[XeTeX] fontconfig and the same name fonts

Jonathan Kew jonathan_kew at sil.org
Sun Apr 29 17:54:26 CEST 2007


On 29 Apr 2007, at 5:37 pm, Nikola Lecic wrote:

>> What might be possible is to provide a way to express a preference
>> for one font format or another; e.g, \XeTeXpreferredfontformat
>> "OTF".
>
> That would be exactly what I'd like to see (instead of 'real file  
> names') in case of the  same names. In that case, XeTeX would log a  
> warning if it couldn't find preferred format, whatever could be the  
> reason (fontconfig or something else) and the user doesn't have to  
> worry of particular tweaks of underlying font software.

OK, I'll keep it in mind; haven't really thought about what would be  
involved but this might be a possibility.

> Really confusing for both applications and user (in favour of older  
> version). In such a situation, I'd like to know what file XeTeX/ 
> fontspec really used.

You might get some hint from xetex's idea of the "canonical" font  
name, which you find if you query \fontname once you've loaded it. E.g.,

   \fontspec{GFS Didot} The font being used is \fontname\font.

(This may print a slightly different name than you originally  
specified.)

>
> And to repeat a question from previous mail: Is there any other  
> disadvantage in using ExternalLocation, i.e. in avoiding fontconfig  
> (except that we loose regular-bold-italic font files connections)?

You'd also lose support for optical sizes (with OT fonts that have  
the 'opsz' feature), as that also depends on choosing a specific  
physical font from among the whole family, while ExternalLocation  
says that you're specifying the exact font file to be used.

JK





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