[tex-live] How to use MFTOEPS? (noob)

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2012-03-14 at 16:47:59 +0200, Khaled Hosny wrote:

 > On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 05:01:05PM +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
 > > 2012/3/14 Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com>:
 > > > First, although I appreciate Anshu's work, I do not think that this is
 > > > the right tool for producing fonts.
 > > 
 > > Meta*Font* is not the right tool to produce fonts?!
 > 
 > Yes. MataFont produces bitmaps (and IIAC, often optimised to the target
 > output device), in this time and age you need scalable outlines that
 > would be rasterised on the target device. MataFont as a language might
 > still superior for meta design, and then a MetaPost-based solution would
 > be the logical choice (e.g. the Latin Modern fonts).


The Latin Modern fonts were created with MetaType1.  I suppose that they
were created from the Metafont sources but I don't know anything about
the Metafont => MetaPost conversion.  Maybe there are a few things you
have to be aware of before you begin drawing the glyphs.

I only created a very simple symbol font a few years ago.  In order to
create a '+'-sign, for instance, I had to draw two lines with a
particular width and MetaType1/MetaPost determined all intersection
points and finally created a single contour in Postscript.  MetaType1
also converts the intermediate EPS files to a valid Type1 font.

IMO MetaType1 is the best choice if you don't want to draw the
outlines directly.  You can download MetaType1 from CTAN.  Though the
author is using Windows, it works on Linux almost out of the box.
Only one or two minor adaptions were necessary.  I don't remember the
details but I vaguely remember it was related to different filename
conventions on Unix/Windows or something similar.  Just start the
script and see where it complains.

Shriramana, you first asked on the MetaPost mailing list.  This is the
most appropriate place and the author of MetaType1, Bogusław Jackowski,
is also listening there, although he isn't reading mails every day.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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