Font HOWTO

Donovan Rebbechi,

elflord@panix.com
Revision History                                                             
Revision v2.0            2002-07-10            Revised by: dr                


Provides a comprehensive source to act as a starting point for any and all
font questions about Linux.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
    1.1. The Location of This Document
    1.2. Submitting corrections/errata
    1.3. Last Updated
    1.4. Copyright
    1.5. Rationale
    1.6. Credits and Acknowledgements
   
   
2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts
    2.1. Types of Fonts
    2.2. Families of Typefaces
   
   
3. Fonts 102 -- Typography
    3.1. Classifications of Typefaces
    3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts
    3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes
   
   
4. Making Fonts Available To X
    4.1. The font path
    4.2. Installing Type 1 Fonts
    4.3. True Type Fonts
    4.4. xfs
   
   
5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript
    5.1. Type 1
    5.2. True Type
    5.3. Using Ghostscript To Preview Fonts
   
   
6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion
    6.1. Why ?
    6.2. How ?
   
   
7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts
    7.1. Introduction and Overview
    7.2. Applixware
    7.3. Star Office
    7.4. Word Perfect
   
   
8. Netscape
9. TeX / LaTeX
    9.1. A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts
    9.2. Adding Type 1 fonts
   
   
10. Getting Fonts For Linux
    10.1. True Type
    10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
   
   
11. Useful Font Software for Linux
12. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type
13. References
    13.1. Font Information
    13.2. Postscript and Printing Information
   
   
14. Glossary

1. Introduction

1.1. The Location of This Document

This document is located at [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto]
my webpage 
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1.2. Submitting corrections/errata

Please don't send me html ! I con't do anything with it. Instead, send a
patch based on the sgml source. To do this, edit Font-HOWTO.sgml, save the
new file to Font-HOWTO.sgml.new, and run the diff program:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|diff -u Font-HOWTO.sgml Font-HOWTO.sgml.new                                |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
and send me the patch. If I like it, it's easy for me to add it immediately.
It's also easy for me to quickly inspect the changes and decide whether or
not I like them.
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1.3. Last Updated

This version is last updated Wed Jul 10 20:05:15 EDT 2002. Go to the location
of the document for the latest version.
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1.4. Copyright

Copyright (c) 2000-2002 by Donovan Rebbechi

  Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in any
format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be forwarded to the
document maintainer, but you are not obliged to. You may create a derivative
work and distribute it provided that you:

  * Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as sgml) to
    the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for posting on the
    Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is available.
   
  * License the derivative work with the same license as this one or use GPL.
    Include a copyright notice and at least a pointer to the license used.
   
  * Give due credit to previous authors and major contributors.
   

If you're considering making a derived work other than a translation, it's
requested that you discuss your plans with the current maintainer.
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1.5. Rationale

I'm going to make this brief (-; The purpose of this document is to address
what was a gaping hole in font documentation. While previously, there were
several documents about fonts for Linux, I felt that none of them were
comprehensive, all of them had a relatively narrow focus. Hence the goal of
this document is not to provide radical new insight into the issue of font
handling ( though I have included material previously unavailable ), the main
aim is to provide a comprehensive source to act as a starting point for any
and all font questions about Linux.
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1.6. Credits and Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to Rod Smith, who made several helpful suggestions,
and fixed pfm2afm. Also thanks to Doug Holland, whose Font Deuglification
HOWTO proved to be a good reference, John McLaughlin, author of the document
that helped me come to grips with Star Office, and the Linux community for
their suggestions and constructive comments.
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2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts

2.1. Types of Fonts

2.1.1. Bitmap Fonts

A bitmap is a matrix of dots. Bitmap fonts are represented in precisely this
way -- as matrices of dots. Because of this, they are device dependent --
they are only useful at a particular resolution. A 75 DPI screen bitmap font
is still 75 DPI on your 1200 DPI printer.

There are two types of bitmap fonts -- bitmap printer fonts, such as the pk
fonts generated by dvips, and bitmap screen fonts, used by X and the console.
The bitmap screen fonts typically have a bdf or pcf extension. Bitmap screen
fonts are most useful for terminal windows, consoles and text editors, where
the lack of scalability and the fact that they are unprintable is not an
issue.
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2.1.2. Type 1 Fonts

The Type 1 font standard was devised by Adobe, and Type 1 fonts are supported
by Adobe's PostScript standard. Because of this, they are also well supported
under linux. They are supported by X and ghostscript. Postscript fonts have
traditionally been the choice of font for anything on UNIX that involves
printing.

Typically, a UNIX Type 1 font is distributed as an afm ( adobe font metric )
file, and an outline file, which is usually a pfb ( printer font binary ) or
pfa ( printer font ascii ) file. The outline file contains all the glyphs,
while the metric file contains the metrics.

Type 1 fonts for other platforms may be distributed in different formats. For
example, PostScript fonts for windows often use a different format ( pfm )
for the metric file.
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2.1.3. Type3 Fonts

These fonts are distributed in a similar manner to Type 1 files -- in groups
of afm font metrics, and pfa files. While they are supported by the
PostScript standard, they are not supported by X, and hence have limited use.
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2.1.4. TrueType Fonts

TrueType fonts were developed by Apple. They made the format available to
Microsoft, and succesfully challenged Adobe's grip on the font market. True
type fonts store the metric and shape information in a single file ( usually
one with a ttf extension ). Recently, font servers have been developed that
make TrueType available to X. And PostScript and ghostscript have supported
TrueType fonts for some time. Because of this, TrueType fonts are becoming
more popular on linux.
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2.1.5. Type 42 Fonts

Type42 fonts are actually just TrueType fonts with headers that enable them
to be rendered by a PostScript interpreter. Most applications, such as
ghostscript and SAMBA handle these fonts transparently. However, if you have
a PostScript printer, it may be necessary to explicitly create Type42 font
files.
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2.1.6. Type 1 vs TrueType -- a comparison

Despite the historical feuding between the proponents to Type 1 and TrueType
fonts, both have a lot in common. Both are scalable outline fonts. Type 1
fonts use cubic as opposed to quadratic curves for the glyphs. This is in
theory at least a slight advantage since they include all the curves
available to TrueType fonts. In practice, it makes very little difference.

TrueType fonts have the apparent advantage that their support for hinting is
better ( Type 1 fonts do have hinting functionality, but it is not as
extensive as that of TrueType fonts ). However, this is only an issue on low
resolution devices, such as screens ( the improved hinting makes no
discernable difference on a 600dpi printer, even at small point sizes. ) The
other point that makes this apparent advantage somewhat questionable is the
fact that well hinted TrueType fonts are rare. This is because software
packages that support hinting functionality are out of the budget of most
small time designers. Only a few major foundries, such as Monotype make well
hinted fonts available.

In conclusion, the main differences between TrueType and Type 1 fonts are in
availability and application support. The widespread availability of TrueType
fonts for Windows has resulted in webpages designed with the assumption that
certain TrueType fonts are available. Also, many users have large numbers of
TrueType fonts because they ship with the users Windows applications.
However, on Linux, most applications support Type 1 fonts but do not have the
same level of support for TrueType. Moreover, most major font foundries still
ship most of their fonts in Type 1 format. For example, Adobe ships very few
TrueType fonts. My recommendation to users is to use whatever works for your
application, and try to avoid converting from one format to another where
possible ( because the format conversion is not without loss ).
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2.1.7. Metafont

Metafont was developed by Donald E. Knuth as part of the TeX typesetting
system. Metafont is a graphics programming language ( like PostScript ) that
has applications wider than just fonts. Metafonts exhibit some very desirable
qualities. One of the important features is that metafonts can scale very
gracefully. The metafont Computer Modern has different shape at 20 point and
10 point. The shape changes with size, because it is desirable for a smaller
font to be proportionately wider than a larger font ( this makes the larger
fonts more elegant and the smaller fonts more readable ).

Metafonts typically have a mf extension. They are rendered to device
dependent bitmap fonts. The rendering is slow, so they are of excellent
quality, but are not well suited to WYSIWYG publishing.
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2.2. Families of Typefaces

Typically, typefaces come in groups of a few variants. For example, most
fonts come with a bold, italic, and bold-italic variant. Some fonts may also
have small caps, and demibold variants. A group of fonts consisting of a font
and its variants is called a family of typefaces. For example, the Garamond
family consists of Garamond, Garamond-italic, Garamond-bold, Garamond
bold-italic, Garamond demi-bold, and Garamond demi-bold-italic. The Adobe
expert Garamond font also makes available Garamond small caps, and Garamond
titling capitals.
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3. Fonts 102 -- Typography

Here, we discuss some typography basics. While this information is not
essential, many font lovers will find it interesting.
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3.1. Classifications of Typefaces

3.1.1. Fixed versus variable width

There are several classifications of typefaces. Firstly, there are fixed
width fonts, and variable width fonts. The fixed width fonts look like
typewriter text, because each character is the same width. This quality is
desirable for something like a text editor or a computer console, but not
desirable for the body text of a long document. The other class is variable
width. Most of the fonts you will use are variable width, though fixed width
can be useful also ( for example, all the example shell commands in this
document are illustrated with a fixed width font ). The most well known fixed
width font is Courier.
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3.1.2. To serif or not to serif ?

