[OS X TeX] Font issues [was: dvips problem]

[Stephen Anderson]

When I wrote to the list the other day, the problem that I had  
discovered had to do with dvips finding a prolog file.  That problem  
was resolved when Gerben suggested I try running dvips with -r0; when  
that worked, I learned that dvips had changed so as not to accept  
absolute pathnames any more.  I put my prolog where dvips expected to  
find it, and changed the .sty file accordingly.  I had originally  
encoded the absolute pathname as an act of desperation long ago, when  
I could not figure out where dvips (of that vintage) was expecting to  
find a prolog file. But now I'm OK on that account, at least until  
the next (obscure or unannounced) change to dvips that alters where  
it expects my prolog to live.

However, once I got past that problem, the real issue surfaced: my  
installation of Adobe Garamond Pro, and one or two other fonts from  
the Adobe Type Tools disc, no longer worked.  Without resuming the  
past couple of days of messages, I will say that I have tried all of  
the suggestions offered here by Bruno and Peter, and none of them  
have gotten me an inch further.  Since I am the only user of my  
machine, I eventually gave up on having these fonts installed in ~/ 
Library/texmf and put the files into /usr/local/tetex/share/ 
texmf.local, and then re-installed everything.  Result: no  
improvement (despite the fact that the installation process appears  
to activate the relevant maps).  Files invoking the fonts in question  
still produce this kind of thing when run in TeXshop:

> [....]
> This is dvips(k) 5.95b Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software  
> (www.radicaleye.com)
> ' TeX output 2006.06.07:2025' -> /tmp/altpdflatex.7362-1149704715/ 
> Surmiran.ps
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 600 --mag 1 
> +437/600 --dpi 1037 padr8r--base
> mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for padr8r--base.
> kpathsea: Appending font creation commands to missfont.log.
> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/dvips: Font  
> padr8r--base not found, characters will be left blank.
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 600 --mag 1 
> +120/600 --dpi 720 padr8r--base
> mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for padr8r--base.
> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/dvips: Font  
> padr8r--base not found, characters will be left blank.
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 600 --mag 1+57/600  
> --dpi 657 padr8r--base
> mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for padr8r--base.
> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/dvips: Font  
> padr8r--base not found, characters will be left blank.
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 600 --mag 1+57/600  
> --dpi 657 padb8r--base
> mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for padb8r--base.
> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/dvips: Font  
> padb8r--base not found, characters will be left blank.
> kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 600 --mag 3+54/600  
> --dpi 1854 padr8r--base
> mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for padr8r--base.
> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/dvips: Font  
> padr8r--base not found, characters will be left blank.

And so on.  All of the relevant files are there, and all of this has  
worked flawlessly for me for the past two years or so.  But something  
has changed somewhere in the TeX distribution, and it doesn't work  
any more.

I don't have the option of switching to XeTeX, where font issues are  
much less serious, because I need access to some tree-drawing macros  
that produce raw PostScript.  I suppose I can just forget about the  
fonts I installed.  Or else I can go back to the font tutorial and  
start over again, jumping through all of the hoops I jumped through  
once before to convert my fonts to something the TeX system will be  
able to use, though with absolutely no guarantee that the results  
will be consistent with whatever that system now expects.

For the present, I can't avoid the conclusion that whatever  
mysterious changes were made in the recent distributions have done at  
least this one user a rather serious disservice.

-- 
Steve Anderson


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