[tlbuild] Problems with xdvipdmfx (at least) and some fonts

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2015-08-21 at 21:37:15 +0900, Akira Kakuto wrote:

 > Hi Norbert,
 > 
 > > I want to report a problem we are facing here at Debian. 
 > 
 > I believe that you are not using truly TeX Live upstream xdvipdfmx.
 > Native type1 fonts after TL 2015 were supported very recently.
 > See an attached t1test.tar.gz.

Hi Akira,
I'm quite amazed that XeTeX doesn't apply any kerning.  Both your PDF
files look awful in this respect.

However, the file gsfonts-8.11+urwcyr1.0.7~pre44/n021003l.afm contains
a line

  KPX W o -76

and when I make use of it in PostScript

  (Hello W) show -76 0 rmoveto (orld) show

I get proper kerning.

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Akira, can you find out somehow whether XeTeX reads AFM files at all
when using native Type1 fonts?  BTW, *XeTeX* needs the metrics, not
dvipdfmx.

My impression is that the fonts are ok but XeTeX still doesn't process
the metrics (AFM files) properly, if at all.  Honestly, I have no idea
why Norbert's examples look so bad but I doubt that the font is the
culprit.  I don't see any kerning problems in the fonts themselves.

However, the fonts extended by Valek Filippov are quite problematic.
The Type1 spec clearly requires that there may not exist two different
fonts with the same /FontName.  The modified fonts shipped with
Ghostscript have the same /FontName as the original fonts donated by
URW and not even the /UniqueID was changed.  IMO they are broken
because they don't comply with the Type1 specification.

This is the reason why Ghostscript shipped with TeX Live for Windows
provides the unmodified URW fonts.

And avoid system fonts.  Consider Bitstream Charter.  Kerning is awful
but most problems were fixed by fontinst.  Hence the TFM files are ok
but the AFM files are still broken.  You get better results if you
simply avoid system fonts.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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