Serifs are little hooks on the ends of characters. For example, the letter i
in a font such as Times Roman has serifs protruding from the base of the i
and the head of the i. Serif fonts are usually considered more readable than
fonts without serifs. There are many different types of serif fonts.

Sans serif fonts do not have these little hooks, so they have a starker
appearance. One usually does not write a long book using a sans serif font
for the body text. There are sans serif fonts that are readable enough to be
well suited to documents that are supposed to be browsed / skimmed ( web
pages, catalogues, marketing brochures ). Another application that sans serif
fonts have is as display fonts on computer screens, especially at small
sizes. The lack of detail in the font can provide it with more clarity. For
example, Microsoft touts Verdana as being readable at very small sizes on
screen.

Notable sans serif fonts include Lucida Sans, MS Comic Sans, Verdana, Myriad,
Avant Garde, Arial, Century Gothic and Helvetica. By the way, Helvetica is
considered harmful by typographers. It is somewhat overused, and many books
by typographers plead users to stay away from it.
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3.1.3. The old and the new -- different types of Serif fonts

3.1.3.1. Old Style

Old style fonts are based on very traditional styles dating as far back as
the late 15th century. Old style fonts tend to be conservative in design, and
very readable. They are well suited to writing long documents. The name ``old
style'' refers to the style of the font, as opposed to the date of its
design. There are classic old style fonts, such as Goudy Old Style, which
were designed in the 20th century. The old style class of fonts has the
following distinguishing features:

  * Well defined, shapely serifs.
   
  * Diagonal emphasis. Imagine drawing a font with a fountain pen, where
    lines 45 degrees anticlockwise from vertical are heavy and lines 45
    degrees clockwise from vertical are light. Old style fonts often have
    this appearance.
   
  * Readability. Old style fonts are almost always very readable.
   
  * Subtlety and lack of contrast. The old style fonts have heavy lines and
    light lines but the contrast in weight is subtle, not stark.
   

Notable Old Style fonts include Garamond, Goudy Old Style, Jenson, and Caslon
( the latter is contentious -- some consider it transitional )
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3.1.3.2. Moderns ( or didone )

The moderns are the opposite of old style fonts. These fonts typically have
more character, and more attitude than their old style counterparts, and can
be used to add character to a document rather than to typeset a long piece.
However, nothing is black and white -- and there are some modern fonts such
as computer modern and Monotype modern, and New Century Schoolbook which are
very readable ( the contrast between heavy and light is softened to add
readability ). They are based on the designs popular in the 19th century and
later. Their distinguishing features include:

  * Lighter serifs, often just thin horizontal lines.
   
  * Vertical emphasis. Vertical lines are heavy, horizontal lines are light.
   
  * Many moderns have a stark contrast between light and heavy strokes.
   
  * Modern typefaces with high contrast between light and heavy strokes are
    not as readable as the old style fonts.
   

Bodoni is the most notable modern. Other moderns include computer modern, and
Monotype modern ( on which computer modern is based ).
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3.1.3.3. Transitional

Transitional fonts fit somewhere in between moderns and old style fonts. Many
of the transitionals have the same kind of readability as the old styles.
However, they are based on slightly later design. While a move in the
direction of the moderns may be visible in these fonts, they are still much
more subtle than the moderns. Examples of transitionals include Times Roman,
Utopia, Bulmer, and Baskerville. Of these, Times leans towards old style,
while Bulmer looks very modern.
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3.1.3.4. Slab Serifs

The slab serif fonts are so named because they have thick, block like serifs,
as opposed to the smooth hooks of the old styles or the thin lines of some of
the moderns. Slab serif fonts tend to be sturdy looking and are generally
quite readable. Many of the slab serifs have Egyptian names -- such as Nile,
and Egyptienne ( though they are not really in any way Egyptian ). These
fonts are great for producing readable text that may suffer some dilution in
quality ( such as photocopied documents, and documents printed on newspaper
). These fonts tend to look fairly sturdy. The most notable slab serif fonts
are Clarendon, Memphis and Egyptienne, as well as several typewriter fonts.
Many of the slab serif fonts are fixed width. Conversely, most ( almost all )
fixed width fonts are slab serif.
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3.1.4. The Sans Serif Revolution

Surprisingly, the rise of sans serif fonts is a fairly recent phenomenon. The
first well known sans serif fonts were designed in the 19th early 20th
century. The earlier designs include Futura, Grotesque and Gill Sans. These
fonts represent respectively the ``geometric'', ``grotesque'' and
``humanist'' classes of sans serif fonts.
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3.1.4.1. Grotesque

The grotesques where so named because the public were initially somewhat
shocked by their relatively stark design. Groteques are very bare in
appearance due to the absence of serifs, and the simpler, cleaner designs.
Because of their ``in your face'' appearance, grotesques are good for
headlines. The more readable variations also work quite well for comic books,
and marketing brochures, where the body text comes in small doses. Grotesques
don't look as artsy as their geometric counterparts. Compared to the
geometrics, they have more variation in weight, more strokes, they are
squarer ( because they don't use such circular arcs ). They use a different
upper case G and lower case a to the geometrics. While they are minimalistic
but don't go to the same extreme as the brutally avant-garde geometrics.

Notable grotesques include the overused Helvetica, Grotesque, Arial, Franklin
Gothic, and Univers.
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3.1.4.2. Geometric

The Futura font came with the manifesto: form follows function. The geometric
class of fonts has a stark minimalistic appearance. Distinguishing features
include a constant line thickness ( no weight ). This is particularly
conspicuous in the bold variants of a font. Bold groteques and humanist fonts
often show some notable variation in weight while this rarely happens with
the geometric fonts. Also notable is the precise minimalism of these designs.
The characters almost always are made up from straight horizontal and
vertical lines, and arcs that are very circular ( to the point where they
often look as though they were drawn with a compass ). The characters have a
minimal number of strokes. This gives them a contemporary look in that they
embrace the minimalistic philosophy that would later take the world of modern
art by storm. A tell tale sign that a font is a geometric type is the upper
case ``G'', which consists of a minimalistic combination of two strokes -- a
long circular arc and a horizontal line. The other character that stands out
is the lower case ``a'' -- which is again two simple strokes, a straight
vertical line and a circle ( the other ``a'' character is more complex which
is why it is not used ). Notable geometrics include Avant Garde, Futura, and
Century Gothic.
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3.1.4.3. Humanist

As the name might suggest, humanist fonts were designed with a goal of being
less mechanical in appearance. In many ways, they are more similar to the
serif fonts than the geometrics and the grotesques. They are said to have a
``pen drawn'' look about them. They tend to have subtle variation in weight,
especially observable in bold variants. The curve shapes are considerably
less rigid than those of the geometrics. Many of them are distinguishable by
the ``double story'' lower case g, which is the same shape as the g used in
the old style serif fonts. The humanist typefaces are the easiest to use
without producing an ugly document as they are relatively compatible with the
old style fonts.
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3.1.5. Compatible Typefaces

Grouping typefaces is not easy, so it pays to avoid using too many on the one
page. A logical choice of two typefaces consists of a serif and a sans serif.
[http://www.monotype.com/newmedia/type101_ex.htm] Monotype's Typography 101
page provides a category-matchup. They conclude that the moderns and
geometrics form good pairs, while the old styles and humanists also go
together well. The transitionals are also paired with the humanists. The slab
serifs are paired with the grotesques, and some variants of the slab serifs
are also said to match the geometrics or humanists.

From reading this, one gets the impression that their philosophy is
essentially to match the more conservative serifs with the more moderate sans
serifs, and pair the wilder modern serifs with the avant garde looking ( pun
unavoidable ) geometrics.
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3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts

3.2.1. Ligatures

Properly spacing fonts brings with it all sorts of issues. For example, to
properly typeset the letters ``fi'', the i should be very close to the f. The
problem is that this causes the dot on the i to collide with the f, and the
serif on the head of the i to collide with the horizontal stroke of the f. To
deal with this problem, font collections include ligatures. For example, the
``fi'' ligature character is a single character that one can substitute for
the two character string ``fi''. Most fonts contain fi and fl ligatures.
Expert fonts discussed later often include extra ligatures, such as ffl, ffi,
and a dotless i character.
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3.2.2. Small caps fonts

Small caps fonts are fonts that have reduced size upper case letters in place
of the lower case letters. These are useful for writing headings that require
emphasis ( and they are often used in LaTeX ). Typically, when one writes a
heading in small caps, they use a large cap for the beginning of each word,
and small capitals for the rest of the word ( ``title case'' ). The advantage
of this over using all caps is that you get something that is much more
readable ( using all caps is a big typographic sin ).
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3.2.3. Expert fonts

Expert fonts consist of several extras designed to supplement a typeface.
These include things like ligatures, ornaments ( much like a mini-dingbats
collection designed to go with the typeface ), small caps fonts, and swash
capitals ( fancy, calligraphic letters ).
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3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes

Font metrics define the spacing between variable width fonts. The metrics
include information about the size of the font, and kerning information,
which assigns kerning pairs -- pairs of characters that should be given
different spacing. For example, the letters ``To'' would usually belong in a
kerning pair, because correctly spaced ( or kerned ), the o should partly sit
under the T. Typesetting programs such as LaTeX need to know information
about kerning so that they can make decisions about where to break lines and
pages. The same applies to WYSIWYG publishing programs.

