Re: Re: Fonts again in ConTeXt

[Jens-Uwe Morawski <morawski@gmx.net>]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 16:43:40 +0100
Patrick Gundlach <pg@levana.de> wrote:


> > At 03:05 PM 3/12/2003 +0100, you wrote:
> >
> >>Well, in my opinion, the berry typesript is sub-optimal, since it
> >>maps to the urw variants that are a) shipped with a few TeX systems only
> >>and b) (even worse) the urw variant helvetica (nimbus sans) is of no
> >>real use for the german people out there (broken germandbls).
> >
> > then, how many people do have the adobe palatino's?
> 
> None that I know of. But this is IMHO irelevant: the current TeX
> practice is:

No. No.
 
> 1) TeX macro package (aka LaTeX ;-) asks for "Adobe Helvetica", it
>    gets the font metrics from "phv....tfm". Then, in the map files
>    the users decides whether to use the original adobe fonts or the
>    substitues. 

the MAP-file is a nice place for the real font selection. How should
i tell "normal" users that their font-selection from the document is
overwriten since some stupid and wrong decisions have been made
in the past.

> 2) TeX macro package (aka ConTeXt ;-) asks for "URW Nimbus Sans"
>    a) on TeXlive (and perhaps any other I don't kown of) it gets the
>       metrics from "uhv....tfm". Then, in the map files the user has
>       no choice; the dvi/pdf driver should take Nimbus Sans.

that's correct, since *it is* URW...

> I think it is wrong behaviour to explicitly ask for the substitution

it's no substitution, it is the font that is ask for. You asks for
URW and you get URW. Simple, isn't it?
The way the psnfss works is wrong, since one asks for Adobe and gets
URW. Please read some threads in the PDFTeX-ML and you can see what
confusion this creates.

> and leave the user no choice about which variant (adobe, urw) to use.

The choice is made with a new typescript. This is the common procedure
when a new font is installed. So, if you have Adobe Palatino then
install it as you did for other fonnts too. But, stop! Sorry, there
are always entries in the current pdfTeX MAP-file that map your Adobe
fonts back to URW variants. So, first you to have  edit the MAP-file.
No, no you cannot use \loadmapfile since it does not overwrite the
wrong psnfss settings. Nice way to fool many users. Many thanks. ;)

Thus, include a new typescript in the ConTeXt core that maps to the
Adobe names, but please don't support these wrong decisions of
the past. Additionally, please don't name the typescript "Adobe....",
since it is only Adobe if you have the fonts installed. "psnfss" is
a good name: PS-Names-Fooling-Suitable-Setup. For real Adobe fonts
everybody should be able to write proper typescripts.

Regards,
  Jens