fonts from scratch: what's the way?

[Andrea Valle <valle@di.unito.it>]

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Hi to all,

after some "eccentric" projects (musical notation, presentations,  
posters...) I'm starting my first "core"  project with ConTeXt.
We have a review here at the university which has been published  
until now  by a publisher. As we are having bad typography and bad  
distribution, and, more, we have to pay for these two services, we  
are moving it to the web as a series of downloadable pdfs (maybe with  
Lulu support).
Obviously I've proposed ConTeXt.

Now:
- I think I can manage the project organization as I have already  
done it for other projects following
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Project_structure

- I think I can define style, format etc using the manuals and the  
list archive and support

But:

Fonts are really a mysterious topics. Because of this facts, I have  
always used default ones. As far as I have understood, The Mk IV  
issue should simplify the situation but (I really don't want to be  
indelicate) this is really a horror film for a newbie:
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Mark_IV

I'm using TeXLive installation on a macosx (mactex: http:// 
www.tug.org/mactex/)
So:

- should I know something about the metrics and other trickery? In  
that case, really a picture is worth ten thousand words.
- how do I know which fonts are installed by the distro? AFAIK, it  
seems that this is a fairly complicated topic. Which seems to be  
pretty bizarre, because if they are unusable, why should they be  
installed?

Experimenting with

\enableregime[mac]
\usetypescript[berry][ec] % or [8r]
\usetypescript[palatino][ec] %
\definetypeface[bookman][rm][serif][bookman][default][encoding=ec]
\usetypescript[berry][ec] % or [8r]
\definetypeface[charter][rm][serif][charter][default][encoding=ec]

\starttext
\setupbodyfont[palatino]
çèòîàùé


\setupbodyfont[pos]
çèòîàùé


\setupbodyfont[bookman]
çèòîàùé


\setupbodyfont[charter]
çèòîàùé

\stoptext

(from http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/context-help.html#intro)

Seems to work but I don't know why and how...

- so, excluding "secret" pre-installed fonts, what I have to do to  
choose a (free) font ?
- and how do I install it on my machine?
- I.e.: what have I to do? Stay on mark II or switch to mark IV? This  
"mark" issue has confused me a lot more...:)

I think a real tutorial on the font subject is lacking. All the  
available infos () in some way require IMHO a relevant knowledge
So I am solemnly saying that I will wikify the discussion...

Many thanks

Best

-a-


--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------


I did this interview where I just mentioned that I read Foucault. Who  
doesn't in university, right? I was in this strip club giving this  
guy a lap dance and all he wanted to do was to discuss Foucault with  
me. Well, I can stand naked and do my little dance, or I can discuss  
Foucault, but not at the same time; too much information.
(Annabel Chong)





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