OpenType fonts

OpenType fonts

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

Hi all,

OpenType fonts are all the rage today. Are there any critiqes of the  
format, or discussions of its limitations?

How many typesetting applications can actually take full advantage of  
opentype fonts?

What are the chances that OpenType (at least some of its advanced  
features) will go the way of MultipleMaster fonts?

The answers to these questions have a bearing on my own advanced Classical  
Arabic script project. For example, the ovf+ocp mechanism of Aleph seems  
much richer than what otf offers, so should I bother with otf at all or  
just stick to enriched Type1 fonts (>256 glyphs, used by LatinModern)?

I may be mistaken, but it seems that the Aleph utilities need updating to  
take full advantage of enriched Type1 fonts (not to mention otf fonts).  
Right now I am still building ovf's from a series of standard type1's.

Here is one possible limitation of otf (please correct me if I'm wrong):  
While an otf can contain an alternate glyph of a given character, it  
cannot tell the typesetting application that, if there is the equivalent  
to underfull paragraph spacing, replace the default <glyph>.1 with  
<glyph>.2. This sort of thing is common in, e.g. old Arabic lead-press  
books and in handwritten books. TeX should be capable of this, though it  
remains to be seen whether this should be implemented at the engine level  
(a la pdfetex) or at the macro level.

Best
Idris

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Re: OpenType fonts

[Taco Hoekwater]

Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> OpenType fonts are all the rage today. Are there any critiqes of the  
> format, or discussions of its limitations?

Despite it's apparent "smartness" and a lot of media hype, OpenType
is still just a collection of glyphs and metainformation.

XeTeX makes OpenType look intelligent, but that is because the program
logic is wholly embedded in Mac OS X. At the core level, the real big
difference with TTF and Type 1 is just that there is *more* metainfo
(I am over simplifying it a bit, but not much).

Aleph, or pdfetex, for that matter, will need extensions to make
actual use of the extra metainformation. Whether that needs a new
kind of OpenType-Font-Metric file or whether it can be done in
macros/primitives is not clear yet (at least not for pdftex)

> How many typesetting applications can actually take full advantage of  
> opentype fonts?

There is a table at:

   http://www.opentype.com/html/opentype.aspx

but how up-to-date that is, I do not know.

> What are the chances that OpenType (at least some of its advanced  
> features) will go the way of MultipleMaster fonts?

Do you mean "embedded metaness" or "terminated for marketing reasons"?
the first, I doubt (too many font vendors involved with the spec; they
can make more money from selling separate fonts) the latter is, of
course, always possible but seems unlikely in short and medium time.

Cheers, Taco

Re: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

Thank you Taco and Gábor for your valuable comments-)

Based on both of your comments, it seems that the most practical approach  
in the short run is for Aleph (whose raison d`etre is more focused on the  
short run->) is to just treat otf's like cid/enriched type1 fonts (a la  
Latin Modern), which is what ConTeXt (and I guess LaTeX too) are already  
doing (with smart encodings, etc.) The main thing that aleph offers on  
this front is >256-glyph encodings. Simple otp's could provide switches to  
turn on needed features (small caps, superiors, swashes, etc) in a large  
font without clogging the system with multiple encodings (Occam's razor);  
only a single encoding vector for the entire raw font would be needed. I  
know that loading encodings in ConTeXt would certainly be a lot simpler-)

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 06:13:21 -0700, <gabor.bella@enst-bretagne.fr> wrote:

> 3) OpenType fonts, as Taco has already mentioned, have a declarative
> nature: they tell you what to do but not how to do it.

In the short run, for Aleph's purposes, these declarations and  
much/most/all of the metainfo can be treated as "suggestions" for the otp  
designer to consider in implementing things. There is no need to treat  
them as something "holy".

Based on your comments and my other research, I will focus on enriched/CID  
type1 (which I guess is equivalent to cff-flavored opentype) font solution  
in my own work, and not worry about otf declarations for now.

In the long run, of course, it would be great if a rewrite of Omega could  
execute a complete implementation of otf functionality. I wish dear Yannis  
and Gábor the very best in this regard!

Best to all
Idris
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Re: Re: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[Hans Hagen]

Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

> In the short run, for Aleph's purposes, these declarations and  
> much/most/all of the metainfo can be treated as "suggestions" for the 
> otp  designer to consider in implementing things. There is no need to 
> treat  them as something "holy".

in the near future pdftex will provide open type as well as hooks for 
input processing using lua, so you may as well end up rewriting your 
otp's in a more friendly language

Hans

Re: Re: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 07:16:31 -0700, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:

>> In the short run, for Aleph's purposes, these declarations and   
>> much/most/all of the metainfo can be treated as "suggestions" for the  
>> otp  designer to consider in implementing things. There is no need to  
>> treat  them as something "holy".
>
> in the near future pdftex will provide open type as well as hooks for  
> input processing using lua, so you may as well end up rewriting your  
> otp's in a more friendly language

At the risk of getting off topic: I know nothing about lua-) What makes it  
such a great tool? Why not just use, e.g., Ruby (less languages for me to  
learn->)?

But you are quite right: the otp language is a real bear...

Best
Idris

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Re: Re: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[Hans Hagen]

Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 07:16:31 -0700, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:
>
>>> In the short run, for Aleph's purposes, these declarations and   
>>> much/most/all of the metainfo can be treated as "suggestions" for 
>>> the  otp  designer to consider in implementing things. There is no 
>>> need to  treat  them as something "holy".
>>
>>
>> in the near future pdftex will provide open type as well as hooks 
>> for  input processing using lua, so you may as well end up rewriting 
>> your  otp's in a more friendly language
>
>
> At the risk of getting off topic: I know nothing about lua-) What 
> makes it  such a great tool? Why not just use, e.g., Ruby (less 
> languages for me to  learn->)?

well, there is google ...

lua is

- small, so no huge overhead and expanding library base
- clever enough for the job needed
- a well designed embedded language
- fun

>
> But you are quite right: the otp language is a real bear...

indeed, let'd get rid of it -)

Hans

[OT] Was: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[David Wooten]

. . . Just out of curiosity, Hans, does this mean that pdftex will  
(in the near future;) natively support OpenType fonts, namely without  
having to go through all the TeX font installation trickery?

Dave

On Dec 18, 2005, at 6:16 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:

> Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:
>
>> In the short run, for Aleph's purposes, these declarations and   
>> much/most/all of the metainfo can be treated as "suggestions" for  
>> the otp  designer to consider in implementing things. There is no  
>> need to treat  them as something "holy".
>
> in the near future pdftex will provide open type as well as hooks  
> for input processing using lua, so you may as well end up rewriting  
> your otp's in a more friendly language
>
> Hans

Re: [OT] Was: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[Hans Hagen]

David Wooten wrote:

> . . . Just out of curiosity, Hans, does this mean that pdftex will  
> (in the near future;) natively support OpenType fonts, namely without  
> having to go through all the TeX font installation trickery?
>
that's the idea; of course we need some tex specific things because we 
want to do more than open type supports, but in any case live should 
become more easy

Hans

Re: [OT] Was: [Aleph] OpenType-to-TeX and other musings...

[David Wooten]

On Dec 19, 2005, at 11:58 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:

> David Wooten wrote:
>
>> . . . Just out of curiosity, Hans, does this mean that pdftex  
>> will  (in the near future;) natively support OpenType fonts,  
>> namely without  having to go through all the TeX font installation  
>> trickery?

> that's the idea; of course we need some tex specific things because  
> we want to do more than open type supports, but in any case live  
> should become more easy

That is indeed excellent news.

David