When do you need ps2pk? ---------------------- Ps2pk is a tool that converts a PostScript type1 font into a corres- ponding TeX PK font. The tool is especially interesting if you want to use fully hinted type1 fonts in your DVI previewer (instead of the unhinted type1 fonts currently used in GhostScript) or on a printer that has no PostScript interpreter. In order to use the ps2pk generated fonts your driver and previewer need to support virtual fonts. The reason is that PostScript fonts and TeX fonts do have a different font encoding and handle ligatures in a different way. With virtual fonts the PostScript world (encoding + ligatures) can be mapped to the TeX world. It is also possible to use the ps2pk generated PK fonts directly (without virtual fonts) but in that case you need modified plain TeX macros in order to acces the new (changed) font features. To make TeX really 8bits (the reason TeX3.0 was released) TUG has proposed a new font standard supporting the full 8bit range (in stead of the 7bit). The 128 extra characters in this new TUG standard are filled up with characters for 17 different European languages (see: TUGboat #10 vol. 4 1990). With ps2pk it is possible to generate PK fonts from PostScript fonts according to this new TUG font standard. Type1 PostScript text fonts. ---------------------------- Fully hinted type1 fonts are generally not PD. You have to buy them unless you are satisfied with the PD available GhostScript versions (which are currently not hinted). You don't need to be an expert to see the difference between hinted and unhinted fonts. If you are using MSDOS or MacIntosh computers you probably use Adobe Type Manager (ATM) a program that can render type1 fonts dynamically. With this program or with other programs using ATM (for example Lotus) you receive fully hinted type1 fonts. On MSDOS they have funny names like tmr______.pfb. To save space on MSDOS type1 fonts are binary encoded (.pfb). On UNIX you can use this .pfb format too or the .pfa format (which occupies about double the space of a .pfb format). If your UNIX workstation supports DPS (Display PostScript) than you already may have a number of fully hinted type1 fonts. Look in places like: /usr/lib/DPS/outline (SGI), /usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1Adobe (DEC/OSF alpha) /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/outline (SUN Solaris) These systems provide the minimal 13 PostScript fonts containing the families Courier, Helvetica and Times in four faces plus Symbol. They are used by LaTeX's times package. The same fonts are also available as part of Adobe's acrobat readersoftware for UNIX systems. Look for the file acroread.tar (on the Adobe Acrobat CD sampler in the directory acro_v1/acrorunix or in pub/adobe/Applications/Acrobat on ftp.adobe.com). Type1 PostScript math fonts. ---------------------------- The PostScript type1 symbol fonts do not have the same rich set of math symbols as the TeX fonts. There are two good exceptions: the MathTime and the Lucida fonts. They are commercially available through one of the following vendors: MathTime: TeXplorators 1572 West Gray, #377, Houston, TX 77019-4948 U.S.A. E-mail: Michael Spivak pricing about $135 ($95 educational) Lucida: Y&Y, Inc 106 Indian Hill Carlisle, MA 01741-1747 U.S.A. http://www.yandy.com//yyfonts.htm PostScript conversion tools --------------------------- Lee Hetherington has written a set of type1 conversion utilities. These allow to convert from binary (PFB) to ASCII (PFA) and back. Or to convert a type1 font into readable PostScript (disassemble) with the possibility to edit it and to convert it back (assemble) to some type1 encoded form. They are available in: ftp.cs.umb.edu (192.12.26.23) /pub/misc/t1utils-1.1.tar.Z Acknowledgements. ----------------- Ps2pk uses the type1 rendering software IBM has donated to the X-consortium. This rendering package is used by ps2pk as pure as possible. But in order to support user specified encoding schemes, to generate extended and/or slanted font variations, to uncouple it from the X protocol and to fix some bugs I needed to change some of the sources. I wish you a lot of fun with type1 fonts, --Piet Februari 1996 internet: rcpt@urc.tue.nl __o Piet Tutelaers _`\<,_ Computer Center Room RC 1.82 phone: +31 (0)40 2474541 (_)/ (_) Eindhoven University of Technology fax: +31 (0)40 2434438 Save nature P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, NL