On Monday, 26 January 2026 00:30:18 GMT G. Branden Robinson wrote: > At 2026-01-20T13:48:52+0000, Deri wrote: > > First, a little introduction on how gropdf interacts with fonts. There > > are 3 different service levels:- > > [snip] > > This is invaluable information, Deri! > > In my working copy, I've turned it into a new subsection of the > gropdf(1) man page, immediately following "Typefaces". > > URW font support > The traditional PostScript Type 1 fonts are limited in their glyph > repertoire, and the original versions from the Adobe foundry are > not free software. Historically, because their presence was > mandated by the PostScript standard, one could expect to find > support for them in any conforming device or software PostScript > renderer. PostScript (“Level 1”) initially standardized 14 > typefaces: Times, Helvetica, and Courier each in four styles (which > groff groups into “families”); a symbol font; and a dingbats font. > PostScript Level 2 increased the number to 35, adding the families > Avant Garde, Bookman, Helvetica Narrow, New Century Schoolbook, and > Palatino; and a text font in one style, Zapf Chancery medium > italic. A document could be small because it did not need to embed > font resources unless it had unusual (for the time) glyph or > typeface requirements. This situation carried over into the early > years of PostScript’s successor page description language, PDF. > Nowadays, it is common to embed fonts in PDFs, and authorities > widely recommend this practice, which increases the reliability of > document rendering, and many free software fonts are available with > much greater glyph coverage than Adobe’s Type 1 fonts for > PostScript. > > gropdf attempts to work in variety of scenarios, and delivers > better results when configured with supporting digital font files > (for embedding) and font metrics files describing those fonts to > the formatter. > > • Full service is available when gropdf can locate all 35 > fonts of the PostScript Level 2 standard on the file system > along with their corresponding font metrics (AFM) files. > The Adobe‐compatible unnamed foundry supports up to 256 > glyphs in each typeface. Fonts from the URW foundry (“U”) > are compatible extensions of the Adobe fonts with extended > glyph coverage, including support for Cyrillic script. > > • Intermediate service is available when gropdf can locate all > 35 fonts of the PostScript Level 2 standard but not their > corresponding font metrics (AFM) files. Glyph coverage is > reduced to 256 glyphs maximum from each face, and the “U” > foundry is unavailable. > > • Basic service results when gropdf cannot locate all 35 fonts > of the PostScript Level 2 standard. Only the base 14 fonts > of the PDF standard are available, and only in the sense > that the formatter can use their metrics. Use of the -e > option to embed fonts in the generated PDF results in an > error. > > Regards, > Branden
This is great Branden, thank you. Cheers Deri
