fixed-up
without resorting to `design sizes' or customizing for every
font by a few (more) tweeks to latin.mtx.

Is this something that has been / is being considered, or 
are such things more-less done and unchangeable now?

A final question: I bought the `Bitstream500 CD' which to my (untrained)
eyes has rather good bug-free and hinted Type1 fonts for an ok price.
Do many people have this CD so as to warrant making up and releasing 
metrics, etc. for LaTeX? The only significant deficiency is the the
lack of `expert sets' on the CD. (Perhaps people knowledgeable
about fonts consider this CD to be lousy?)

I would be happy to contribute in any way I can --- just point
me in some direction.

 Thanks to all `perpetrators' and accomplices!

  Cheers,

         Drahoslav L\'{\i}m

    ____________,_______________________________
   | Drahoslav Lim                              |
   | ISI-ETFD103, ETH Zurich CH 8092 Switzerland|
   | Tel +41 1 632 3616                         |
   | Fax +41 1 632 1208                         |
   | drahosla@isi.ee.ethz.ch                    |
   |____________________________________________|