The other important component of a font is the outline, or shape. The
components of the fonts shape ( a stroke, an accent, etc ) are called
``glyphs''.
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4. Making Fonts Available To X

There are a number of ways fonts can be added to X. Firstly, XFree86 has a 
font path which is just a list of several directories or font servers where
it searches for fonts. A font server is just a background process that makes
fonts available to XFree86. An advantage of font servers is that they can
send fonts to remote displays.

Recently, xfs ( the ``X font server'' ) has been patched to support TrueType
fonts, and run as a stand-alone program. The patched version ships with
RedHat and RedHat-based distributions, and is included in XFree86 4.0 and
newer. xfs is actually just the standard font server that comes with XFree86.
It's source code is part of the XFree86 source tree. However, distributions
have recently been shipping a version that runs in stand-alone mode. The
stand-alone X font server, with the TrueType support patch ( the TrueType
support takes place via a font server called xfsft ) is probably the nicest
font management solution currently available. Its advantages include:

  * Support for different types of fonts, including Type 1, TrueType and
    bitmap.
   
  * Makes fonts available to remote displays.
   
  * Greatly simplifies editing the fontpath -- you can do it via the command
    line utility chkfontpath, as opposed to having to edit configuration
    files. This not only makes life easier for users, it makes packaging more
    safer and more scriptable for packagers.
   

 

Because different distributions ship with different configurations, it is not
true that one size fits all. We can split users up into three groups:

  * Your distribution ships with a stand-alone xfs and it has been patched to
    support TrueType. This group includes Redhat users and users of
    derivatives of Redhat such as Mandrake, and TurboLinux. Debian 3.0 will
    also include the patched xfs, currently in testing. For this group, the
    wisest strategy is to install both TrueType and Type 1 fonts through xfs
   
  * Some distributions ship with a stand-alone xfs package, but no TrueType
    support. Note that XFree86 supports TrueType as of version 4.0. This
    includes Debian stable ("potato"). For these users, the best thing to do
    is use xfs to install Type 1 fonts, and install TrueType fonts via xfstt.
    Debian users can seek out the [http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/
    debian-tt.html] TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO for information about
    installing TrueType fonts in Debian.
   
  * If you don't have xfs then you will need to install Type 1 fonts by
    adding to their XFree86 font path and using xset. using xset. XFree86 3.x
    users should install TrueType fonts via xfstt, while XFree86 4.x users
    can add them to the X font path. You should install TrueType fonts via
    xfstt.
   

 
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4.1. The font path

XFree86 finds your fonts by searching a font path, a list of directories ( or
servers -- we'll explain this further later. ) containing fonts. When an
application requests a font, it searches through the directories in your font
path one at a time until the font is found. To make fonts available requires
you to set your font path. You can add a directory to your font path with the
command xset fp+ directory Once you have done this, you need to ask the X
server to re-scan for available fonts with the command
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        xset fp rehash                                                     |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Since you will want these commands to run automatically, you should put them
in your .xinitrc file ( or possibly your .Xclients or .xsession file -- this
depends on how you start X. It's convenient to make two of these files
symlinks to the other to avoid confusion ). Another way to have the commands
set automatically is edit XF86Config. For example, to add /usr/share/fonts/
myfonts to the font path when X is started, edit XF86Config like this:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                ...                                                        |
|                Section "Files"                                            |
|                ...                                                        |
|                                                                           |
|                FontPath /usr/share/fonts/myfonts                          |
|                ...                                                        |
|                EndSection                                                 |
|                ...                                                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The advantage of editing XF86Config is that the resulting changes are system
wide.
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4.2. Installing Type 1 Fonts

4.2.1. Run Type1inst

The easiest way to make Type 1 fonts available to X is with the help of the
Type1inst utility. This is a perlscript that automatically creates the
fonts.dir and fonts.scale files that you need for X to use the fonts. Simply
CD to the directory, and run type1inst. cd directory type1inst
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.2.2. If You Have the xfs Package

Now you need to add the fonts to your font path. If you already have the
stand-alone Section 4.4 running, you do this by editing your xfs
configuration file. RedHat users can just use chkfontpath. the format is 
chkfontpath --add directory

Your fonts will be available to X after you restart xfs, or tell it to reload
by sending a SIGHUP. You may need to run xset fp rehash as well.

Your fonts should now be available to X. Now you just run xset fp rehash and
X will be able to find the new fonts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.2.3. If You Don't Have The xfs Package

In this case, you need to add the directory containing your new fonts to the
font path, as described previously.
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4.3. True Type Fonts

Adding TrueType fonts is a little more difficult, because you need to have a
font server that is capable of serving TrueType fonts. Two font servers that
do this are xfstt and xfs.

xfstt is a TrueType font server. While it's easy to configure, and quite
useful, it appear that xfs is becoming more popular. The main advantage of
xfs over xfstt is that it supports both Type 1 and TrueType fonts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.3.1. xfstt

To set up xfstt, just download it and install it. Once you install it, you
need to do the following:

 1. install fonts into the appropriate directory ( read the documentation
    that comes with the package ).
   
 2. cd to that directory and run xfstt --sync. This causes it to look for the
    fonts and create the fonts.dir file.
   
 3. Now add unix/:7100 to your font path.
   

Your TrueType fonts should now display and be available to applications such
as GIMP and Netscape. You may want to configure it to start every time your
system starts up. Check to see if there's a startup file included ( if you
are using RPM, you can use rpm -ql xfstt |grep init and look for the file
with a name something like this: /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfstt ) If you don't have
an init script, just put two lines in /etc/rc.local like this:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        /usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt --sync                                        |
|        /usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt &                                             |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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4.4. xfs

Some of the newer Linux distributions ship with the X font server xfs
configured to run as a stand alone program. Notably, Redhat and all the
redhat based distributions use this modularised xfs with TrueType compiled
in. Debian also ship xfs, but the version they ship in stable ("potato")
doesn't have built in true type support, though the one in testing ("woody")
does.  

Running xfs as a stand alone server has several benefits, especially if it is
compiled with TrueType support. The main advantage is that since the font
server is no longer attached to the X server, it is possible to serve fonts
to remote displays. Also, it makes it much easier to modify the font path.
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4.4.1. The xfs Path

As a font server, xfs has it's own font path. One might wonder where this
fits into the picture. It works like this: you can place the xfs font server
in XFree86's font path, by adding unix/:port to the XFree86 font path. Once
you do this, any font in the xfs font path automatically becomes available to
XFree86.

The xfs font path is determined by the xfs configuration file, which is /etc/
X11/fs/config on Redhat, and /etc/X11/xfs/config on Debian. Redhat users do
not need to explicitly edit this file, they can use the chkfontpath utility.
The syntax is simple:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        chkfontpath --add directory                                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Users of other distributions can edit the configuration file as follows:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,                |
|        ...                                                                |
|        /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/,                                    |
|        ...                                                                |
|        /usr/share/fonts/some_other_directory                              |
|        # in 12 points, decipoints                                         |
|        default-point-size = 120                                           |
|        ...                                                                |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The above would add /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/ to the xfs font path. Note
that the last line of the list of directories doesn't have a comma at the
end. For these modifications to the font path to become effective, xfs must
be told to reload by running /etc/init.d/xfs reload or sending it a SIGHUP
with "kill -HUP [pid]" or "killall -HUP xfs". Alternately you can just
re-start xfs, though if you do that it would be a good idea to re-start your
X session too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.4.2. Installing a Font Into xfs

To prepare a font for xfs, you need to follow the following steps:

  * If you don't have xfs installed, you need to install it.
   
  * Put the new fonts in a directory.
   
  * If you are installing Type 1 fonts, prepare the new directory for the
    server by running type1inst in the directory.
   
  * If you are installing TrueType fonts, ( remember, not all distributions
    can do TrueType via xfs ! ), prepare the new directory for the server by
    running ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale mkfontdir in the directory containing
    your new fonts. If you created a new directory for the fonts you may need
    to copy fonts.scale to fonts.dir or create a symbolic link. ttmkfdir is
    part of the freetype package.
   
  * Now you can add the new directory to your xfs search path. Users of
    Redhat-like distributions can do this with the chkfontpath utility: Other
    users can do this by editing their xfs configuration file.
   
