fontinst with 8y.etx

[Thierry Bouche]

I'm trying to generalize the audience of this debate. 

The question is: why did we choose 8r rather than something else. 
The main question at the time i write seems to be: is there an
encoding that could insure portability of PDF files across platforms
(including Windows & Macs...) that would be functionnally equivalent
to 8r (i.e. making visible all adobe 228 glyphs + ff-ligs when
available). 

For instance: is there a way to combine LY1 & Melissa's Mac mods?

Concernant « Re: fontinst with 8y.etx », Hilmar Schlegel écrit : «
» Ulrik Vieth wrote:
» > 
» > Thierry wrote:
» > 
» > > BTW, if LY1 is functionnally equivalent to 8r, why 8r ?
» > 
» > Good question.  Personally, I find 8y (or LY1) slightly less arbitrary
» > then 8r.  Both provide access to all the glyphs available in standard
» > PostScript fonts, they just use a slightly different arrangement.
» 
» No, there is a an essential difference: LY claims to be Acrobat-Reader
» proof when making PDF. If that works in any case, esp. on a Mac is not
» perfectly sure but it circumvents the most obvious traps.

Well, does there exist something working proprely on unices, macoses &
windowses95-99/Nt? 
Doesn't that whole question seem surrealistic to you, talking of some
_portable_ doc format???!!

» On the other side it is promoted with the argument to avoid the need of
» VF - which is only important for Dvi-interpreters not capable of doing
» VF and not relevant in the context of fontinst. 

This is also the reason for fontinst making ligfull 8r TFMs. That was
a request from a Mac user, as far as i remember.

» 
» > Since hardly anybody seems to be interested in typesetting directly
» > with 8r, while OTOH Y&Y does promote typesetting with 8y (regardless
» > whether or not you may find that adequate for non-expertized fonts),
» 
» Well, there is the difficulty that fontinst generated LY encoded TFMs
» are quite different from those made by the Y&Y tools. This leads under
» certain circumstances to a big processing overhead due to the fact that
» fontinst is rounding metric data to a grid of 1 AFM unit while the Y&Y
» tools do not round metric data. 

but y&y doesn't put its ton of LY1 TFMs on CTAN, and they don't
conform to karl berry names? 

» Also due to different checksums it is
» not straight forward to mix "raw" fonts from Y&Y and VFs made by
» fontinst.
» 

this is indeed a problem, meaning that y&y LY1 TFMs could be of some
use to other users, but fontinst's TFMs could'nt be used with an y&y
system? 

» > using fontinst to install 7t/8t/8c on top of 8y (and 8x, if available)
» > might turn out a compromise that could make eveyone happy?  WDYT?
» 
» From the Tex view it is completely irrelevant which
» all-Standard-Roman-Character-Set encoding is used. For the purpose in
» question it is however necessary or at least of desire to add a few
» things to LY1 to make complete T1 fonts from fonts which provide some
» additional characters. This applies especially to Eng and A, E-ogonek
» which are usually not provided as composites. Postscript level 3 fonts
» will provide them.
» LY is not optimal in the sense that it contains several repeated codes
» and therefore has less space for additional useful characters which some
» fonts might provide - the advantage is mainly to cover the majority of
» standard fonts without the need of a special installation.
» 
» If one keeps the little details in mind LY1+ works just fine.
» 

that is: as fine as 8r?

Thierry