[texworks] Mac OS TeXworks + fontconfig

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi,

the way I see it, we have two requirements:
1) render embedded fonts correctly
2) support (at least) the 14 pdf base fonts even if not embedded

I think (1) is fulfilled by poppler/freetype automatically (the Quartz
vs. fontconfig issues only occur when setting up system fonts as
replacements, right?).

As for (2), the Quartz approach satisfies this by using system fonts,
whereas fontconfig requires X11 fonts (which, however, seem to have
become a sort of system fonts in recent OS Xs, anyway; if they don't -
or there is a chance users don't have it - we should probably bundle the
necessary font files with Tw, just to ensure we don't violate the PDF
standard).

Other than that, I don't think we have any strict requirements. In
particular, I don't think the PDF standard mentions any other than the
standard fonts anywhere (although I have to confess I haven't read all
the 1300 something pages ;)).
So, it is certainly nice to have good replacements, but not required.
BTW: could it be that those fonts are available (and recognized
properly) on CJK systems, anyway, and it's only non-CJK systems that
require (and fail to find) suitable replacements?
Likewise, the concern about fontconfig was that it can spam the file
system, but apparently in recent versions this is no longer the case,
either?

So, all in all, I see two choices: bundle base-14 fonts (we do this
partly for Windows as well), or drop good font substitution.

I would tend to go with fontconfig here, for reasons of simple
usability. But not being a Mac user this is nothing more than a gut feeling.
Have I missed something? Jonathan, any thoughts?


On 2011-06-23 20:31, Charlie Sharpsteen wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Charlie Sharpsteen
> <chuck at sharpsteen.net <mailto:chuck at sharpsteen.net>> wrote:
>
>     Should strict interpretation of document fonts take precedence
>     over usability for non-english speakers?
>
>
> I suppose another approach would be to use Quartz for font discovery,
> but then fall back on Fontconfig (if available) for better fallback
> suggestions than "Helvetica".
>
> Or is that just crazy talk?

Do you mean "(if available)" in the sense of: if installed (as a dynamic
library of some sort) on the system?
I guess bringing both systems to work together would be a lot of work...

-Stefan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://tug.org/pipermail/texworks/attachments/20110626/af511a42/attachment.html>