[XeTeX] OT: CLI tool to query a font for designer, trademark and other information

[Jonathan Kew]

On 19 Apr 2007, at 12:54 pm, William Adams wrote:

> Is there such a thing?
>

You could use ftxdumperfuser (from Apple's font tool suite) to dump  
the 'name' table, and find the relevant entry there. Not all that  
different from using ttx, though. (Are you sure fontforge doesn't let  
you view all the names?)

> Failing that, would it be feasible to have XeTeX do so? (say have a
> command \xetexfontdesigner which queries the font file information
> and provides the contents of the designer field if present)

No, I don't think I want to clutter XeTeX with commands that aren't  
relevant to the process of actually setting type on paper. In  
principle, there's a *long* list of pieces of information you might  
want from a font -- not just designer, but version info, license,  
copyright, dates, etc, etc. But unless they're somehow relevant to  
actually using the font within XeTeX, I don't think this is the way  
to go. You want a font editor/inspector, not a typesetting tool.

JK