A font question.

A font question.

[John R. Culleton]

I use Context for highly formatted non-fiction, but I am a bit
reluctant to use it for much of my work because of the strange
(to me) font handling arrangements. I see no purpose for the
multiple synonyms of the same font. That just adds layers of
extra work.  And I am used to tweaking both the font size and the
baselineskip by fractional amounts to help in getting the
pagination just right and the spacing on the individual page
correct. For example I have the main body font on a current
project defined thus:

\font\rm=8r-AGaramond-Regular at 10.5pt
and this:
\baselineskip 12.0pt plus .25pt

If the page comes up a line short because of strict widow
prevention then the extra space is distributed imperceptibly
among the lines. \parskip is 0 pt for this novel. With a fixed
baselineskip the extra space is distributed only at paragraph breaks,
which gives an ugly result. 

This kind of fine tuning by users is perhaps foreign to Context as it now
exists. Font sizes are in fixed steps for one thing. 

However abandoning the typescript etc. process deprives one of
the useful feature of using tfa, tfb, tfx etc. to adjust font
sizes semi-automatically.

So here is my question. If I set up my own font definition
system and as part of it I have statements like:
\font\tfa bchr8r at 10.45pt
\font\tfb bchr8r at 11.37pt
...
... will the rest of Context accept the above tfb font and size in places
where a heading macro automatically defaults to tfb?


John Culleton

Re: A font question.

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi John,

John R. Culleton wrote:
> I use Context for highly formatted non-fiction, but I am a bit
> reluctant to use it for much of my work because of the strange
> (to me) font handling arrangements. I see no purpose for the
> multiple synonyms of the same font. That just adds layers of
> extra work.

It also adds layers of configurability. Clearly you do not
need that (your font setups is extremely simple and low-level),
but lots of other people do. For example, I have documents that
use 6 totally different font sets, because all 'examples' and
'definitions' are typeset in font families that differ from
the normal text font family. It would be a nightmare if I had to
define and remember the 200+ font definitions by hand.

> If the page comes up a line short because of strict widow
> prevention then the extra space is distributed imperceptibly
> among the lines. 

It is only imperceptible if the paper you print on does not
shine through at all, and if you use a noteblock (head) binding
instead of book (back) binding, so it is not something I would
recommend for general use.

> This kind of fine tuning by users is perhaps foreign to Context as it now
> exists. Font sizes are in fixed steps for one thing. 

The fixed steps (of .1pt) are actually an optimization, and it
is possible to circumvent that, using either

   \chardef\fontdigits=2

or

   \def\normalizebodyfontsize#1\to#2{\setvalue{#2}{#1}}

> So here is my question. If I set up my own font definition
> system and as part of it I have statements like:
> \font\tfa bchr8r at 10.45pt
> \font\tfb bchr8r at 11.37pt
> ...
> ... will the rest of Context accept the above tfb font and size in places
> where a heading macro automatically defaults to tfb?

Only if you never make any \{setup,switchto}bodyfont switches after
your new font definitions.

Cheers,

Taco

Re: A font question.

[Hans Hagen]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> John R. Culleton wrote:
>
>> I use Context for highly formatted non-fiction, but I am a bit
>> reluctant to use it for much of my work because of the strange
>> (to me) font handling arrangements. I see no purpose for the
>> multiple synonyms of the same font. That just adds layers of
>> extra work.
>
>
> It also adds layers of configurability. Clearly you do not
> need that (your font setups is extremely simple and low-level),
> but lots of other people do. For example, I have documents that
> use 6 totally different font sets, because all 'examples' and
> 'definitions' are typeset in font families that differ from
> the normal text font family. It would be a nightmare if I had to
> define and remember the 200+ font definitions by hand.


Also, when you want some special size, by using the synonyms you can say 
\definedfont[Serif at 123pt] without worrying about what the current 
serif is.

Many years ago, Taco wrote a style for the dutch math journal which had 
several font sets, complex columns, mixed encodings per document, etc  
(i still do not understand how he managed to do it in those-days context 
-). A few years later when some specs changed I was asked to rewrite 
those styles and in the process typescripts (font classes), column sets 
(complex figure placement) and some more things evolved.  Since then 
Taco and I have less nighmares -)

>> So here is my question. If I set up my own font definition
>> system and as part of it I have statements like:
>> \font\tfa bchr8r at 10.45pt
>> \font\tfb bchr8r at 11.37pt
>> ...
>> ... will the rest of Context accept the above tfb font and size in 
>> places
>> where a heading macro automatically defaults to tfb?
>
>
> Only if you never make any \{setup,switchto}bodyfont switches after
> your new font definitions.


if you want that, you'd say:

\definefont[MyNiceBigFont][bchr8r at 10.45pt]

or better:

\usetypescript [serif] [charter] [ec]

\definefont[MyNiceBigFont][Charter-Roman at 10.45pt]

in which case you at least see what font is used, and more important, 
you get the encoding for free

\setuphead[chapter][style=\MyNiceBigFont]

btw, if there is a system behind those sizes, you can say:

\definebodyfontenvironment
  [default]
  [a=1.045,
   b=1.137]

and such which lets the a-d sizes scale that way


Hans