  * if xfs is already installed on your system, you should see which port it
    is running on. You can do this as follows:
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |        ps ax|grep xfs                                         |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   
  * Then check your XFree86 font path. xset -q
   
  * If your font path includes something like unix:/port_number were 
    port_number is the port which the server is running on, then you already
    have xfs set up properly. Otherwise, you should add it to your XFree86
    font path. xset fp+ unix/:port_number xset fp rehash You can add it
    permanently by editing your .xinitrc as explained previously. To add it
    system wide, edit your XF86Config file ( probably either /etc/X11/
    XF86Config, /etc/XF86Config or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config ), by adding
    a line FontPath "unix:/port_number" in the Files section. Here's an
    example:
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                ...                                            |
    |                Section "Files"                                |
    |                ...                                            |
    |                                                               |
    |                FontPath "unix/:-1"                            |
    |                ...                                            |
    |                EndSection                                     |
    |                ...                                            |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   
  * If xfs is already properly installed, then you can tell it to reload, as
    described above, or restart it like this:
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart                   |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   
  * After restarting xfs, it's a good idea to restart your X-session.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript

To make fonts available to ghostscript, it suffices to tell ghostscript where
the files corresponding to a given font are located. The file that needs to
be edited is /usr/share/ghostscript/version/Fontmap. The format is very
simple, almost immediately self evident on perusing it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1. Type 1

Adding Type 1 fonts is straightforward. Run type1inst on the directory
containing the font. type1inst will output a file called Fontmap. Append this
file to the ghostscript Fontmap file.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.2. True Type

Adding truetype fonts is a little trickier, because we have to get the name
of the TrueType font. One way (brute force, alas) to do this is using the
ttf2pt1 TrueType to Type 1 converter, and grabbing the font name from the afm
( there's got to be a more efficient way ! but this works, ugly as it is ).
You do it like this:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                ttf2pt1 -A fontname - 2 > /dev/null  |grep FontName        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Then you add an entry to the ghostscript Fontmap file in the correct format,
eg some-font (/usr/share/fonts/subdirectory/somefont.pbf); Well, that works
fine, but try doing it with 500 or so fonts. This is the kind of thing that
calls for a short perlscript:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|#!/usr/bin/perl                                                            |
|# ttfontmap -- generate fontmap file for TrueType fonts                    |
|my $directory=shift || print STDERR "Usage: ttfontmap {directory}\n";      |
|                                                                           |
|$directory=~s/\/$//;                                                       |
|                                                                           |
|for my $fontname ( glob ( "$directory/*.ttf" ) )                           |
|{                                                                          |
|    open ( R, "sh -c \"ttf2pt1 -A $fontname - 2>/dev/null\" |" );          |
|    while ( <R> )                                                          |
|    {                                                                      |
|        if ( $_ =~ /^FontName/ )                                           |
|        {                                                                  |
|            s/^FontName\s*//;                                              |
|            chomp;                                                         |
|            print "/" .  $_ . "    ($fontname);\n" ;                       |
|        }                                                                  |
|    }                                                                      |
|    close R;                                                               |
|}                                                                          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
You can [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/ttfontmap] download
this script

To set this script up, all you need to do is cut and paste it into a file
called ttfontmap, and place the file somewhere in your PATH ( such as /usr/
bin ). You run this script like this:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        ttfontmap directory > output_file                                  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
where directory is the directory containing the fonts. You are left with the
file output_file which you can append to your ghostscript fontmap. Note: some
will observe that you could just use ttfontmap directory >> /usr/share/
ghostscript/version/Fontmap However, I advise against this ( what would
happen if you typed ``>'' instead of ``>>'' ? )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.3. Using Ghostscript To Preview Fonts

Once you've made fonts available to ghostscript, you can preview them. Do
this by running the ghostscript interpreter on the file prfont.ps in your
ghostscript installation, and after you start it, type: /Fontname DoFont at
the ghostscript font ( where FontName is the ghostscript name of the font you
wish to preview ). There are several other ways you can invoke gs. For
example, if you want to create a PostScript file that you can look at in a
nicer PostScript viewer such as gv, you can use gs -sDEVICE=pswrite
-sOutputFile=somefile.ps prfont.ps Having done this, you can also print your
output file.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion

6.1. Why ?

or perhaps the right question to ask is ``why not ?'' The typical Linux user
has experienced a migration from Windows, and probably has an enormous
collection of TrueType fonts. Many of these fonts ( eg those that ship with
MS Word and Corel's products ) are of fairly good quality. However, some
Linux applications, such as Star Office and LaTeX do not support TrueType
fonts, but do support Type 1 fonts. update: it looks like Star Office can
handle TrueType fonts, but I'm still trying to work out the details. At best,
it involves some fairly gruesome hacks. This is a pity, because with
ghostscript support for TrueType, and TrueType font servers, Linux has the
infrastructure it needs to handle TrueType.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.2. How ?

To convert your TrueType fonts into Type 1 fonts, go to [http://
quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/] http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/
and get ttf2pt1. To convert a TrueType to a Type 1 font, use the following
syntax:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        ttf2pt1 -b file.ttf name                                           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Where name is the name of the file corresponding to the new Type 1 font ( ie
it's arbitrary. It's a good idea to make it the same as the ttf file. eg
ttf2pt1 -b foo.ttf foo.

Well, that worked fine for one font. If we have a lot, we need a smarter way
to do it. One can just just use a loop:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        for X in *.ttf; do ttf2pt1 -b $X ${X%%.ttf}; done                  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Alternatively, you can download the [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
font_howto/ttfutils-0.2.tar.gz] ttfutils package and use ttf2type1 for the
conversions.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        ttf2type1 *.ttf                                                    |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts

7.1. Introduction and Overview

Installing fonts for WYSIWYG publishing on Linux is a relatively complex
task. It typically involves three steps:

  * Make the font available to the X server
   
  * Make the font available to ghostscript
   
  * Make the font available to the application
   

The main reason for the complexity is that the font printing system (
ghostscript ) is unrelated to the screen font system. In a way, Linux's left
hand does not know what it's right hand is doing. This problem is nontrivial
to solve, because it is possible that printer fonts and display fonts reside
on different machines, so there is no guarantee that all fonts the XClient
uses are printable.

The good news is that most WYSIWYG applications use what is a reasonable
solution to this problem. The solution involves constructing some kind of
mechanism that maps screen fonts to printer fonts ( this is the main issue.
There are also other issues, such as grouping bold, italic and roman variants
into ``families'' of fonts ). Unfortunately, there is no standard way to do
this. It seems that font management standards which address this issue would
greatly simplify the installation of fonts into WYSIWYG publishing systems,
because all applications could use a system-wide ( as opposed to
application-specific ) configuration.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2. Applixware

There are two ways to install fonts into Applixware. One method involves
using FontTastic, which is Applixware's ``private'' font server. The other
method involves editing Applixware's fontmap, to use a font already installed
on the system. Installing into the font server is more convenient, but fonts
installed in this manner may only be printed at 300 dpi.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2.1. FontTastic

Using FontTastic is the easy way to do it. To install new fonts like this,
simply do the following:

 1. Run Applixware as root
   
 2. Click on the tools menu.
   
 3. Choose ``Font Installer''
   
 4. Check ``OK'' in the popup dialog
   
 5. Click the ``Catalogs'' menu and choose ``create''
   
 6. Fill in the catalog name box. It doesn't matter what you put there. For
    the rest of this example, we'll assume it's called ``foobar''
   
 7. Select your foobar catalog from the catalog manipulations list.
   
 8. From the ``Services'' menu, select ``install fonts into -> FontTastic
    font server''
   
 9. Make sure catalog foobar is selected in the catalogs list, then press the
    ``select files'' button.
   
10. Use the select files dialog to select the fonts you want to install.
    Press ``OK'' when you've selected the files. For example, if you want to
    select arial.ttf in the directory /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts/, you would
    type /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts in the ``Current Directory'' dialog, then
    select arial.ttf from the files dialog box, then click ``OK''. Note that
    you can select multiple files, but they all must come from the same
    directory.
   
11. You can edit your list by checking on the different fonts in the list box
    and possibly removing or renaming them.
   
12. When you're ready, click the ``install fonts'' button. Then click ``OK''.
   
13. Go to the ``services'' menu and choose ``update''. Check ``OK'' on the
    annoying modal dialog, then choose exit from the services menu. Exit
    applix.
   
14. Congrats, you're done ! The new fonts will be available when you restart
    Applix.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2.2. Using System Wide Fonts With Applixware

This method is more involved, but produces better results. I recommend that
this method is used for fonts that are really important, and that you use a
lot. There are a few steps to this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2.2.1. Make the fonts available to X

This is explained Section 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2.2.2. Make the fonts available to ghostscript

This is explained in Section 5.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2.2.3. Edit the fontmap.dir

This is the final step in making your fonts available to Applix, and also the
most time consuming step. The file fontmap.dir is in under the axdata/
fontmetrics of your applix installation. The purpose of this step is
basically to tell applix which screen fonts go with which outline fonts. This
is in general a very nontrivial problem, because the screen fonts are not
always on the same computer that the application is installed.

We describe how to add fonts to fontmap.dir. In this example, we add the font
Baskerville Italic.

 

 1. First, we add a line that says FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic In
    fact, the name we use in FontRecord is completely arbitrary. However, the
    font record must be unique to the font. Because of this, it's good
    practice to use the name that ghostscript uses for the font.
   
 2. Next, we a line that says Family = Baskerville The family name for a font
    is the name that appears in Applix's font selection menu. Typically, it
    is non-unique, since bold, italic, roman and bold-italic variants of a
    font will typically go under the same family.
   
