Re: fontname postfixes

[Berthold Horn <bkph@ai.mit.edu>]

Hi:

At 23:23 1999-02-22 +0000, Rebecca and Rowland wrote:

>>I personally don't like algorithmic transformations of this nature.
>>If the designer wanted a condensed version he/she would
>>have designed one.

>Not necessarily - fount designers work in a commercial world full of
>commercial pressures.

True.  But there are plenty of such "modified" versions of basic designs
were they seem justified or reasonable available directly from the horse's 
mouth so to speak.  See SC for example:

	http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/C_53.html

And algorithmically slanting a sans serif font is a questionable practice
- while "obliquing" sans serif fonts is less frowned upon, and there
are plenty of those available, starting with Helvetica-Oblique.

>>In any case, this - unlike other things like reencoding - is  PS specific.

>So how come you spend so much time trumpeting the ability of Y&Y TeX to do,
>erm, fount re-encoding, without tying the user to a PostScript method?

I think you misunderstood (or maybe I misunderstand your response).  
The previewer in Y&Y TeX reencodes "PS" Type 1 fonts *without* using
PS tricks.  This seems like a critical capability, particulary in Windows
where you can't get at f-ligatures and dotlessi without this 
(see http://www.YandY.com/art/ly1ansi.gif)
and on the Mac where you can't get at ff-ligatures without it
(see http://www.YandY.com/art/ly1mac.gif)

The previewer also reencodes TrueType font (in Windows NT anyway), 
so its certainly not tied to PS and in fact not tied to ATM even.
Also works for non-PS printers - so again, nothing to do with PS
(we know its trivial for PS of course).

>>  Neither of which is good nomenclature.  Type 1 would be better.

>Not really - it's just another partial name with its own confusion.  It
>just happens to be a partial name that meets your political needs.

Just like Adobe's calling them "font programs" serves their polticial needs :-)?

>>And these Type 1 fonts are most often used *without* any PS interpreter.

>Calling them PostScript Type 1 founts is best.  It removes all the
>ambiguity you get from calling them `PostScript' (only) or `Type 1' (often
>abbreviated to T1) only.

OK, you win, I will call them "PS Type 1" to avoid all possible confusion.
Even though that name suggests to all Unix people that you need PS to use them :-)

Regards, Berthold.


Berthold K.P. Horn	Cambridge, Massachusetts (M)