[tex-live] Discovering Fonts

[Edd Barrett]

Hi there,

Now that I have some spare time, I have been looking into font in more
depth. A topic which has always confused me in TeX.

A while back I blindly copied this into my assignment template:

\DeclareFixedFont{\myfont}{OT1}{ppl}{b}{it}{0.6cm}

Whilst I understand what all of these options mean, I would not know
how to select this font had I not found it on the net someplace.

How do you know which fonts exist in which encodings?
How do you know which fonts have which shapes availible?

I tried looking at .mf and .tfm files, realising that these files
don't seem to encode this informtaion.

If I can work this out I was planning on writing a program that is
capable of scanning your texmf creating a font preview document,
allowing you to easily select a font you like to look of. Unless
ofcourse this program already exists.

Thanks

-- 
Best Regards

Edd

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