 3. If the font is either a bold, or italic variant, or both, we need to add
    the following lines: Slant = 1 if the font is italic, and Weight = 1 if
    the font is bold. If the font is bold and italic, we add both lines. In
    this example, we need only add the line Slant = 1
   
 4. We add a line that looks like this: ScreenName =
    "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1" The screen
    name is the name that the X-server uses for the font. We can list font
    names containing the string ``bask'' by typing xlsfonts|grep -i bask
   
 5. Now we add a line that gives the name of the printer font:
    PostScriptPrinterName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
   
 6. Next, we need to specify the location of the font metric file and the
    outline file MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
    Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb If you are adding a
    TrueType file, you can use ttf2pt1 to generate an afm file : ttf2pt1 -A
    foo.ttf - > foo.afm ( or get the ttfutils package and use ttf2afm ) Then
    you use something like this: MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/foo.afm
    Do not include a Type1FontFileName directive -- let ghostscript take care
    of this.
   

 

That's it. Now after adding the whole family of fonts, you should have
something like this:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal                                             |
|        Family = Baskerville                                                        |
|        ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1" |
|        PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal                                    |
|        MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.afm                              |
|        Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.pfb                        |
|                                                                                    |
|        FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic                                      |
|        Family = Baskerville                                                        |
|        Slant = 1                                                                   |
|        ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1" |
|        PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic                             |
|        MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm                             |
|        Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb                       |
|                                                                                    |
|        FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold                                               |
|        Family = Baskerville                                                        |
|        Weight = 1                                                                  |
|        ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"   |
|        PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold                                      |
|        MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.afm                             |
|        Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.pfb                       |
|                                                                                    |
|        FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold-Italic                                        |
|        Family = Baskerville                                                        |
|        Weight = 1                                                                  |
|        Slant = 1                                                                   |
|        ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"   |
|        PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold-Italic                               |
|        MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.afm                            |
|        Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.pfb                      |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

It is possible to do more with this configuration file. The file itself has a
glossary which explains the format of the configuration file.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3. Star Office

Here, we cover Star Office 5.0. The procedure with Star Office 5.1 is
similar, but the utility is called spadmin, not psetup. It's worth mentioning
up front that [http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html] John
McLaughlin's page is an excellent source on this issue, and it inspired most
of what follows.

Having tried both Star Office 5.0, and 5.1, I have found that Star Office 5.1
seems to give me less grief when adding new fonts. I was not succesful adding
true type fonts to Star Office 5.0, but it proved somewhat easier with Star
Office 5.1.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3.1. Backup Your Configuration Before you Start !

It's good to make a backup in case you inadvertantly hose your configuration.
Modifying fonts will impact several files in the xp3. You should definitely
backup the file xp3/psstd.fonts. I recommend going further and backing up the
whole xp3 directory. You can do this by cd-ing to your Star Office directory,
then using
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        tar cvzf xp3.tgz xp3                                               |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
to create a backup. To restore a backup, delete the xp3 directory and unpack
the archive
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        rm -rf xp3                                                         |
|        tar xvzf xp3.tgz                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3.2. Adding Type 1 Fonts to Star Office

Adding Type 1 fonts to Star Office is relatively simple. If you want to use
your TrueType fonts with Star Office 5.0, the best thing to do is convert
them to Type 1 fonts, and then follow the procedure outlined here. If you
have Star Office 5.1, you might wish to use the proceedure for installing
TrueType fonts instead ( though it is somewhat more difficult ). Firstly, do
the usual thing -- make the font available to both X and ghostscript. Once
this is done, the font can be installed into Star Office using the psetup
tool. The procedure is as follows:

 1. As root, run psetup ( or spadmin if you have Star Office 5.1 )
   
 2. Press the ``add fonts'' button.
   
 3. The easiest thing to do after this is press the ``initialize font paths''
    button. This puts a list of all fonts in your X font path in the list
    box.
   
 4. Choose the directory containing the font you wish to install ( it should
    be in the box ), and then press ``OK''.
   
 5. Click the ``convert all font metrics button''.
   

That's it. You're done. You can exit ( or click ``OK'' until it exits ). When
you restart Star Office, you will have the new fonts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3.3. Adding TrueType Fonts to Star Office

Adding TrueType fonts to Star Office is nontrivial, but possible. After some
hard work, and long hours stareing at [http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/
adding_fonts.html] John McLaughlin's page page, I finally got them working in
Star Office 5.1. Note that this does not work with version 5.0. The following
steps are appropriate it you are printing through ghostscript:

  * Make the fonts available to X.
   
  * Make the fonts available to ghostscript.
   
  * You need to have afm files for the fonts you wish to add. Use
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |        ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - > foo.afm                         |
    |                                                               |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    to create the afm files. Alternatively, you can get the
   
  * [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/ttfutils-0.2.tar.gz]
    ttfutils package and use ttf2afm The advantage of this is you can handle
    several at a time, eg
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |        ttf2afm *.ttf                                          |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   
  * Star Office needs pfb files corresponding to each ttf file. You can
    create them with the command
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |        touch foo.pfb                                          |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    Actually, Star Office only uses these files for printing purposes. And by
    enterring the font in the PPD, thus duping Star Office into thinking the
    fonts are inside your printer ( when they're actually inside
    ghostscript's rendering system ), you get around needing to use these
    files. Star Office just seems to require that the pfb file exists to
    install the font.
   
  * Now you can run spadmin and install the font(s).
   
  * Now add the fonts to the PPD file corresponding to your printer
    configuration. The name you use for the font should be the same name Star
    Office uses for it, not the ghostscript font name. For example, if the
    font is foobar.ttf and the corresponding afm file is foobar.afm, you use
    the name ``foobar'' for the font in the PPD file. The entry should look
    something like this:
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |*Font cloistrk: Standard "(001.002)" Standard ROM              |
    |                                                               |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   

 

On the other hand, if you are not printing from ghostscript, you have
different issues to deal with. In this case, tricking Star Office into
thinking that your printer has the fonts is a bad idea, because your printer
does not have the fonts in the ROM, so while gv will display the PostScript
files nicely, your printer will not be able to print them. If you have a
PostScript printer, the main differences are as follows:

  * Do not edit the PPD file.
   
  * Instead of using touch foo.pfb to create empty pfb files, you need the
    pfb files to be Type42 PostScript fonts. A Type42 font is really a
    ``printer TrueType font''. You don't really notice Type42 fonts even when
    you use them, because most applications handle them transparently. To
    create Type42 fonts, you use [ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/jek/programs/
    ttfps.tar.gz] ttfps to create the files.
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |        ttfps foo.ttf foo.pfb                                  |
    |                                                               |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   

 

There are some gotchas. Sometimes, Star Office might not choose the screen
font you like. It is sometimes worth checking xp3/psstd.fonts and possibly
editing it to make sure that Star Office is really using the font you had in
mind for screen display. Also, Star Office doesn't handle configuration
problems gracefully. If there's something wrong with your configuration, it's
possible that the word processor will not even start. This is why you should
back up your xp3 directory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3.4. Under the Hood

If you wish to install TrueType fonts in Star Office, you may need to learn
how Star Office handles things. When you run spadmin or psetup, the following
happens:

  * Star Office makes symbolic links to the pfb outline files in your xp3/
    pssoftfonts directory.
   
  * The afm file is copied into the directory xp3/fontmetrics/afm/
   
  * An entry is added to the xp3/psstd.fonts file. This file stores the names
    of all the screen fonts used by Star Office ( in particular, it maps the
    screen fonts to the outline filenames ).
   

 

This is why it's good to simply backup the whole xp3 directory -- it is the
only convenient way to restore Star Office to a clean configuration.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.4. Word Perfect

Nothing yet. [http://www.rodsbooks.com/wpfonts/] Rod Smith's webpage is the
definitive resource regarding installing fonts on Word Perfect.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. Netscape

Perhaps the most notorious application as far as fonts are concerned is the
dreaded Netscape. However, there is a fairly simple procedure to attack
Netscape font ugliness. The main problem is that Netscape wants to use 75dpi
fonts which is typically too small. You can fix this by specifying the
appropriate X resources in your .Xdefaults file:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        Netscape*documentFonts.sizeIncrement: 20                           |
|        Netscape*documentFonts.xResolution*iso-8859-1: 100                 |
|        Netscape*documentFonts.yResolution*iso-8859-1: 100                 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The number 100 can be chosen arbitrarily. For example, if you like your fonts
really large, like I do, then you may want to use 150 instead.

The other essential tip with regard to addressing Netscape font ugliness is
this -- get the Microsoft font pack. These fonts are widely used and it makes
an enormous difference if you have ( or don't have ) those fonts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9. TeX / LaTeX

9.1. A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts

Adding fonts to TeX and LaTeX is a somewhat complex procedure. However, like
a lot of things, it's easy if you know how to do it. Some fonts are
distributed in metafont format, and some in Type 1 format. Usually, the Type
1 formats are more easily available. However, metafont fonts have the
distinct advantage that they can adjust their shape at different sizes, while
Type 1 and TrueType fonts at different point sizes are simply magnified or
reduced versions of precisely the same shape. The main reason why this
feature is desirable is that ideally, fonts should be ( relatively ) wider at
smaller sizes and narrower at larger sizes.

