updates to Help Page

updates to Help Page

[Bill McClain]

I recently finished a large project and have added new material to my
ConTeXt Help Page at

    http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/context-help.html.

* Marginal notes. See a sample double-page spread at 

    http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/csky-sample.pdf

* X-Y positioning of graphics with layers and overlays. Sample jpeg
version of a page at:

    http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/csky-cover-large.jpg

* Using \definestartstop. Example for blockquotes.

* Table of contents with different sections.

* Dropped caps.

* Little things: \index placement, passing variables on the command
line, using line numbering.

* How to install the FontSite-500 CD font collection for ConTeXt, with
an archive of scripts and sample files.

* * *

I just uploaded all this; please let me know if you see any errors.

-Bill
-- 
Sattre Press                                      Tales of War
http://sattre-press.com/                       by Lord Dunsany
info@sattre-press.com             http://tow.sattre-press.com/ 

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 11:26 AM, Bill McClain wrote:

> I recently finished a large project and have added new material to my
> ConTeXt Help Page at

Let me be the first to say "thanks Bill!"

The sample docs are exactly the kind of thing I was looking!  Any 
chance you can provide the source file for the sample pdf?  ...

Also, regarding the Fontsite CD scripts (thanks for this too!), you 
mention Christopher League's similar project for LaTeX, and that your's 
is not as ambitious.  One thing that I know some people have run into 
with these fonts is problems with spacing and kerning.  I know that 
League's project actually corrects some of these problems.

Have you done that as well?  Or might you make use of some of those 
tweaks from his project?  Or do you have any other suggestions?  I have 
the fonts and the metrics and so forth (from League); the main issue I 
always run into is the typescript files (though I already have Savoy 
working correctly under ConTeXt; will probably tackle Bergamo next). 
I'd prefer to have the fonts useful both in LaTeX and ConTeXt...

Bruce

Re: updates to Help Page

[Hans Hagen]

At 10:26 AM 11/25/2002 -0600, you wrote:

nice!

>* How to install the FontSite-500 CD font collection for ConTeXt, with
>an archive of scripts and sample files.

Looks interesting (currently downloading the pdf), how complete are those 
font sets? Regular/Bold/Italic/SmallCaps?

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
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Re: updates to Help Page

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 11:46 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:

> Looks interesting (currently downloading the pdf), how complete are 
> those font sets? Regular/Bold/Italic/SmallCaps?

Some of them are very complete, and quite nice.  Take a look in 
particular at Savoy (aka Sabon) and Bergamo (aka, um, Bembo).  They 
each include smallcaps, old-style figures, bold and italic, etc.

--
Dr. Bruce D'Arcus
Miami University
Geography Department
216 Shideler Hall
Oxford, OH 45056

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bill McClain]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:44:34 -0500
"Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> The sample docs are exactly the kind of thing I was looking!  Any 
> chance you can provide the source file for the sample pdf?  ...

Anyone who wants to see sources, contact me directly and specify what
example you need. This is from a book-length project, so I really ought
to make smaller examples.

> Also, regarding the Fontsite CD scripts (thanks for this too!), you 
> mention Christopher League's similar project for LaTeX, and that
> your's is not as ambitious.  One thing that I know some people have
> run into with these fonts is problems with spacing and kerning.  I
> know that League's project actually corrects some of these problems.
> 
> Have you done that as well?  Or might you make use of some of those 
> tweaks from his project?  Or do you have any other suggestions?  

No, I haven't done anything further, or even sampled most of the fonts
other than looking at single lines. I believe that correcting kerning,
etc, means getting into "fontinst," which I know nothing about. And
doesn't it require LaTeX? of which I am also ignorant.

I can imagine more logical TeX font tools, but (a) don't want to
reinvent the wheel, (b) don't have time anyway.

-Bill
-- 
Sattre Press                                      Tales of War
http://sattre-press.com/                       by Lord Dunsany
info@sattre-press.com             http://tow.sattre-press.com/ 

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bill McClain]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:46:30 +0100
Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:

> >* How to install the FontSite-500 CD font collection for ConTeXt,
> >with an archive of scripts and sample files.
> 
> Looks interesting (currently downloading the pdf), how complete are
> those font sets? Regular/Bold/Italic/SmallCaps?

As Bruce says, it varies. There are some pretty complete families, as
can be seen in the pdf catalogs. (I believe the LaTeX installation does
not include all the fonts yet. Mine does, but just takes them as texfont
gives them).

There were complaints on comp.text.tex about poor quality (in some
cases) of specific fonts. I bought the collection to have access to more
titling fonts, as for book covers and advertising. Fonts that are
appropriate for body text are too light for titles.

I will experiment with the book face fonts in the collection, but unless
they really excellent I'll probably buy a licensed version from a font
vendor before using it in a real project. Even if so, it is good to have
a cheap collection for light duty use, mockups, etc.

-Bill
-- 
Sattre Press                                      Tales of War
http://sattre-press.com/                       by Lord Dunsany
info@sattre-press.com             http://tow.sattre-press.com/ 

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 01:48 PM, Bill McClain wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:44:34 -0500
> "Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>> The sample docs are exactly the kind of thing I was looking!  Any
>> chance you can provide the source file for the sample pdf?  ...
>
> Anyone who wants to see sources, contact me directly and specify what
> example you need. This is from a book-length project, so I really ought
> to make smaller examples.

