On Tue, 1 May 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> [...]
> There are still a lot of people around, particularly in the so-called
> Third World, who are happily running TeX on ancient machines.
Yes, but are any of them using the current version of teTeX with
pdftex and ghostscript?
> "Giuseppe Ghibo'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> >
> > How about a revision of the 8+3 KB naming scheme to support more
> > characters for more prosaic font names? WDYT?
>
> If a system isn't broken, don't fix it.
The system _is_ broken in the sense that using a current TeX with type 1
fonts requires too many font information tables, making it difficult to
understand and maintain. Since teTeX runs on X and is commonly used with a
PS interpreter, you also have to reconcile the X font names and provide
the font to file mapping for the PS interpreter. When you encounter a
problem it is often difficult to figure out which file needs to be
changed. There are many situations where it would be useful to be able to
switch between families (e.g., the original Adobe base 13 fonts as used by
Display PS and Acrobat Reader 3 vs the modified base 13 fonts as used by
Acrobat Reader 4 or the Adobe "laserwriter 35" vs the URW "clones" of
these fonts), or even to know with certainty which of these are actually
being used (since many systems try to be helpful and "automatically"
substitute fonts without telling us).
The current font situation is a mess, and really needs a complete
overhaul. In a well designed system, the actual names of the
font files on disk will appear in exactly one table, and could
easily accomodate a variety of naming schemes.
--
George White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Halifax, Nova Scotia
