Re: ttf2pk for TeX Live 4

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

At 06:16 1999-03-23 +0000, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

>   I'm rather confused by the fact that there are tfm fonts from type1
>   fonts on the texlive cd that correspond (at least the name !) to
>   some ttf fonts commonly found on windows (New Century Schoolbook
>   and so on).

Err, not quite.  The TrueType font is called "Century Schoolbook".
Also, what "name" are you refering to?  Fonts have many names including
PS FontName, PS FullName, Font Menu Name (Windows Face name 
in Windows or QuickDraw Menu name on the Mac), TTF Full Name,
font file name, etc.

>Well, many foundries sell the identical typeface in TrueType and in
>PostScript format.  

In addition, in many cases there are related but not identical typefaces in
T1 and TT format that have matching metrics so one can be substituted 
for the other without too dramatic differences.  But such "clones" while
having identical metrics can often be distinguished by typographic detail.
And typically do have different names - even if only slightly different.

For example, Windows comes with Times New Roman in TT format, which 
is used as a substitute for Times Roman in T1 format.  And Arial in TT format
is used as a substitude for Helvetica, and Courier New as a substitute for
Courier.  In each case the metrics match, but the shapes are distinguishable
if you know what to look for.

>Theoretically, no differences should appear in
>shape (nevertheless, I dare to say that for very small sizes
>resp. resolutions, TTFs yield better results because of the hinting
>program

Urban legend :-)  Since TrueType has an inferior rasterizer it has to have more
complex hinting to make up for drop-outs and other errors.  This means that
good hinting of TrueType fonts takes about an order of magnitude more work
than good hinting of Type 1 fonts.  As a result most commercial Type 1 fonts
are fairly well hinted, while most TrueType fonts are not.  The exception being
the core Windows fonts (done for MS by Type Solutions and MonoType) and
the core Apple fonts, and *some* of the fonts from MonoType, but not all.

For an  interesting comparison see:

http://www.yandy.com/compare.htm

There are also some links there to additional information on hinting.

>  resp. bitmap strikes built into the font), 

This seems very rare, except on the Mac perhaps where the 72 dpi screen makes
for a tougher rasterizing job than Windows 96 dpi or 120 dpi.  And there T1 fonts
typically come with "screen font" bitmaps.

>but I fear that  life is different, and that the shapes *do* differ thus a different
>typeface name or a variant flag is needed.

>In case the fonts are really equal, the mktexpk script is set up that
>the PS incarnation is found first, AFAIK.

>So it might be nice to have an install script for TTF/PS fonts which
>warns if a identically named PS/TTF font is installed already.

Regards, Berthold.



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