[Fontinst] OpenType and unix/linux and tex

[Hilmar Schlegel]

Marco Kuhlmann wrote:
> 
> * "Ulrich Dirr" <ud at art-satz.de> (2003-03-24 08:40):
> 
> > You mean pfaedit reads the correct original OT tables (does it handle
> > kern classes?) for producing the afm files?
> 
> As far as I can see it, yes (two times).  The resultig AFM files are huge;
> for the MinionPro-Regular (> 1000 characters), they take up several MBs.
> 
> > I've looked at AJensonPro-Regular with the FDK and it produces a pretty
> > killing 1MB afm file (StartKernPairs 46701 ...) plus 639 char metrics. I
> > can't see any easy way to get all this into TeX. And BTW even FontLab
> > has difficulties producing perfect type-1 versions.

I'm in doubt that you get from FL exact representations of the original
font program in Type1 format, which would be essential for not ending up
with several copies of the font in distilled pdfs (UniqueID must match
the set of subroutines exactly). I'd guess you create simply another
font - which might certainly be handy for a local application...

> Of course you cannot use the complete AFM file with TeX.  What I was
> suggesting is that you split up the OTF into several PFBs + AFMs.  It is
> understood that you loose a lot of information this way (eg, a lot of the
> kerning data), but to me, this seems to be the only viable way at this
> time.

I'd suggest rather to work with AFM subsets (the PFB has not to be
dealed with by TeX). Because only certain encodings are usable (kind of
base, expert, symbol, Greek &c) one can only make use of the
corresponding kerns. The size is then about 9000 pairs (200kb) for omn.

Hilmar Schlegel

###