[tex-live] Using LM instead of CM

[Hans Hagen]

gnwiii at gmail.com wrote:
> On 6/8/06, Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> wrote:
>> Robin Fairbairns wrote:
>> >>> Do you mean you are using LM with CM metrics, or have you changed 
>> to use
>> >>> LM alltogether? I had assumed the latter were the case. And I really
>> >>> would prefer if it were possible for LaTeX, too.
>> >>>
>> >> i exclusively use LM with the texnansi, ec, qx and x5 metrics (and
>> >> soon with the el dense encoding metrics);  the only place where
>> >> old cm metric files are used is in math
>
> Even if you could get LM to work with CM metrics the resulting
> confusion should not be underestimated.  Look at Helvetica/Arial/URW
> Nimbus Sans -- 99% of the world thinks they are using Helvetica, but
> in reality 90% are using Arial, 8% are using URW Nimbus Sans, and 2%
> actually have and use Helvetica.
>
> People increasingly expect LaTeX to play well with ConTeXt and other
> applications via SVG, PDF, etc.  If LaTeX substitutes LM for CM
> without forcing users to realize the change, then users will want to
> use CM in the other apps and wonder why some glyphs look different.
>
> Many people are already using LM because they need the glyphs.
> Forcing the rest to switch may create some short term angst, but in
> the long term the TeX community benefits if most people can use the
> same fonts and understand which fonts they are using.
>
another issue to keep in mind is the following. imagine that one has a 
document that includes older documents (or graphics) that use cm; in the 
worst case one may end up with many instances of the same font; one 
reason is that lm has different [internal] names than cm [CMR10 and 
such]; so, in order to comfortably make the switch, one also needs to 
have map files that do something lile:

CMR10 CMR10 < cm.enc < lmr10

(and not the verbose lm name in the second column)

[another solution is to have multiple fontname entries in a map file, 
something that is on the agenda for pdftex]

Hans

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