OK, fair enough.  I asked simply because I often learn better with a 
complete workable source file than individual pieces of code.  Will 
contact you though if there's some problem I run into...

>> Also, regarding the Fontsite CD scripts (thanks for this too!), you
>> mention Christopher League's similar project for LaTeX, and that
>> your's is not as ambitious.  One thing that I know some people have
>> run into with these fonts is problems with spacing and kerning.  I
>> know that League's project actually corrects some of these problems.
>>
>> Have you done that as well?  Or might you make use of some of those
>> tweaks from his project?  Or do you have any other suggestions?
>
> No, I haven't done anything further, or even sampled most of the fonts
> other than looking at single lines. I believe that correcting kerning,
> etc, means getting into "fontinst," which I know nothing about. And
> doesn't it require LaTeX? of which I am also ignorant.

Well, one thing to consider which might be both simple and get you the 
benefits of Christopher's substantial work is a script that takes his 
.tfm, .vf and .map files (which he makes available) and simply packages 
them for use in ConTeXt.  All that's needed are the typescripts, right?

For those that don't know about this, it -- along with a sample PDF 
that shows all of the fonts -- are available at:

http://contrapunctus.net/league/haques/fs500tex/

 From my perspective, the most useful fonts in the package for TeX 
purposes are:

Savoy
Bergamo
Syntax
and a few others...

Bruce

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bill McClain]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:06:08 -0500
"Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Well, one thing to consider which might be both simple and get you the
> benefits of Christopher's substantial work is a script that takes his 
> .tfm, .vf and .map files (which he makes available) and simply
> packages them for use in ConTeXt.  All that's needed are the
> typescripts, right?

That's an idea. If the typescripts referenced his tfm file names then I
think it would work. 

-Bill
-- 
Sattre Press                                      Tales of War
http://sattre-press.com/                       by Lord Dunsany
info@sattre-press.com             http://tow.sattre-press.com/ 

Re: updates to Help Page

[Jens-Uwe Morawski]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 11:44:34 -0500
"Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Also, regarding the Fontsite CD scripts (thanks for this too!), you 
> mention Christopher League's similar project for LaTeX, and that your's 
> is not as ambitious.
> [...]
> I have 
> the fonts and the metrics and so forth (from League); the main issue I 
> always run into is the typescript files. 
> I'd prefer to have the fonts useful both in LaTeX and ConTeXt...

Then the question is not to do the same for ConTeXt but to make the
LaTeX font installation available in ConTeXt as well.

The only thing that is specific to LaTeX are the .fd files. The only
thing that is specific to ConTeXt are the typescripts. Thus, simply make
typescripts from the .fd files. The only important .fd file of an LaTeX
font installation is the t1XXX.fd, here XXX is the LaTeX font family.

(example is the luximono fonts)
if you look in that file (t1ul9.fd) you will find something like
  \DeclareFontShape{T1}{ul9}{m}{n}{<-> ul9r8t}{}
this is for a ConTeXt typescript
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono][ul9r8t] [encoding=ec]

the bold variant is
  \DeclareFontShape{T1}{ul9}{b}{n}{<-> ul9b8t}{}
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-Bold][ul9b8t] [encoding=ec] 

and so on...

If you have translated all .fd entries for the typescript then
it loks like
\starttypescript [mono] [LuxiMono] [ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono]              [ul9r8t] [encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-SmallCaps]    [ul9r8t] [encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-Slanted]      [ul9ro8t][encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-Italic]       [ul9ro8t][encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-Bold]         [ul9b8t] [encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-BoldSmallCaps][ul9b8t] [encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-BoldSlanted]  [ul9bo8t][encoding=ec]
  \definefontsynonym [LuxiMono-BoldItalic]   [ul9bo8t][encoding=ec]
\stoptypescript

\starttypescript [mono] [LuxiMono] [name]
  \definefontsynonym [Mono]           [LuxiMono]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoCaps]       [LuxiMono-SmallCaps]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoSlanted]    [LuxiMono-Slanted]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoItalic]     [LuxiMono-Italic]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoBold]       [LuxiMono-Bold]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoBoldCaps]   [LuxiMono-BoldSmallCaps]
  \definefontsynonym [MonoBoldSlanted][LuxiMono-BoldSlanted]
\stoptypescript

so, if you have access to fonts in LaTeX then take its t1XXX.fd file,
translate all entries to a ConTeXt typescript... voila!
There is no need that anybody provides an extra full set of TeX font files
(vf,tfm) esp. for ConTeXt.

Jens

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bill McClain]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 21:39:15 +0100
Jens-Uwe Morawski <morawski@gmx.net> wrote:

>  \definefontsynonym [MonoBoldCaps]   [LuxiMono-BoldSmallCaps]

Are Bold Small Caps supported in ConTeXt? I can't see it in the source.

-Bill
-- 
Sattre Press                                      Tales of War
http://sattre-press.com/                       by Lord Dunsany
info@sattre-press.com             http://tow.sattre-press.com/ 

Re: updates to Help Page

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 03:54 PM, Bill McClain wrote:

> Jens-Uwe Morawski <morawski@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>>  \definefontsynonym [MonoBoldCaps]   [LuxiMono-BoldSmallCaps]
>
> Are Bold Small Caps supported in ConTeXt? I can't see it in the source.

I'm curious about this as well.  I never got around to finding time to 
figure out how to get my small cap bold and/or italic fonts to work!

Bruce