Bickham Script Standard (OpenType) Font

[Christina Thiele]

Wei-Chau Xie writes:
>
> Dear Sir/Madam:
>
> I just purchased Adobe Birkham Script Standard (OpenType) font and
> installed it on my PC running XP Pro. I use Y&Y TeX Release 2.2. I could
> view the font on DVIWindo correctly. However, I could NOT use DVIPSONE
> to print the page to a Postscript printer NOR use dvips to generate
> postscript file--the system shows an error message saying that the font
> cannot be found. The font works fine on other software, such as
> Microsoft Word.
>
> I have various postscript fonts, including Mupltiple Master fonts
> (MinionMM), installed in the system and they run perfectly in Y&Y TeX.
> This is the first time that I use OpenType fonts in Y&Y TeX. Unlike
> postscript fonts, OpenType fonts do not come with .pfb and .pfm files.
> What files is DVIPSONE or dvips looking for? How can I generate them and
> where should I put them? Your help is very much appreciated.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Wei-Chau Xie
> =================================================================
> ...


Like Mimi Burbank, I'm another member of the volunteer support team
for Y&YTeX.


As you mention, PS fonts are distributed with .pfb and .pfm files,
which don't come with OpenType fonts. PS fonts also come with .afm
files -- but you didn't mention if these are the format that OpenType
fonts use.

What format file(s) do OpenType fonts then use? I guess we can't help
with info on generating the correct file formats if we don't know what
you're starting with ;-)

On your machine, in c:\yandy\doc-misc, there's a file called
psfonts.txt, which has a comment to the effect that .afm files are the
`ultimate repository of metric information'. So it would seem that if
you have the .afm file, then you've got what you need to generate a
.tfm file -- in the appropriate encoding. You'll need to check what
encoding (if not the default texnansi) is set up for your Y&YTeX
installation.

IF we're lucky, and you have .afm files, then we're laughin', as they
say: in order to get the font to work with TeX, a .tfm file has to be
generated via the utility afmtotfm.exe. Details are in the smaller
manual (section 3.7.2 Installing and Using Fonts), and in various
places in the larger Technical Addendum.

====

In the interim ... I've located a few documents and texts which might
also help provide useful information.

Pp.4-5 of the Technical Manual provide a list of the main font file
formats, what each contains, and then which ones are needed by either
DVIWindo or DVIPSONE. The former uses both .pfb and .pfm files; the
latter accesses info only from .pfb files. Notice the final para. on
p.5 (before section 2.3): all of the files have to be consistent in
the choice of encoding schemes.

You mention dvips -- my understanding (and it may be incorrect) is
that dvips will not yield you anything useful with Y&YTeX, which needs
its own driver, DVIPSONE, to function properly and fully.


I'm finding a lot of interesting and probably useful things on fonts
in the Technical Addendum -- much of it I don't understand, of
course. But the detail and trouble-shooting is not to be sneezed at
... I think that someone who's patient enough to read through this
techno-font-babble (and I don't expect there's any easy way to really
discuss it) may well find the little tricks and details that need to
be checked out in cases where things go wrong: mis-matched encodings,
mis-match in font names (or `Font Names', as this seems to be a label
with a specific meaning attached to it), faulty or left-over font
names, and so on and so forth.

Indeed, there are a lot of interesting .txt files in that
c:\yandy\doc-misc folder. Granted, many are old, but when they talk
about standard font file formats, I don't know that the info has
changed all that much.  OpenType clearly is new, though ... so I guess
we'll find out more as others post about their experiences.

Oh, something else. You mention you're using XP and 2.2 ... on the
techsupport list, we've just been discussing the use of ATM to
_manage_ fonts (not _install_ then, which is not correct when it comes
to an XP or Win2000 machine). We're seeing some people say that ATM is
very helpful in making (some) fonts work/behave properly in Y&YTeX.

If you aren't yet a member of the techsupport, I strongly urge you to
join, as there are others who may well have experience with OpenType
and XP and Y&YTeX (details under `Support', at www.yandy.com).

I hope this helps you get started. Please sign up to `techsupport' and
post your messages there, as that's where I send all replies, to
ensure other users can also benefit from both queries and (efforts to
find) answers. And where my `impressions' are corrected by more
knowledgeable users ... ;-)

Ch.