[pdftex] Changes to pdfTeX margin protruding?!

[Hans Hagen]

At 09:03 PM 2/9/2002 +0000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
>[BTW, the README file - which may only be part of teTeX - still refers
>to tug.cs.umb.edu, which I believe is no longer the case.]
>
>Using pdfTeX 3.14159-1.00a-pretest-20011114-ojmw ....
>
>So having created lots of nice Type1 EC fonts and tried using pdfTeX
>with \protrudechars=2, I discovered that something's not right; my
>hyphens were falling *way* out into the margins....
>
>I've read through the code and found out why: Knuth's suggestion of
>specifying the protrusion factors in terms of an em has been used in
>place of Han's original specification, but as there doesn't even
>appear to be a pdfTeX changelog anywhere, it was not easy to discover
>this.

if i'm right there must be a note on this in the archives of this mailing 
list and we have been talking in previous mails on this list about em-based 
protruding

>Any chance of doing some or all of the following?
>
>(1) Creating a changelog and/or news file
>
>(2) Reverting the change back (end of char_pw, around line 4800 in
>     pdftex.ch, which says: round_xn_over_d(quad(f), c, 1000); rather
>     than something to do with the char width

it has been discussed to make it an option, (or number 3 and 4 protruding) 
but so far thanh has decided to stick to this new em based approach; also, 
changing it back now is no options since there are macro packages out there 
that assume the current behavior

>(3) Modifying protcode.tex to do something more intelligent

actually, in context i *do* use char wd based protruding, or more precise, 
i provide both options at the macro level

[using tex one can measure the width of glyphs, using etex one can ask for it]

>Especially as TUG has just published Han's thesis, I can't imagine
>that I'm the only one to fall foul of this problem....

Maybe in a next tugboat there can be a note on this. Since pdftex is work 
in progress i think such a change is ok. I think that Thanh even considered 
changing some hz things

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma at wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   fall-back web server: 
www.pragma-pod.nl
-------------------------------------------------------------------------