Re: fontinst 1.801 -- still worse

[Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>]

Berthold K.P. Horn writes:
 > There are TFMs for the 2230 fonts in the Adobe library at 
 > http://www.YandY.com/usely1.htm :-) (done in about 10 minutes).
if only LY1 was the encoding i wanted :-}

 > Yes, and for the pleasure of that tiny percentage of TeX users,
 > the rest have to suffer not being able to use Type 1 fonts.
 > Look at the steady stream of questions from clueless people
 > on c.t.t. --- which is only starting, but will become a deluge once
 > people really start to use scalable outline fonts more widely.
..
 > I have nothing against using complex methods
 > when you have complex needs, but it is arrogant in the extreme
 > to prevent the unwashed masses from using Type 1 fonts just
 > because you want to show off how smart you are.
well, some points (are we getting serious now?)

 a) most people don't have a menu with "WriteTFM" on it. It seems
reasonable, in the TeX world, to promote portable, free,
solutions. People who want to can buy better solutions from you, but I 
want to cater for the lowest common denominator

 b) in our `free' world, dvips cannot grok TrueType fonts; thats
probably a far bigger barrier to common use than the metrics

 c) nobody demands that you use fontinst. afm2tfm is simple and easy
to use, like WriteTFM. fontinst is there if you want its extra
facilities.

 > Why cripple AFM2TFM so it can't be used for "normal" use?
 > (Fortunately there is a work around: 
 > http://www.yandy.com/maketfm.htm).
interesting. i wish afm2tfm had more control though, over things like
the size of spaces.

 > In order to save bandwidth, I did not mention "Font > WriteTFMs"
 > which will do all installed fonts, or, optionally only Type 1 or
 > only TrueType, or, optionally only text or only non-text fonts,
 > or, optionally only "new" fonts :-)
oh well, i tried. you caught me out

 > I use AFMtoTFM and gain free time that way to do *real* fun things :-)
 > 
does WriteTFM just call "AFMtoTFM"? or does it have its own converter?

Anyway, this is all beside the point. I know you don't think people
*should* be using eg "mathptm", but if we accept that they want to,
can you explain how to build it using AFMtoTFM? or would you just
suggest we rewrite the macros?

incidentally, i think we should all agree to set checkums to 0 in all
our metrics, to avoid these questions about them...

sebastian