New user question: 8r and 8y

[Melissa O'Neill]

Jeffrey McArthur writes:
> I just recently joined this mailing list, so I jumped into the middle of the
> 8y vs 8r discussion.
> 
> I have a question why people want to move to 8y.  I develop software under
> Windows;  no Mac or Unix stuff.  All I want out of an encoding is that when
> a user types in the key sequence to enter a special or accented character
> the proper character will display on the screen and will typeset in the
> document without any special processing of the file.  Right now, 8r encoding
> gives me that under Windows.  What does 8y give me.  (Portability to
> non-Windows/Intel based operating systems is of absolutely no interest to
> me, nor to the clients I for which I work.)

If you don't mind that using T1+TS1+8r scheme uses three TFM files for
every one TFM file used by the LY1/8y scheme, and you don't care about
generating PDF versions of your documents, there is no reason to change.

However, Y&Y's TeX system is an excellent choice for Windows users who
are prepared to spend money for a TeX system, and if you opt to use
their TeX, then it'd make sense to user thei LY1/8y scheme. With
their TeX system and font scheme it is very easy to use a wide variety
of fonts with TeX without mich trouble, especially if you're a fairly
unsophisticated user who doesn't care about expert sets, old style
figures, size matching, etc. It's probably fair to say that the LY1/8y
scheme was designed with Windows users and their typical needs and
attitudes in mind.

T1+TS1+8r is a wider standard than LY1/8y, but you've already said
that you don't care about portability.

    Melissa.

P.S. LY1/8y reportedly makes better PDF than T1+TS1+8r, but neither
makes PDF which can always be read correctly on all platforms, so I
wouldn't pay much credence to these claims. I believe that a suitable
encoding that exposes all 228 glyphs in a typical type 1 font and
makes PDF suitable for all platforms has yet to be found. This is the
fault of Adobe's buggy Acrobat Reader and/or ATM software, rather than
issues with individual encodings, however.