[math-font-discuss] Equations and Math fonts?

[Denny Packard]

A colleague in the math department has had a problem with the 
manuscripts to his unpublished books, several of which are up to 200 
hundred pages in length and 15 years old.

(In France, rather than have students buy textbooks, science profs 
frequently write their own textbooks, print them out, and have them 
bound by the college print shop for distribution to students for the 
cost of the printing. No comment on the wisdom of this practice!)

Problem 1 (equation problems):

Jean-Pierre began writing his probability book(and others) on a 
Macintosh in Word 5, and he frequently updates and revises them. To 
do this, he uses a beige G3 Mac running Mac OS 8.6 that he keeps 
hidden away in a lab where the Computer Services guys (very anti-Mac) 
can't get at it.

(For his more recent books, I believe he uses LaTeX for Windows or 
Linux, which he is very happy with.)

However, he has run into trouble with these old files. In Word 6 for 
Mac, in Word 98, and on PCs, his formulas (which he calls 
backslashes--not sure what this means) all come out in ERRORs. (I 
checked, and my Word 98 DOES have the Equation Editor installed.)

(He told me that he sometimes does his equations in MacDraw and 
imports them into his Word files, but I don't know how often.)

When I open one of his files with Word X, nearly all of his formulas 
and equations come out perfectly, and clicking on them opens them in 
Word X's Equation editor, something he is elated about.

Question: Does anyone have any idea why all his formulas and 
equations come out as ERRORs in other versions of Word and on his PC? 
(I have asked him to check that the Equation Editor is installed on 
on his PC.)

Problem 2 (font problems):

In several of his old manuscripts, the Math and Mathématique 
(Mathematique with an accent over the "e" in case it doesn't read 
properly here) that he uses with his equations, the font has changed 
to another font, and he has to change it back to Math and 
Mathématique.

I have showed him how to use Word's replacement function to seek out 
the rogue font and change back to his math fonts, and this saves him 
time.

AND by poking around in his Fonts folder (OS 8.6), I see that these 2 
rogue fonts are bitmap fonts without their PostScript (or printer) 
files, which I suspect is the origin of the font substitution.

At one time, he did install MathLab and Mathematica (possibly on a 
different Macintosh), so his math fonts MAY have come from these 
applications.

(It is reasonable to assume that these fonts are not installed on his PC.)

Question: Can anyone tell me where to find TrueType versions of these 
Math and Mathématique fonts AND/OR the missing printer/PostScript 
files?

Many thanks for reading through this epistle, and thanks in advance 
for sending me COPIES of any replies because I am on the digest.

	Denny

P.S. I am not a mathematician myself. I'm just a good Samaritan from 
the Foreign Language department.
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    Denny Packard		  Paris, France
    mailto:denny.packard at free.fr

Did Gregor Mendel attend the botany conference just to show off his jeans?
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