Re: Fonts again in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach <pg@levana.de>]

Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> writes:

Hello Hans,

> 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:

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. 

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.

   b) on teTeX (+...?) with some special mappings it gets the
      "phv....tfm" metrics. Then see above at 1).

I think it is wrong behaviour to explicitly ask for the substitution
and leave the user no choice about which variant (adobe, urw) to use.

> concerning the broken german ss: the polish font gurus (you'll meet
> them at the dante meeting) have made extended versions of those urw
> fonts, so maybe that will help. [the normal urw also don't have
> ogoneked glyphs]

Well, concerning the ss: Just install the Adobe Helvetica (free) and
that's it (except for patching ConTeXt ;-)

Patrick