Christopher Adams skrev:
I've finally pieced together that the solution is to write my own encoding
vector.
Is there a good tutorial about how to do this?
As a test I simply made a copy of 8r.enc and 8r.etx. In the .enc file I
replaced one of the /.notdef's with /eogonek, and then added a \setslot for
this glyph in the .etx file. Then I changed \reencodefont{8r} to refer to my
renamed, modified copy, ran the files through TeX and updated all the map
files.
Sure enough, the correct *eogonek* comes out in the PDF (it's even
serchable). Perfect!
I finally understand the reason that *eogonek* wasn't working is that it
isn't defined by 8r.
I still have some questions.
1) What's the best way to do what I need?
Depends on your priorities. If they are to get what you need done with
as little effort as possible, then the "substitute a few glyphs"
approach you later seemed to decide on is probably optimal. If they
instead are best quality -- to produce the full font support for
Eastern/Central European languages using the latin script -- then it
might rather be to embark on the project of producing a T1A (or
whatever) encoding, that can be used for those languages where T1 isn't
quite sufficient.
2) If I need a glyph that is not in T1, like *iogonek*, in addition to the
above, do I then simply have to modify t1.etx and add a slot for that glyph?
As far as fontinst is concerned, yes, and if using the new
multislot.sty package (which I'm not sure I've ever announced
properly), you can write an ETX which *only* sets the slots that are
different from T1, and then goes \inputetx{t1}, thus significantly
reducing the amount of editing you need to do.
When we get to LaTeX however, things are quite different.
3) If I need a glyph that doesn't even have a TeX command, such as
scommaccent, what do I have to do to get access to it in my latex document?
I know someone has written a \cb{} command that fakes comma below. Can I
write my own \cb{} command? What would it look like? I really only need to
access to scommaaccent and tcommaaccent.
This is a matter of the encoding-specific "text commands", which are
described in the "Encodings" section of fntguide.tex (part of LaTeX
distro) and Section 7.11 of The LaTeX Companion (2nd edition). You
would probably want to do something like
\DeclareTextComposite{\k}{L01}{s}{...}
if following Hilmar's suggestion of using \k also for the comma accent;
the above would (if ... is replaced by the right slot number) make
\k{s} typeset an scommaaccent glyph.
What you can't get around is however the need to declare a new LaTeX
encoding for your fonts, since you'll need some text commands to end up
doing something different than they would under T1. In the example
above I used L01 (local encoding 1) for this new encoding, as you'll
(at least initially) probably only be using it privately, but in the
long run I think a lot of people would benefit if someone stepped up to
designing an encoding which fully covers the Eastern European languages
T1 only provides a partial solution for. Hilmar?
Fortunately, because I'm doing book work, I can make room in the encoding
vector by discarding some math symbols and analphabetics.
Are you talking about 8r here? There isn't very much nonalphabetic
material in T1 to get rid of. Getting something new in pretty much
necessitates losing some of the precomposed letters...
Christopher Adams skrev:
> Hi Hilmer,
>
> Thank you again for your thoughtful replies.
>
> 2010/1/17 Hilmar Schlegel
[who likes to keep his e-mail secret, wrote]
>
Well, another question would be: What do you want to do?
Seriously, all depends on what you really need (and not
necessarily what you believe now you might need).
>
> At this point I can define my goal quite narrowly: I need an
> *a/eogonek*rendered as single outlines, as well as t/scommaccent
> (without loosing
> scedilla). I see now this should be quite easy to achieve.
>
2) If I need a glyph that is not in T1, like /iogonek/, in
addition to the above, do I then simply have to modify t1.etx and
add a slot for that glyph?
>>
That is a practicable solution for some special glyphs. Since T1
is full, those are replacements of other glyphs you don't need.
>
Since my target glyphs are few i number, this would appear this is
> the best solution.
>
If I write a \setslot{scommaaccent} in my modified t1.etx file, I'm
still not confident I could typeset it. My low-level TeX is not so
good, and so I'm trying to puzzle out the code you sent. At some
point in the code do you
have to refer to the glyph by its char number? Or is there another
way to refer to whichever glyph occupies the "scommaaccent" slot by
name?
