MSAM/MSBM fonts [was: Re: font installation in Windows 2000]

[Christina Thiele]

Sorry for the delay in getting back with some info.

Here's the info that I've been gathering from some other members of
the support team. I figured I'd try to consolidate the details in one
message, so here goes. Any errors or other mis-steps will be swiftly
fixed, I'm sure ;-)


The MSAM/MSBM fonts are available either in public or commercial
forms: from Y&Y, they're included in the `AMS' folder that you have on
your CD, provided you bought them.

If you didn't buy the AMS fonts, then you have some other choices:
either use a workaround from the amsfonts package, or acquire public
versions of the missing sizes ... but you should check that their
quality matches that of your Y&Y-purchased fonts. You didn't mention
in your initial post where you'd acquired the MSAM/MSBM files from
... If the Bakoma set, see below for comments.


1. The amsfonts package has an option to cope with the absence of
   several sizes: the amsfonts.dtx file mentions the psamsfonts
   option. This option assumes the presence of only msam<5,7,10> (and
   similarly for msbm and the regular and bold euler fonts*).
   However, it may give different line and page breaks if it's
   invoked after something has been run with all sizes of the fonts
   rather than just the 5, 7, and 10pt versions scaled as needed. That
   is, if it's used, it should be used from the very beginning.

   *Page 254 of the revised chap8 to _The Companion_, near the end of
    section 8.6.6, describes the amsfonts package (as well as
    amssymb, which loads amsfonts). It says that it:

      ... defines the \mathfrak and \mathbb commands and sets up the
      fonts msam (extra math symbols A) and msbm (extra math symbols
      B), eufm (Euler Fraktur), extra sizes of cmmib (bold math italic
      and bold lowercase Greek), and cmbsy (bold math symbols and bold
      script), for use in mathematics.

   All these packages recognise the [psamsfonts] option, which will
   use the Y&Y/Blue Sky Research version of the AMSFonts collection
   (which is freely available on CTAN).


2. You can acquire the public BlueSky fonts (Type 1) but they don't
   contain several of the ms* font sizes -- 6, 8 and 9pt. The
   [psamsfonts] workaround can deal with that. You can get the fonts
   from CTAN but you should take the whole .zip file and then pull out
   the relevant files:

      fonts/amsfonts/ps-type1/amsps-pc.zip

   The fonts are of course also available directly from the AMS
   website -- see here for details:

      http://www.ams.org/tex/amsfonts.html


3. There is another Type 1 collection that includes the ms* fonts at
   all sizes -- Bakoma -- but there are some issues to consider:
      - there are restrictions on using it commercially (this
        includes publication of journals by scientific societies)
      - the quality isn't as good as the BlueSky/Y&Y versions

   The general feeling seems to be that, if it's the case that your
   MSAM/MSBM font files came from the bakoma collection, you'd be
   better off deleting them before you proceed with adding the other
   versions.


So it's not a matter of re-installing Y&YTeX but simply a fonts
issue. Or so it sounds ;-)

Ch.





LMS journals writes:
>
> Dear All
>
> I've been watching the recent comments on font installation, having at last
> had a chance to come back to "housekeeping" (as distinct from
> "firefighting"...), and also now trying to use JUST the 2K machine, and not
> my steam-driven '95.
>
> Last week I needed MSAM8 and MSAM9, also MSBM5, MSBM8 and MSBM9 for a paper.
> I have fetched the PFM and PFB files, and installed the fonts using the
> "Control panel" route (i.e., not just drag-and drop).  The "installing
> fonts" progress bar worked fine.
> I have also put TFM files for the fonts in the directory where my other AMS
> fonts TFM files are (c:\yandy\fonts\tfm\nontext\tfm-ams). They have the same
> date-stamp as the TFMs for my existing AMS fonts (including other sizes of
> the same fonts). I couldn't, however, find any AFM files for the new font
> sizes on the CTAN site.
>
> The new fonts now show up in c:\winnt\fonts, with all the rest (only
> difference is that their names are in lower-case; the fonts that are "happy"
> are in upper-case; I tried renaming them in case something was
> case-specific, but wasn't allowed to do it by Windows).
> I have got "Ignorebadinstall=1" in my .ini file.
> I have run "setupttf".
>
> The new fonts do NOT show up on the list of fonts in dviwindo, so I can't
> use  "Write AFM". I get a Courier substitute on-screen in DVIWindo, and
> constant "pings" if I switch on "Complain missing fonts". BUT they print out
> fine!!!  I get a warning message "no ATMREG.ATM" (which I always get, and
> was told at some point earlier not to worry about because of having 2K --
> see below), and an error message for each of the new fonts: "expecting
> number not `dup'". Nevertheless, the printing goes through.
>
> Which is a relief when it comes to sending author proofs and pubishing the
> papers, but a massive bind for editing/proofreading...
>
> I don't have any sort of version of ATM -- my understanding was that it is
> not needed for 2K.
>
> The difference from the successful installation of xypic a couple of months
> ago seems to be the AFM files, which I managed to find in that case -- or is
> there something else I'm missing here???
>
> ??????????
>
> All the best
>
> Sue
>
>
>