For this discussion, we focus on Type 1 fonts, since they are more widely
available, and more problematic to install.

Here's a quick primer on LaTeX fonts. LaTeX uses the following types of font
files for handling Type 1 fonts:

  * .pl -- property list. This is a human readable version of a tex font
    metric file.
   
  * .vpl -- virtual property list. Human readable version of a virtual font
    file.
   
  * .fd -- font definition. Used to define a family of fonts.
   
  * .tfm -- tex font metric. This is a metric file, as explained in the
    glossary. It is completely analogous to the .afm files used by Type 1
    fonts. TeX needs the font metrics to properly layout the page.
   
  * .vf -- virtual font. These files contain encoding details, and act as
    interpreters. TeX treats them as fonts. For example, Imagine that there's
    some wacky font foobar-exp.pfb which consists of a few ( say 20 )
    alternate characters, and there's a virtual font which uses a few of
    these alternate characters ( and it gets the rest of the characters from
    font foobar.pfb ). Dvips might say ``I want character 65 of virtual font
    foo.vf''. Dvips knows that 65 is always an ``a'' in TeX's scheme. Then
    the virtual font maps TeX's request to a request for character 14 of the
    Type 1 font foobar.pfb ( which might be the alternate ``a'' in the Type 1
    font foobar.pfb ). The virtual font mechanism is very flexible and allows
    fonts to be constructed from many different font files. This is useful
    when using fonts such as adobe's ``expert'' fonts.
   
  * .pk -- a device dependent bitmap font. These are usually constructed on
    an as-needed basis ( they are renderings of Type 1 and metafont fonts ).
    They are typically high resolution ( about 300-1200dpi ), and are
    intended to be rendered on a printer. Because of their high resolution,
    and the fact that each point size of each font requires a .pk file, they
    require a lot of disk space, so they are cached, but not stored.
   
  * .mf -- metafont files. Metafont is a graphics programming language widely
    used for font design ( though it can also be used for graphics ). It has
    many advantages over TrueType and Type 1 schemes. However, it's main
    weakness is that it is not as ubiquitous as TrueType or Type 1 ( and it
    is also not terribly well suited to WYSIWYG publishing. Of course, this
    isn't a major disadvantage when TeX is your typesetting system. ) 
   

 

It's good to know your way around the TeX directory structure. Here are the
main directories you'll need to know about:

  * $TEXMF/fonts -- the main font directory
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/type1 -- the type1 font directory
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry -- the directory for the shape files in a
    given foundry
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry/fontname -- contains the font called name. The
    name is usually plain English, and needn't follow TeX's cryptic naming
    scheme for fonts.
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/afm/foundry/fontname -- the directory containing the afm
    files corresponding to the font name belonging to foundry foundry.
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/tfm/foundry/fontname -- analogous to the afm directory, but
    contains tfm files instead.
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/vf/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but contains
    the virtual fonts.
   
  * $TEXMF/fonts/source/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but
    contains metafont files.
   
  * $TEXMF/dvips/config/psfonts.map -- fontmap file for dvips. This file is
    similar in both function and format to ghostscript's Fontmap file.
   
  * $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss -- this is where all the font definition files
    go.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2. Adding Type 1 fonts

9.2.1. Naming the fonts

First, you need to appropriately name your fonts. See the fontinst
documentation on your system for instructions on how to name fonts ( it
should be fontinst subdirectory of the directory containing your tetex
documentation ). To make a long story very short, the naming scheme is FNW{V}
E{n} where:

  * F is a one-letter abbreviation for the foundry ( m = monotype, p = adobe,
    b = bitstream, f = free )
   
  * N is a two letter abbreviation for the font name ( for example, ag =
    ``avant garde'' )
   
  * W is the font weight ( r = regular, b = bold, l = light d = demibold )
   
  * V is an optional slope variant ( i = italic , o = oblique )
   
  * E is an abbreviation for the encoding ( almost always 8a which is adobe
    standard encoding ).
   
  * N is an optional width variant ( n = narrow )
   

For example, the font Adobe Garamond demibold is pgad8a.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2.2. Creating the virtual fonts and tex font metrics

Now you can run fontinst as follows: latex `kpsewhich fontinst.sty` then you
type at the prompt: \latinfamily{font_name}{}\bye where font_name is the
first three letters of your font file name ( for example, pad for adobe
garamond ). Now fontinst will generate a number of files -- font description
files, property list files and virtual property list files. It also generates
a lot of .mtx files. These are created by fontinst, but you don't need to use
them. You need to convert the property lists and virtual property lists to
metrics and virtual fonts. This is done using the utilities vptovf and
pltotf. for X in *.pl; do pltotf $X; done for X in *.vpl; do vptovf $X; done
Then remove the old vpl, pl and mtx files.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2.3. Configure dvips

You will need to edit your dvips config file, psfonts.map. The best way to
explain the format of the file is to give an example.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        marr8r          ArialMT <8r.enc <farr8a.pfa                        |
|        marbi8r         Arial_BoldItalicMT <8r.enc <farbi8a.pfa            |
|        marb8r          Arial_BoldMT <8r.enc <farb8a.pfa                   |
|        marri8r         Arial_ItalicMT <8r.enc <farri8a.pfa                |
|        marr8rn         Arial_Narrow <8r.enc <farr8an.pfa                  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The 8r.enc is simply there to inform dvips of the encoding scheme used ( in
all our examples, it's 8r, because of the way fontinst constructs the virtual
fonts ). The leftmost column is the font name TeX uses. The second column is
the real name of the font, which is hardcoded into the font file ( this name
can be deduced by opening the afm file in a text editor, and looking for the
FontName directive ). The last column is the filename of the shape file
corresponding with the font. It is not necessary to provide a directory path
-- tex knows where to look.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2.4. Test the font

Try running latex on a document like this: \documentclass{article} \begin
{document} \usefont{T1}{pga}{m}{n}\selectfont \huge Testing a new font \dots
the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dogs \end{document} where you
replace pga with the outline of your font. If this works, you are almost
done. All you have to do now is put all the files in the right directories (
as explained in the primer ), then run texconfig rehash so that tex can
update the directory lists.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2.5. Create a .sty file

You may want to create a .sty file so that you can more easily use fonts. Use
the files in $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss as a template.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Getting Fonts For Linux

10.1. True Type

10.1.1. Commercial Software

True type fonts are very easy to come by, and large amounts of them are
typically included in packages like Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. Getting
Word Perfect is an easy way to get an enormous amount of fonts ( and if
you're really cheap, you could buy a legacy version of Word Perfect for
windows. The fonts on the CD are readable. )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1.2. Microsoft's Font Download

Microsoft have also made several TrueType fonts available. The .exe file is
simply an archive, you can extract it using unzip. You can get them from
[http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/fontpack/win.htm] the download site
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1.3. Luc's Webpage

[http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/originalfonts.html] Luc Devroye's webpage has
links to several sites with free fonts available. What's unique about these
fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1.4. Web sites with truetype fonts

There are several web sites offering freely available downloadable fonts. For
example, [http://www.freewareconnection.com/fonts.html] the freeware
connection has links to a number of archives.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1.5. Foundries

Several foundries sell TrueType fonts. However, most of them are quite
expensive, and for the same money, you'd be better of with Type 1 fonts. I'll
discuss these more in the Type 1 fonts section. The one place that does do
sell true type fonts at low prices is [http://www.buyfonts.com] buyfonts.
Please read the section on ethics before you buy cheap fonts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont

10.2.1. Dealing With Mac and Windows Formats

Many foundries ship fonts with Windows and Mac users in mind. This can
sometimes pose a problem. Typically, the ``Windows fonts'' are fairly easy to
handle, because they are packed in a zip file. The only work to be done is
converting the pfm file to and afm file ( using pfm2afm ).

Macintosh fonts are more problematic, because they are typically made
available in .sit.bin format -- stuffit archives. Unfortunately, there is no
tool for Linux that can unpack stuffit archives created with the newer
version of stuffit. The only way to do it is run Executor ( Mac emulator ),
or try running stuffit in dosemu or Wine. Once the sit.bin file is unpacked,
the Macintosh files can be converted using t1unmac which comes with the
t1utils package.

Unfortunately, some vendors only ship Type 1 fonts in Macintosh format (
stuffit archives ). However, according to font expert [http://
cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/] Luc Devroye, all major foundries make Type 1 fonts
available for Mac and Windows.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2.2. Free Stuff

[http://www.ctan.org] ctan have a number of good fonts, many of which are
free. Most of these are in Metafont format, though some are also Type 1
fonts. Also, see [http://www.bluesky.com] Bluesky who have made available
Type 1 versions of the computer modern fonts. ( The computer modern fonts are
of excellent quality -- to purchase anything of comparable quality and
completeness will cost you around $500-. They are comparable to the premium
fonts. )

[http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/originalfonts.html] Luc Devroye's webpage has
links to several sites with free fonts available. What's unique about these
fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.

URW have released the standard PostScript fonts resident in most printers to
the public domain. These fonts are quite good.

