[OS X TeX] How do I instal Mathtime fonts?

[Peter Erwin]

Hi Tore,

>I am still confused (but much less so than 8 hours ago). PostScript 
>fonts require two separate files, one outline file (.pfb) and one 
>metrics file (.pfm), right? I assume that the .pfm can be converted 
>to TeX metrics (.tfm), but what about .pfb? I expect it's here the 
>real work is burried and consequently that .pfb files have a certain 
>marked potential. Bruno mentioned CMacTeX as a possible source for 
>.pfb files, but I'm a Mac newbie and have no previous Mac 
>installation of TeX (could not find any PostScript fonts on my teTeX 
>distribution either). Should I buy the .pfb files from Y&Y, or maybe 
>Blue Sky Research, or is there a clone which can be downloaded? And 
>since we are talking fonts:

CMacTeX has some utility programs which will convert Macintosh printer fonts
(aka LaserWriter or LWFN files) into pfa or pfb format.  But you *do* 
need to have the
Macintosh printer font files first...

(On the CTAN archive, you can find a set of Unix font utilities 
called t1utils, which
will compile and run on MacOS X, if you have the Developer Tools 
installed.  But
they have to be run via command-line in the Terminal, so that may not be what
people want.   I imagine that the CMacTeX utilities are nice GUI 
versions of these.)

If you have a normal teTeX installation (such as Gerben Wierda's), 
there should be
some pfb files in the subdirectories under:
    /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf/fonts/type1/
For example, there are pfb files for Utopia in adobe/utopia/, the Blue Sky
PostScript versions of Computer Modern are in bluesky/cm/, etc.  But 
the MathTime
fonts won't be there, because they're not free!

You can buy Macintosh versions of the MathTime fonts from Blue Sky 
(or you could a
year ago, which is when I got mine), though they come (or came) on a 
floppy disk(!).
You could then use the CMacTeX utilities (or the command-line t1utils programs)
to generate pfb files from the MathTime printer font files; you would 
then install
these in the appropriate subdirectory (as earlier posts have described).
Possibly you could buy the pfb files directly from Y&Y, I don't know.

>1) It is PostScript 1 and not PostScript 3?
Type 1, yes, unless I'm really mistaken.

>2) Is TrueType a viable option to PostScript fonts, or is PostScript 
>"state-of-the-art".

I don't know what the current situation is, but as of a few years ago 
PostScript was still
considered a better format for fonts.  I don't think there's anything 
that *prevents*
a TrueType font from being as good as PostScript, but most 
professional design work
is/was done with PostScript, and some service bureaus prefer not to 
process files with
TrueType fonts in them.  Consequently, most professionally designed fonts
are available in PostScript (though I imagine Adobe is pushing OpenType these
days).  Apparently the TrueType mathematical formulation is less 
elegant in some
respects: shapes require more description, so font files are larger.

I'm not aware of any standard way to use TrueType fonts directly with TeX;
there *are* utilities to convert TrueType fonts to PostScript, so it 
should be possible to
go from TrueType fonts to something TeX can use, if you had a TrueType font you
really wanted to use.

Incidently, if you're looking for alternatives to Computer Modern for 
mathematics,
there is the possibility of Palatino + Math Pazo (a set of 
mathematical fonts designed
to match Palatino).  They should be part of your teTeX installation; try
\usepackage{mathpazo}

-- 
=============================================================
Peter Erwin                   Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
erwin at ll.iac.es               C/ Via Lactea s/n
tel. +34 922 605 244          38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

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