[pdftex] TTF versus Type1 versus Type42

[Siep]

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003 12:09:41 +0100
"Gerben Wierda" <Sherlock at rna.nl> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am still looking for the best way to get my Apple TrueType (TTF) 
> fonts available in TeX on Mac OS X. I am mailing this out to report on 
> the current state of affairs and to sollicit help or information from 
> anyone who can shed more light on this complicated business.
> 
> I have used Fondu succesfully to convert Apple fonts to separate TTF 
> files. Given that I need to convert them using a batch process (by hand 
> is not an option as I want to ship a script that does all the work to 
> all the other Mac OS X TeX users, there are basically 3 options after 
> that.
> 
> 1. Use ttf2tex. This produces the means to use the TTF files from 
> pdfTeX, but only partly as slanted TTF fonts are not supported in 
> pdfTeX. dvips and dvipdfm are only supported through bitmaps (using 
> gsftopk to bitmap render the ttf font). This will also mean that dvips 
> and pdfTeX cannot share map files, which increases maintenance 
> complexity. ttf2tex has support for TeX's font selection mechanism and 
> produces the correct map, fd and encoding files on the fly. ttf2tex 
> produces T1 encoding. T1 encoding means that for most intent and 
> purposes, the user will also have to use CM-Super to prevent the use of 
> bitmaps for fonts other than the Apple fonts.
> 
> 2. TTF can be converted to Type1 using ttf2pt1. However, since TTF 
> hinting is lost, quality loss may occur. I haven't seen the reults yet. 
> Having type1 is of course best from the TeX perspective, as all TeX 
> renderers (dvipdfm, dvips, pdfTeX) can handle type1. Possible quality 
> loss is worrying me, though. I do not know yet what kind of encoding 
> ttf2pt1 produces.
> 
> 3. TTF can be converted to Type42. This happens without quality loss. 
> It remains to be seen if all renderers on the TeX side can handle these 
> fonts. This does not work yet here, because the program (ttfps) 
> produces invalid font names in the output file.
> 
> Any light that can be shed on this by anyone is very welcome.
> 
> G 

About option 1: I am not familiar with ttf2tex, but I have worked with
ttf2afm. This program is not tied to any particular encoding; it contains
metric info of all characters. After applying ttf2afm you can convert the
resulting afm to tfm in the usual ways. If you consider T1-encoding a
limitation then you could make your own version of ttf2tex.

As to needing separate mapfiles: Thomas Esser's updmap already provides
for this, although you may have to tinker with that script as well. The
way it is done, the cost in maintenance complexity is not enormous.

Converting truetype to type1 sound like a bad idea to me.

-- 
Siep Kroonenberg
siepo at cybercomm.nl