Re: TrueType & Fontname

["Berthold K.P. Horn" <bkph@ai.mit.edu>]

f there were to be a new fontname scheme for TeX, then I would recommend basing
it on something inherent in the font - not  invented.  In the case of Type 1 fonts this
could be the PS FontName (not Full Name or Family Name) - plus encoding. In the
case of TrueType it could be the full name, except you'd have to get rid of the spaces
by replacing them with underscore or hyphen or something.

An alternative would be the "font menu" name plus style, but in some cases of badly
made fonts this may be different on the Mac and in Windows. Also, this information
is not in the PFB or PFA file but in the corresponding metric file (PFM or "screen font").

When the restriction on length is lifted there is no need to have a central authority
come up with names.  It will be possible for everyone to derive the name from the
font itself, and be assured that someone else doing it will get the same result.

I would also recommend not decorating the name to death and ending up with 
absurdly long names such as those popular in some font support software...

At 04:06 PM 9/22/99 +0200, Lars Hellström wrote:

>It is clear (and has been for some time) that the current Fontname scheme
>is insufficient---Werner Lemberg's comments about TeX names for CJK
>subfonts is yet another sign of this---and the main problem is still the
>requirement that the TeX font names must be valid file names in all major
>file systems. I say let go of that! If names up to 20--24 characters are
>allowed, solving all these naming problems becomes simple for the
>foreseeable future (and most likely a good deal longer).   ...

Berthold K.P. Horn  mailto:bkph@ai.mit.edu  http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/bkph