>
3) If I need a glyph that doesn't even have a TeX command, such
as scommaccent, what do I have to do to get access to it in my
latex document?
I know someone has written a \cb{} command that fakes comma
below. Can I
write my own \cb{} command? What would it look like? I really
only need to
access to scommaaccent and tcommaaccent.
>>
>>
Well, you can simply use the ogonek accent command: \k{a} and
\k{e} are defined as standard Latex commands. Ogoneks are applied
to vowels (like iogonek) and for consonants you simply provide
commaaaccents (g, k, n, r, s,
t). See the sample for using \k as ogonek/commaaccent for
vowels/consonants.
>>
>> Here the commaaccent is defined as a specific char code.
>> You can place it as it suits your needs.
>
>
Am I correct that this code is drawing the glyphs by composing a
base letter with a diacritic? But it first checks to see if there is
a real eogonek? I apologize that I'm having trouble following the
code. Would it be feasible to have a command that gets \cb{s} and
\cb{t} to print the right glyphs, assuming that the .etx has slots
for s/tcommaccent?
>
s/tcommaccent are a trivial correction for T1: replace scedilla
(which will mean there is no longer Turkish language support) and
use a T1' with a commaccent and redefine (extend) the \k{} command
as in the sample code.
>>
>
It seems I can't quite go this route, as I can't lose Turkish as a
> result.
>
>
>>
Fortunately, because I'm doing book work, I can make room in the
encoding vector by discarding some math symbols and analphabetics.
Actually you are not free to assign the glyphs in Latex to
arbitrary character codes! All depends on the used hyphenation
patterns for the needed
languages (Eastern European, Baltic, old Prussian &c). Therefore
T1 can be a reasonable template to start with since there is a
high probability of language support for T1 encoded fonts.
>
Ok, this is good to know. I'm very curious to know where this "you
are not free to assign..." mandate is written.
I've tried to document it in fontinst/doc/encspecs/encspecs.tex. The
main problem is that TeX's \lccode table establishes a correspondence
between upper and lower case letters, and if you don't respect these
correspondences then the hyphenation can get screwed up.
>> From the pure typographic view I'd strongly suggest to consider
>> i) the font Aldus [...]
>> ii) Palatino and Aldus Nova OT from Linotype. [...]
>>
>
These are both considerate choices. I very aware of both Aldus and
Palatino Nova, and under different circumstances your suggestions
would be entirely correct. But in this case I have already
determined that the regular and bold weights of Palatino are
precisely what I need (as a display face I'm using Sistina). Plus,
the fact that I require embedding permissions means that I need
Adobe. The fact that I have to tweak some glyphs means I need
Palladio.
>
> If circumstances were different I probably wouldn't be using any of
these. It just so happens that the work I am setting deals with
literary and cultural history centered in Frankfurt from the 1950s
onward. It is as if the choice has been made for me!
>
> In point of fact this has all given me a much finer appreciation of
> Zapf's accomplishment.
>
>
>> iii) for the less strict user of existing implementations it is also
>> worth to have a look into a Palatino Linotype, which is a TT
>> (TrueType) font with a larger glyph set. In case you can take the
>> trouble and make use of large TT fonts for Latex (extract the
>> metrics, map with fontinst and embed them via Distiller) this can
>> enrich the glyph set usable by Latex considerably.
>
> This is something I'm certainly interested in learning how to do.
> Considering my modest skill-set I'm determined to stick with Type 1
> fonts for now. Are there any good resources to learn more about this?
>
> My reasons for using fonstinst stem from my reliance on the microtype
> package in pdflatex. But now I'm really hooked on the flexibility it
> offers for mashing up fonts. I'm really interested in learning how
> OpenType is going to change the fontinst landscape. Any pointers?
Well, since you ask about the future... But bear in mind that this is
probably double-danger material, and very much work in progress:
http://abel.math.umu.se/~lars/fontinst/bigbase.dvi
Again, be warned: I had the spur of fontinst development resulting in
this back in September--October, but from November and on I've been
doing other stuff. There's no reason to believe these mechanisms will
be in anything resembling working condition within the foreseeable future.
Lars Hellström
