[Fontinst] Re-encoded ligatures and searching

[Jonathan Sprinkle]

> > I have a font created by Goudy for the University of California 
> > identify in the 1930s, and encoded as a TTF by Beatty 
> designs in 1995. 
> > The trouble is, Beatty designs is a bunch of hacks when it 
> comes to encoding the font.
> 
> In short: just get rid of questionable TTFs and go directly 
> to the original source in one of the major libraries (Linotype, Adobe,
> Agfa/Monotype) and get a bonafide Type1 font set.

Hmmmm. :) Unfortunately, as you can see from my e-mail suffix, the font
choice is somewhat limited to the resources that I have--i.e., I need to use
the UniversityOS (as it's named) font because I am designing things for the
identity of UC Berkeley. ;)

The font itself ships with TTFs, as well as the AFMs and PFBs that actually
use the same encoding as the TTFs (i.e., the TTFs are the originals, and
their lousy encoding goes over to the type1 definitions as well).

> If you need the special design of the font in question and 
> there is no good source you can try to make a Type1 first and 
> rename characters with more or less comfortable tools. For 
> Type1 you could even as a last resort use t1disasm and rename 
> manually all the MAc-made mess.

I was not familiar with this program, but it seems to be what I need, if
there is no way to 'fix' this problem without re-encoding.

My concern, though, is that since this is a copyright'd font perhaps I am
violating the copyright by performing this re-encoding.

> It might look like a big expense to actually purchase good 
> fonts but given the time and trouble it takes to "repair" a 
> mess my recomendation is to go the clean way. My guess is 
> that will pay off quite fast and you can concentrate on 
> contents instead on bugs of bad tools. No other software 
> lasts as long as font programs!

I totally agree. :) Of course, when given dirty fonts, why is it difficult
to fix the problems? For expert encodings, it seems that the ligatures map
well--is this because they are correctly mapped in the expert raw font?

Any advice or ideas appreciated,
Jonathan