[Tugindia] Re: Building Experience in TeX/LaTeX2e

[Radhakrishnan CV]

>>>>> "Kev" == Kev  <sooltaal at yahoo.com> writes:

    Kev> I apologise for writing you direct once again, but I have
    Kev> these questions about fonts and LateX that I cannot let down.

No problems, but I will copy this mail to the list since this might
be useful to others interested.

    Kev> I understand that the support is available to the listed
    Kev> fonts like Garamond, Lucida etc. 

Yes, all the TeX font metric (tfm), virtual font (vf), font definition
(fd) and style (sty) files are available in TeX distribution for the
above fonts.

    Kev> If so then one must have the fonts installed on the computer
    Kev> to use them?

Distribution of supporting packages and resource files needed to use a
font doesnt mean that the real font files should be distributed. How
can TUG/CTAN distribute commercial fonts like Garamond and Lucida
which the respective foundries sell at a price of 200 or more US$ for
a full set including expert fonts? The point is if someone buys these
fonts, she can be assured of support in TeX.

    Kev> What about Adobe Type Manager? Does this enable the use of
    Kev> some listed TeX/LaTeX fonts? If so how does one access them
    Kev> --i.e do the fonts need to be installed in a relevant
    Kev> directory ?

TeX doesn't make use of Adobe Type Manager, I don't know much about
it, in my Linux box I don't have it while I use several commercial
fonts at my work without ATM.

    Kev> Lastly are any True Type fonts usable after re-encoding using
    Kev> `fontinst', and if yes, does that mean fonts like those
    Kev> provided under Win 98 Operating Sys ?  

Run command:

ttf2tfm times.ttf -q -T 8r.enc -v ectimes.vpl rectimes.tfm >> times.map

This will create a tfm files of raw fonts and vpl files of virtual
fonts.  To create Virtual Fonts (vf)

vptovf ectimes.vpl ectimes.vf ectimes.tfm

This creates vf and tfm files for virtual fonts. After that you can
delete vpl files. Copy the 

 times.map   ==> $TEXMF/dvips/config
 *.vf        ==> $TEXMF/fonts/vf/<dir> 
 *.tfm       ==> $TEXMF/fonts/tfm/<dir>
 *.ttf       ==> $TEXMF/fonts/ttf/<dir>

You might create <dir> (usually with the font name) under respective
directory trees. Create a font definition (.fd) and style to load the
fonts in your document. Copy them to $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss. You
should add the times.map to your config.ps. I don't think I can
explain those things in this mail. And lastly run texhash to update
the file databse.

Alan Hoenig's "TeX Unbound" (Oxford Univesity Press) should be a great
resource for managing, manipulating fonts in TeX.

As far as I know fontinst needs AFM to generate tfm's, vf's of a font
which means it works best with type1 fonts. It also provides the font
mapping lines that has to be added to the psfonts.map for dvips to
know the presence and names of newly added fonts while generating
postscript from dvi.

I depend on 'vfinst' which again makes use of fontinst. vfinst seems
to be much efficient for me.

    Kev> How can fontinst be obtained, and used under Windows ?  

CTAN has fontint, please grab from your nearest mirror. It makes use
of TeX compiler to generate property list (pl) files from afm's of
your font which you might convert into tfm and vf with the pltotf and
vptovf binaries supplied with your TeX distribution respectively. You
might ensure that you have these binaries.

    Kev> How are fonts like BookHands, accessible?

    Kev> Computer modern fonts are installed by default in full I
    Kev> gather, if not can you please suggest what I should do. Using
    Kev> WinEdt and MikTeX.

You need not do anything for CMR fonts, it is installed in full in any
TeX system.

Best

Radhakrishnan