[pdftex] Math Pdftex extensions ?

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Mon Jan 16 05:13:55 CET 2006


>>>>> "Hans" == Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> writes:

  >> But I don't think that someone will change the tfm
  >> structure. Anyway, there are plans to support OTF and maybe tfm
  >> files are not longer needed then (at least for OTF).

  > i'm not so sure of that; maybe not tfm, but by means of
  > primitives, we need to be able to tweak font/glyph
  > characteristics; also, we nee dto be able to 'create new fonts or
  > combinations of glyphs'; open type fonts may not be complete, not
  > be suitable for a task etc; probably most open type fonts can be
  > used out of the box then, but tex(ies) have a reputation of a
  > need-to-tweak

Yes, a few new primitives and a pre-processor (a Lua interpreter) can
do it.  So the tfm format has not to be changed and DEK can still
maintain the master sources of tex and metafont on such a system.
Other people might depend on compatibility as well.

However, metrics data from OTFs can be passed to the existing TFM
interface so that this has not to be changed.  Additional information
can be passed to new primitives.

Of course, some tweaking has always been necessary in the past and I
doubt that there will be a font format in the future which provides
everything we need.

There had been an interesting talk held by Yannis and Gábor in
Pont-à-Mousson about pre-processing.

http://www.dante.de/dante/events/eurotex/papers/MOT02.pdf

>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Pichaureau <paul.pichaureau at alcandre.net> writes:

  > I've precise points in mind: mathematical accents, radical with
  > left and right delimiters, and, of course, the insufficiencies of
  > the tfm format. But you already know that better than me.

Paul, it would be nice if you'd write down all your ideas and send
them either to this list or to the ntg-pdftex mailing list.  Nobody
knows your ideas better than you.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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