The [ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/fonts/] Walnut Creek Archive has several
freely available fonts, and shareware fonts. Some of these are obvious
ripoffs ( and not very good ones ). If a font doesn't come with some kind of
license, chances are it's a ripoff. Also [http://www.winsite.com/win3/fonts/
atm/] Winsite have several Type 1 fonts ( in the fonts/atm subsection of
their windows 3.x software ). Unfortunately, several of these have afm files
which have mistakes and are missing all kerning pairs ( you can fix the afms
by editing the "FontName" section of the afm files. It should match the
fontname given in the font shape file. Of course, adding kerning pairs is a
topic beyond the scope of this document. )

[http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/] Luc Devroye's webpage includes several free
fonts he designed, as well as a lot of links, and fascinating discussion on
the topic of typography. This site is a ``must-visit''. There are also
several links to many foundries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2.3. Commercial Fonts

10.2.3.1. Value vs Premium: Why Should I buy Premium Fonts ?

So you're wondering -- why do some fonts cost a lot and others are cheap ?
These fonts are the ``standard PostScript fonts'' resident in most PostScript
printers. Also the famous Why should I buy the more expensive ones ? My take
on it is that for a casual user, the value fonts ( such as those on the
Bitstream CD ) are just fine. However, if you're using the fonts for ``real
work'', or you're just a hard core font junkie, then the better quality fonts
are a must-have -- and most of the quality fonts are either free ( for
example, Computer Modern ), or they are upmarket commercial fonts.

The advantage of the cheaper fonts is self evident -- they are cheaper. The
quality fonts also have their advantages though.

  * Ethical issues: The cheaper fonts are almost always ripoffs. Type design
    takes a long time and and experienced designer. Fonts that are sold for
    less than $1- per font were almost certainly not designed by the vendor.
    CDs with insane quantities of fonts on the are almost always ripoffs (
    the possible exceptions being collections from major foundries that cost
    thousands of dollars ). Usually, the ripoffs lack the quality of fonts
    from respectable founries.
   
  * Completeness: The higher quality fonts ( notably from Adobe ) come in
    several variants, with some nice supplements to provide the user with a
    more complete font family. There are often bold, italic, and demibold
    variants, swash capitals, small caps, old style figures, and extra
    ligatures to supplement the font. More recently, Adobe have a multiple
    master technology which gives the user ( almost ) infinite variation
    within one font family.
   
  * Quality: A lot of the freely available fonts or the cheap ripoffs lack
    fairly essential features such as kerning pairs and decent ligatures.
    They are basically cheap copies. In contrast, reputable designers take a
    lot of trouble to study the original design, and rework it to the best of
    their ability.
   
  * Authenticity: The person who designed Adobe Garamond ( Robert Slimbach )
    actually studied the original designs of Claude Garamond. In fact
    reputable foundries always carefully research their designs, rather than
    just swiping something off the net, and modifying it with Fontographer.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2.3.2. Value

 

  * An excellent place to go for a CD packed with several Type 1 fonts of
    reasonable quality is [http://www.bitstream.com] Bitstream. Bitstreams
    more noted products include their [http://www.bitstream.com/products/
    world/font_cd/bits_collection.html] 250 font CD and their [http://
    www.bitstream.com/products/world/font_cd/500_cd.html] 500 font CD ( the
    latter goes for $50- at the time of writing ). These are fairly good
    quality fonts, and are a fairly good starting point for the casual user.
    The fonts used in Corel's products are (mostly) licensed from bitstream.
   
  *  [http://www.matchfonts.com/] Matchfonts offer more modestly priced fonts
    -- they are distributed in ``packs'' of about 8 fonts for $30. This
    includes some nice calligraphic fonts. All fonts seem to be offered in a
    usable format ( the windows ATM fonts come in a .exe file. Don't let the
    extension fool you -- it's just a zip archive ). These are not ripoffs as
    far as I can tell.
   
  * [http://www.buyfonts.com] EFF sell TrueType fonts for $2- per hit. They
    also have ``professional range'' PostScript and TrueType fonts for $16-
    per typeface.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2.3.3. Premium

 

  * Adobe have several high quality, fonts available at [http://www.adobe.com
    /type/] Adobe's type website. Some of these are expensive, but they have
    several more affordable bundles -- see [http://www.adobe.com/type/
    collections.html] Adobe Type Collections. Adobe have some of the most
    complete font families on the market, for example, [http://www.adobe.com/
    type/browser/P/P_912.html] Garamond, [http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P
    /P_180.html] Caslon, and their [http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/
    C_4e.htm] multiple masters ( Myriad and Minion, used on their website are
    among the nicer of their multiple masters. )
   
  * [http://www.bertholdtypes.com] Berthold Types Limited is a major foundry,
    who offer several quality fonts. Some of them are resold through Adobe,
    all are directly available from Berthold. Same price ballpark as Adobe.
   
  * ITC develop several quality fonts ( including some of the ones Corel
    ships with their products ) at [http://www.itcfonts.com] http://
    www.itcfonts.com They offer family packages for about $100-180 US. Their
    fonts, come in both Type 1 and TrueType format. It's better to choose the
    ``Windows'' package, because Mac formats are difficult to handle on
    Linux.
   
  * [http://www.linotypelibrary.com] Linotype are a well known foundry who
    offer fonts by legendary designers including Herman Zapf. ( yep, the guy
    ``Zapf Chancery'' is named after. He also designed Palatino. )
   
  * [http://www.monotype.com] Monotype develop most of the fonts shipped with
    Microsoft products. One of the older and well respected foundries.
   
  * [http://www.portal.ca/~tiro/] Tiro Typeworks sell good quality, if
    somewhat expensive typefaces. Their typefaces are very complete, for
    example, they include complete sets of ligatures, and smallcaps, titling
    fonts, etc. UNIX is listed as one of the OS options -- which is a welcome
    surprise after seeing the words ``Windows or Mac'' too many times..
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.2.3.4. More Links

For links to a bunch of other foundries, see [http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/]
Luc Devroye's page
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

11. Useful Font Software for Linux

There are several font packages for Linux. Many of them are essential.

  * chkfontpath is a utility for manipulating the xfs configuration file.
   
  * [http://www.debian.org/~fog/dtm/] DTM -- the Definitive Type Manager is a
    global font management tool. This is a developer's release.
   
  * [http://www.tug.org/applications/fontinst/index.html] fontinst is a LaTeX
    package designed to simplify the installation of Type 1 fonts into LaTeX.
   
  * [http://www.freetype.org] Freetype is a TrueType library that comes with
    most Linux distributions
   
  * [http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/] Ghostscript is the software that is used
    for printing on Linux. The version of ghostscript that ships with Linux
    is GNU ghostscript. This is one version behind the latest release of
    Aladdin ghostscript ( who release their old versions under the GPL )
   
  * [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/pfm2afm.tgz] pfm2afm is a
    utility for converting windows pfm font metric files into afm metrics
    that can be used for Linux. This is based on the original version
    available at CTAN, and includes modifications from Rod Smith to make it
    compile under Linux.
   
  * [http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/type/] mminstance and t1utils are two
    packages for handling Type 1 fonts. mminstance is for handling Adobe's
    [http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/C_4e.html] multiple master Type 1
    fonts. t1utils is a suite of utilities for converting between the
    different Type 1 formats. 
   
  * [http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/] ttf2pt1 is a TrueType to Type
    1 font converter. It is useful if you have applications that require Type
    1 fonts.
   
  * [ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/jek/programs/ttfps.tar.gz] ttfps converts
    .ttf TrueType font files into Type42 files. 
   
  * [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/ttfutils-0.2.tar.gz]
    ttfutils A package of utilities for handling TrueType fonts. This package
    requires ttf2pt1. Useful if not essential. 
   
  * [ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/] type1inst is an
    essential package for installing Type 1 fonts. It greatly simplifies the
    installation.
   
  * [ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/] xfstt is a TrueType font
    server for Linux. It's useful, but xfs is probably a better choice.
   
  * [http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/programs/xfsft/] xfsft The xfsft font
    server. Note that this is included in xfs.
   
  * [http://hawk.ise.chuo-u.ac.jp/student/person/tshiozak/x-tt/] x-tt is a
    font server designed to handle Korean and Japanese fonts.
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

12. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type

Font licensing is a very contentious issue. While it is true that there is a
wealth of freely available fonts, the chances are that the fonts are
``ripoffs'' in some sense, unless they come with a license indicating
otherwise. The issue is made more confusing by intellectual property laws
regarding typefaces. Basically, in the USA, font files are protected by
copyright, but font renderings are not. In other words, it's illegal to
redistribute fonts, but it's perfectly legal to ``reverse-engineer'' them by
printing them out on graph paper and designing the curves to match the
printout. Reverse engineered fonts are typically cheap and freely available,
but of poor quality. These fonts, as well as pirated fonts are often
distributed on very cheap CDs containing huge amounts of fonts. So it's not
always easy to tell if a font is reverse engineered, or simply pirated. This
situation creates an enormous headache for anyone hoping to package free
fonts for Linux.

