[OS X TeX] Suitcase Fonts

[Michael Sharpe]

On Nov 3, 2009, at 3:30 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> Someone who got in contact with me was trying to use some suitcase  
> (.suit) fonts (they are PostScript type 1 as far as I know) with  
> xelatex but the default xdvipdfmx driver can't deal with these fonts  
> (the xdv2pdf driver does work so that is a solution). I wonder if  
> there is something that can be done to convert these fonts into  
> something xdvpdfmx can understand.

I don't recall (may be age-related) PostScript fonts in suitcases. All  
the old style PostScript fonts I met up with came in two parts---a  
LWFN containing the PostScript code in a resource fork, and a bitmap  
(often in a suitcase) whose essential information was the metrics for  
the font. There were several Classic applications that were able to  
take the pair and transmute them to formats such as pfb, which I  
believe are understood by xdv2pdf. (Eg, in the CMacTeX distribution,  
lwfn2pfb.) I haven't checked whether the CMacTeX OS X versions can do  
this. If not, sheepshaver may be useful.

Michael