[pdftex] Pdflatex error: Bad metric (TFM) file

[Roboco Sanchez]

I first came across this problem months ago when I was helping someone
to install OpenType fonts Cronos Pro on teTeX. He did the converstion
using lcdf-typetools 2.2 on SuSE 8 or 9 I can't remember. He got the
same error as yours. When I tried it for him on my Slackware 9.1 I had
no problem so I asked for his pfb, tfm, vf, etc. Once I checked those
files I found that some of his tfm's were one byte shorter than mine.
Most of the files were *--base.tfm. Once analyzed further the missing
byte of each *--base.tfm was the same byte as the last byte of its
non-base counterpart. So, if you have bad tfm problem with X--base.tfm
then add the last byte of X.tfm to it and problem solved.

We concluded that it's the problem in lcdf-typetools. I asked him to
report the author. Not sure if he did though.

Rob.


On Sun, 08 Aug 2004 21:05:50 -0400 (EDT), Ryuji Suzuki
<rs at silvergrain.org> wrote:
> From: Roboco Sanchez <roboco at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [pdftex] Pdflatex error: Bad metric (TFM) file
> Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 23:16:32 +0100
> 
> > I think you can get rid of the error msg,
> >
> >  ! Font \csname\endcsname=LY1-Jenson-Regular--fonum--base at 17.28pt
> >  not loadabl e: Bad metric (TFM) file.
> >
> > by adding one byte of 0xc6 to LY1-Jenson-Regular--fonum--base.tfm.
> 
> This is confirmed!
> 
> So if the problem for which I got three gray hairs was like that, it
> raises a few questions...
> 
> 1. is it easy to change pdftex? Making it so that Bad metric file is
>    only warned with non-fatal warning and does not stop using that
>    type may be good.
> 
> 2. is it easy to explain what should be added or not added to the
>    tfm's made by otftotfm? I actually contacted Eddie Kohler about
>    this and other issues, and he is interested in fixing the prblem on
>    his part but he personally doesn't use pdflatex.
> 
> The reason why 2 is not enough is that I have a few other fonts for
> which pdflatex complains about bad tfm files, which are created from
> afm or other formats. For these, pdftex needs to be modified, or a new
> program to fix those tfm files needs to be made.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Ryuji Suzuki
>