[XeTeX] Fwd: Re: [texhax] Defining a new font in Plain Tex

[Philip TAYLOR]

Dear Jonathan and John (copy all) --

Jonathan Kew wrote:
>
> On 12 Jan 2010, at 12:47, Philip TAYLOR wrote:

>> This appeared to be the most user-friendly introduction to XeTeX
>> that I have yet seen, and for the first time I was tempted to
>> try it.  Sadly my first attempt fell at the first fence :
>>
>>      \font \defaultfont = Optima at 20pt
>
> Use quote marks:  \font defaultfont = "Optima" at 20pt
>
> XeTeX supports both TFM-based files and "native" TrueType/OpenType/Type1 fonts on the platform. It should try both, if necessary, before finally giving up; but in the case where it tries TFM first, the result (if you have mktextfm, etc., enabled) can be a lot of unpleasant messages as those subsidiary tools fail. But if you quote the font name, it takes this as a hint to try for a platform font first.
>
> So "best practice" is to ALWAYS quote font names, except when you really mean to use a traditional TFM file.
>
> JK

John Was wrote:

 > Dear Paul
 >
 > You seem not to have enclosed "Optima" in quotation marks. Does that
 > solve it?
 >
 > John

Many thanks.  The addition of quotation marks does indeed
allow XeTeX to use my installed copy of Optima in Type-1
format.  But (dare I say this ?), the use of quotation
marks to denote a non-TeX font seems more than a little
counter-intuitive to me.  I would expect quotation marks
to be needed around (say) "Palatino Lintotype" because
of the embedded spaces, but to have to use them to denote
a non-TeX font seems to be rather capricious.  I do not
know to what extent XeTeX syntax is yet fixed, but if there
is still the possibility of change then I wonder whether
a more intuitive notation, perhaps along the lines of
the existing slash notation for denoting font variants

	\font \bankgothicit = "Bank Gothic /I" at 10pt

could be considered.  My suggestion would be something like :

	\font \defaultfont = Optima/Type-1 at 20pt

Is this still within the bounds of possibility, or are
all such details already frozen ?

** Phil.