[XeTeX] Re: Mathtime fonts

[Jonathan Kew]

On 6 Sep 2004, at 10:08 pm, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 6 sept. 04, à 20:29, Jonathan Kew a écrit :
>
>> On 6 Sep 2004, at 4:51 pm, Paul Edney wrote:
>>
>>> Jonathan, is adding these tables manually to an otf font doable for 
>>> the non-font-expert, and if so, do you have a reference as to how 
>>> these tables are encoded so I might give it a shot for mathtime?
>>
>> Documentation and tools are available from Apple's font site 
>> (http://developer.apple.com/fonts/), but they're definitely for the 
>> technically-inclined, not the average end user.
>
> Yesterday, motivated by this thread, I had another look at the OS X 
> Font Tools I had installed earlier, but never used thus far. It seems 
> ftxdumperfuser is the tool to add a POST table to a font. Given all 
> these tools are command-line only, and it's necessary to know (I 
> don't) what's a POST table in the first place, I've just given up 
> until step-by-step instructions become necessary at some point in the 
> future.

If you're curious, you could use ftxdumperfuser to "dump" the 'post' 
table from one of the CM .otf fonts included with XeTeX. Mainly, it's a 
list of glyph names for each glyph in the font.

> It would be cool to be able to convert one's font, .pfb or else, for 
> use with XeTeX, especially as one could use the freely available 
> Fourier fonts (or the commercial Lucida NewMath) as math fonts to go 
> with OS X text fonts

Indeed it would, and if I can get a better handle on FontForge, I'd 
love to provide a script that does this.

> , but personally I don't consider this a priority. Also, regarding the 
> original motivation for this thread, ie the MathTimes font, I really 
> feel pessimistic since, as I said earlier, these fonts are by design 
> based on the virtual fonts mechanism. From the original MathTimes font 
> page <http://www.yandy.com/mathtime.htm>:
>
> "Macintosh and Unix/NeXT versions require use of virtual fonts (on 
> these platforms the MTMI font is merely a virtual font that calls upon 
> the partial font RMTMI and Times-Italic).

It sounds to me as though this particular project is doomed 
unless/until XeTeX gets .vf support. Which is a possibility, but it 
hasn't been a priority so far.

>  PC compatible version does not require the use of virtual fonts; 
> comes with Adobe Type Manager (ATM) for Windows, plus the complete  
> Times, Helvetica and Courier families in Type 1 format."
>
> Or could the Windows version be used instead?

I'm not sure; if the Mathtime font(s) really are complete "standalone" 
fonts, why would they also ship the standard Times, etc.?

Another issue for anyone considering font conversions like this may be 
licensing. Many font vendors have pretty restrictive licenses that may 
not permit conversion to other formats.

Jonathan