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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Ulrike Fischer wrote:<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:1p9ragszo64zt.dlg@nililand.de"><br>
<pre wrap="">What is your problem? We can't in tex use some pop-up dialog to
setup fonts, we have to add code. We can't preload the code for all
existing fonts into the latex format, so some code has to be added
at run time. Normally people don't want to copy&paste identical code
around and fill up their preamble with it, so such code is in some
external files so that it can be loaded from various documents.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
My "problem" is with the idea that each font should require a
separate package before it can be used. If we take (for example)
all fonts that are supplied only in AFM/PFA/PFB formats, could there
not be one "AFMPFX" package that would make <i>all</i> of them
available ? And --ditto-- for any other family of fonts that is
differentiated from all others families by the format(s) in which it
is supplied, assuming that the font format is the primary
determinant as to how a particular font should be used with LaTeX ?<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:1p9ragszo64zt.dlg@nililand.de"><br>
<pre wrap="">open type fonts make life a bit easier as you don't have to prepare
tfm and vf-files, but they need code too and for some of the larger
families there are a number of support packages, e.g. fira or
libertine. How many lines does it take you to setup the fonts for a
document? With all the (perhaps optical) fontsize, bold, italic,
small caps etc? Do you do this setup always in the main tex file or
do you have some prepared files you input?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I regard TeX as a never-ending search for excellence. Each time
that I start work on a new document (at the moment, for example, I
am typesetting a restaurant menu on B3-folded-B4), I carry forward
in my mind how I have handled analogous problems in the past, and
then I try to improve on it. Only in (literally) the last 24 hours
have I discovered how (for example) to save the current font
selector, modify the definitions of one or more font selectors, and
then re-instate the <i>a priori</i> font selector with its revised
meaning. I assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that one could just
write :<br>
<br>
\edef \currentfont {\the \font}%<br>
<amend one or more font selectors><br>
\currentfont<br>
<br>
but this does not work. Instead, I had to use :<br>
<br>
\edef \currentfont {\the \font}%<br>
<amend one or more font selectors><br>
\scantokens \expandafter{\currentfont}%<br>
<br>
Only after discussions with David Carlisle (to whom many thanks, as
always) did I learn that "\the \font does not return the actual
csname used to select the font originally [but instead] returns an
internally generated token which displays using one of the names
that was used with that font". And that internally generated token
does <i>something</i>, but I wot not what (its expansion appears to
be empty, in that nothing untoward is typeset). I <i>think </i>that
it selects "the font formerly known as \<whatever>", but not
"the font current selected by \<whatever>". And I can find no
mention of this at all in <i>The TeXbook</i> — I still have to
check <i>TeX by Topic</i>, <i>The <br>
Advanced TeXbook</i>, <i>and </i><i>TeX in Practice </i>(vols~1–4)<i>.<br>
-- <br>
</i><i>** Phil.</i><br>
<i></i>
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