[XeTeX] \font usage

[Jonathan Kew]

On 14 May 2006, at 4:08 pm, Wlodek Bzyl wrote:

>
>> However, I just tried this on my Linux machine and it doesn't  
>> work  reliably.... partly, at least, because the only version of  
>> URW Gothic  L present (on my system, at least) is in .pfb format,  
>> which XeTeX  doesn't handle well. I think if it were .otf, it  
>> would work properly.
>> I'll try to fix some of the issues with .pfb fonts.....
>
>   On my Linux system, `URW Bookman L' is a Type 1 font.
>
>   The following file:
>
> ---------------------------
> \nopagenumbers
> \font \X "URW Bookman L" \X
> AaBbCc
> \end
> ---------------------------
>
>   produces a small pdf file which
>
>   (1) displays nothing when viewed with `gs'
>   (2) displays correctly when viewed with xpdf
>       or acroread

Not quite correctly, actually.... that's Bookman Demi, not Regular  
(or Light), which is what you should get.

The trouble is that currently, XeTeX relies on information from the  
TrueType or OpenType font tables to choose from among fonts that  
share the same family name, but for Type 1 (pfb) fonts this is not  
available. I've just been modifying the font management code to deal  
with this, and should have some changes ready soon.

As for why you see nothing with gs, I have no idea.... when I try a  
similar test, all the viewers show the text. It looks pretty ugly in  
gs, but that might just be a configuration issue -- it's displayed  
without any antialiasing -- but the text is there.

JK