MathTimePro (was: Status of Lucida and Y&Y TeX)

[Walter Schmidt]

Paulo Ney de Souza schrieb:

> Compare, for example, the distances among the characters (mainly
> the "f") in an arragement like  $h^ef$  and if you are not convinced
> then see the distances in many other fonts sets including Computer
> Modern.

Well, $h^ef$ is a hairy case and I cannnot agree that MathTime looks
substantially better.


> When you try something like $$K[\alpha])];$$ you can see the parens
> and the braces and the rest all jumbled up and almost touching each
> other. See the much nicer spacing you get with CM.

An accumulation of delimiters like this will _alway_ look ugly.
Under normal circumstances, the outer delimiters should be enlarged,
anyway:  $ ... [\alpha]\big) ... $.


> One of the most visible ones is the parens outside math-mode being
> smaller than the normal-size in math-mode. If you have a formula at
> the end of the expresion, like :
>
>    ..... text here $(x=4)$.)
>
> the outside parens are SMALLER than the inside ones!

The MathTime fonts include the round parentheses from the "Times"
text font, so you don't see any difference, when your text font is,
indeed, "Times".  MathTime Pro, in contrast, comes with parens that
were initially designed to blend best with "TimesNR".

Both the MathTime and the MathTime Pro fonts, however, are to be
used in conjunction with other text fonts, too.  Thus, the mismatch
of "text" and "math" parens is -- strictly speaking -- the normal
case and can hardly be avoided.  I agree that there is a certain
problem, but I'd say that it does not occur too frequently in
practice.

When using MT-Pro together with Times (rather than TimesNR), you may
try out the following workaround:

\usepackage{mtpro}
\DeclareMathDelimiter{(}{\mathopen}{operators}{40}{largesymbols}{0}
\DeclareMathDelimiter{)}{\mathclose}{operators}{41}{largesymbols}{1}

As a result, the round parens from the current text font (regardless of
what it is!) will be used in math mode, too.  Note, however, that these
parens may turn out to be too light or too small in certain situations
-- that's why this is _not_ the default behavior of the mtpro package.


> [...]
> the diminute kerning of ;

I'm sorry; I cannot see any problem here.


To summarize, I cannot agree that the problems you have reported can
be regarded as serious.  With all due respect:  Describing (in public)
the MathTime Pro fonts as "defective" and "not anything that you can
use professionaly" just because of these issues is somewhat over the
top.   Yet I acknowledge that there is room for improvements, and I am
going to forward your bug report to the font designer.

best wishes
Walter Schmidt