Re: Metafont and Context

[Bill McClain <wmcclain@salamander.com>]

On Thu, 22 May 2003 01:05:56 +0200
"Wolfgang Werners-Lucchini" <wwl@musensturm.de> wrote:

> Some questions about the typescript:

We've reached the limits of my knowledge. I'll have to dig deeper before
I can be of any help. There is quite a bit I don't yet understand about
fonts in tex and Context.

> > \starttypescript [serif] [duerer]
>                                                ^ no [name] her?

In other examples an encoding goes here, but it is just a key for
finding the typescript. This example works without specifying an
encoding.

> > \starttypescript [Duerer] 
> >   \definetypeface [Duerer] [rm] [serif] [duerer] [default] 
>                                                                     
 ^
> what is this 5th parameter for? I have to set this to the fontname?

It identifies the typescript for the size information. The typescript to
be found is [#3][#5][default], which in this case is
[serif][default][size]. There is a match for this in type-siz.tex.

Note: this is how I have explained it on my help page, but I am not sure
it is correct. I've not been able to substitute other size typescripts,
so I must be missing something. I don't undestand \definebodyfont or the
size mechanism at all.

> Why is there no section [size] needed? What are the defaults? 

As above, the default size is [serif][default][size] in type-siz.tex (I
think).

> What about encoding? For example, an OT1 font doesn't contains german
> umlauts, a T1 font does. 

I'm puzzled in this case. A tfm is generated for a specific encoding.
Multiple encodings for the same font would require multiple tfm's.
Looking at one of my type1 fonts, I see the encoding I used when
installing it:

    tftopl texnansi-sar.tfm | grep CODINGSCHEME
    (CODINGSCHEME TEXNANSIENCODING)

This makes sense, because I used texnansi.enc when installing. But when
I look at Metafont Duerer:

    tftopl cdr10.tfm | grep CODINGSCHEME
    (CODINGSCHEME ASCII CAPS AND DIGITS)

What encoding is that, and how would I create a tfm with a different
encoding?

> By the way, there is also a typescript-section [special]. What can I
> do with this?

I don't know; there are a few examples dealing with math mode in
type-spe.tex.

> I will report about my attempts about my font 'bunt' in a second mail.

I've never dealt with multiple design sizes (and don't understand single
design sizes yet). If you will send me your "bunt" font files I'll use
them for testing, although it may take some time before I can get to it.

-Bill
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