Perhaps one of the most offensive things about the nature of font piracy is
that it artificially debases the value of the work that type designers do.
Pirated fonts invariably are bundled en masse onto these one zillion font
CDs, with no due credit given to the original designers. In contrast, what is
commendable about several legitimate font foundries is that they credit their
designers.

There are many differing opinions on this issue. See [http://
www.typeright.org] typeright for an explanation of the case in favour of
intellectual property rights. Also, see [http://www.ssifonts.com/] Southern
Software, Inc for another opinion -- but don't buy any of their fonts! Their
Type 1 fonts ( poorly reverse-engineered Adobe fonts ) do not have AFMs, and
are thus unusable.

[http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/part2/] The comp.fonts FAQ also discusses
the issues of fonts and intellectual property, as does [http://
cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/] Luc Devroye's homepage. These references are somewhat
less extreme in their views.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

13. References

13.1. Font Information

 

  * [http://www.rodsbooks.com/] Rod Smith's homepage contains a wealth of
    information about using fonts and printers with Applixware and Word
    Perfect.
   
  * [http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html] John McLaughlin's
    page discusses setting up fonts with Star Office
   
  * [http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/postscript.html] Jim Land's
    homepage contains a lot of links to sites on PostScript and fonts.
   
  * [http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/] The comp.fonts FAQ is the
    definitive font FAQ.
   
  * [http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/] Luc Devroye's homepage Contains enough
    information about fonts and other things to sink a ship. This guy
    designed a bunch of free fonts, and his homepage has a lot of interesting
    links, information and commentary.
   
  * [http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU.html] The Font Deuglification
    HOWTO discusses TrueType fonts under Linux. This is the clear winner of
    the ``TrueType'' HOWTOs. An excellent source of information.
   
  * [http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/debian-tt.html] TrueType Fonts in
    Debian mini-HOWTO discusses installing TrueType in Debian. A must-read
    for Debian users. Also worth reading if you have any distribution that
    doesn't have the version of xfs with TrueType support.
   
  * [http://www.moisty.org/~brion/linux/TrueType-HOWTO.html] The
    (preliminary) True Type HOWTO -- an incomplete HOWTO dated June 1998.
    Included in this list for completeness.
   
  * [http://www.sfu.ca/~yzhang/linux/truetype/] TrueType for XFree86
    Mini-HOWTO -- a slightly dated HOWTO. Only applicable to Redhat 5.x
   

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

13.2. Postscript and Printing Information

 

  * [http://www.adobe.com/print/postscript/main.html] Adobe's Postscript page
    is the definitive site on the PostScript standard.
   
  * [http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/] Ghostscript's home page has a lot of
    information, and all the latest printer drivers.
   
  * [http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/postscript.html] Jim Land's
    homepage contains a lot of links to sites on PostScript and fonts.
   
  * [http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/printing.html] Christopher Browne's
    Printing FAQ 
   

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Glossary

 

  * afm Stands for Adobe Font Metric. These files store information about the
    width and spacing associated with the font, as opposed to information
    about the font shape. 
   
  * anti-aliasing also referred to as font smoothing is a technique used to
    render fonts on low resolution devices ( such as a monitor ). The problem
    with rendering fonts is that the fonts consist of outlines, but the
    device renders in dots. The obvious way to render a font is to color
    black any pixel inside the outline, and leave all other dots. The problem
    with this is that it doesn't adequately address the pixels that are on
    the outline. A smarter algorithm would be to color the boundary pixels
    gray. Anti-aliasing essentially involves doing this. 
   
  * bdf fonts are a variety of bit-mapped fonts that may be used with X. 
   
  * bitmap fonts These fonts are simply a collection of dots. Each character
    of the font is stored as a dot matrix. Because of this, bitmap fonts are
    device dependent, so you can't use the same bitmap fonts on a screen and
    a printer. Examples of bitmap screen fonts include .pcf and .bdf fonts
    used by X. Examples of printer bitmap fonts include TeX's PK fonts. 
   
  * didone see modern. 
   
  * DPI Dots Per Inch. Monitors typically display at 75-100 DPI, while modern
    printers vary from 300-1200 DPI 
   
  * expert fonts are collections of additional characters that supplement a
    font. They include small caps fonts, ornaments, extra ligatures, and
    variable width digits. Many of Adobe's fonts have expert fonts available.
   
  * font server a background program that makes fonts available to XFree86. 
   
  * glyph A glyph is a fancy word for a shape. It is a component that makes
    up an outline font. For example, the dot on the letter ``i'' is a glyph,
    as is the vertical line, as are the serifs. Glyphs determine the shape of
    the font. 
   
  * kerning In variable width fonts, different pairs of characters are spaced
    differently. The font metric files store information regarding spacing
    between pairs of characters, called kerning pairs. 
   
  * ligature A ligature is a special character that is used to represent a
    sequence of characters. This is best explained by example -- when the
    letter fi are rendered, the dot on the ``i'' collides with the ``f'', and
    the serif on the top left of the i can also collide with the horizontal
    stroke of the f. The fi ligature is a single character that can be used
    in the place of a single f followed by a single i. There are also
    ligatures for fl, ffi, and ffl. Most fonts only include the fi and fl
    ligatures. The other ligatures may be made available in an expert font.  
   
  * metafont A graphics language used for creating fonts. Metafont has a lot
    of nice features, the main one being that fonts created with metafont
    need not just scale linearly. That is, a 17 point computer modern font
    generated by metafont is not the same as a magnified 10 point computer
    modern font. Prior to Adobe's multiple master technology, metafont was
    unique with respect to having this feature. Metafonts main advantage is
    that it produces high quality fonts. The disadvantage is that generating
    bitmaps from the outline fonts is slow, so they aren't feasible for
    WYSIWYG publishing. 
   
  * metric this stores information about how much space a font takes up. A
    font metric is like a box that one can embed the font in. Font metrics
    are essential for the purpose of laying out fonts on a page, while the
    font shape itself is not. So typically, variable width fonts have metric
    information as well as shape information. The metric also includes
    kerning information. 
   
  * modern fonts are fonts based on designs developed in the 19th century or
    later. The moderns have a solid appearance due to their vertical stress.
    They tend to have more ``character'' or ``attitude'' than the old styles
    and transitionals, but still carry a certain amount of dignity and
    formality. They are not suited for writing long passages, but they are
    useful for adding character to a piece of writing. Bodoni is a notable
    modern typeface. 
   
  * old style fonts are a traditional class of typeface. The old style fonts
    are based on designs from as far back as the late 15th century. Old style
    fonts are great for writing long documents ( such as books ). While the
    old style fonts are designed in the tradition of the earlier designers,
    some of them were designed quite recently. Notably, the face Goudy Old
    Style was designed by Goudy in the early 20th century. Notable old style
    faces include Goudy Old Style, Garamond, and Caslon. 
   
  * pcf fonts are bit-mapped fonts used by X. 
   
  * PostScript is a programming language designed for page description.
    Postscript was a trademark of it's inventor, adobe. However, it is also
    an ISO standard. Postscript needs an interpreter to render it. This can
    be done via a program on the computer, such as ghostscript, or it can be
    interpreted by some printers. 
   
  * serif fonts are fonts with little hooks ( called serifs ) on the ends of
    the font. the serifs usually help make the font more readable. However,
    serifs are quite difficult to render on low resolution devices,
    especially at small font sizes ( because they are a fine detail ), so it
    is often true that at small sizes on low resolution devices, sans serif
    fonts ( such as Microsoft's Verdana ) prove more readable. Another issue
    is that there are sans serif fonts ( like the moderns ) that are not
    designed for writing long documents. 
   
  * sans serif fonts are fonts without serifs ( sans is French for
    ``without'' ). These fonts have a stark appearance, and are well suited
    for writing headlines. While textbook typography mandates that serif
    fonts be used just for headlines, they can have other uses. There are
    sans serif fonts designed for readability as opposed to impact. Short
    punchy documents that are skimmed ( such as catalogues and marketting
    brochures ) may use them, and recently, Microsoft have made available the
    Verdana font which is designed for readability at small sizes on low
    resolution devices. Well known sans serif fonts include Lucida Sans, MS
    Comic Sans, Avant Garde, Arial, Verdana, Century Gothic. 
   
  * slab serif fonts are a certain class of font whose serifs look like slabs
    ( eg flat lines or blocks ) and not hooks. Slab serif fonts are often,
    but not always very readable. Because the serifs are simple and strong,
    they give one the feeling that they have been punched into the page. Well
    known examples of slab serifs are Clarendon, New Century Schoolbook, and
    Memphis. 
   
  * transitional fonts are fonts that are based on more recent designs than
    the old style fonts. many of the transitional fonts have good
    readability. Notable transitionals include Baskerville, and Times Roman. 
   
  * Type 1 is a type of font designed by Adobe. These fonts are well
    supported by almost all linux applications, because they have been
    supported by the X server architecture and the PostScript standard for a
    long time. Postscript fonts are distributed in many different formats.
    Typically, a UNIX PostScript font is distributed as an afm ( adobe font
    metric ) file, and an outline file, which is usually a .pfb ( printer
    font binary ) or .pfa ( printer font ascii ) file. The outline file
    contains all the glyphs, while the metric file contains the metrics. 
   
  * type3 fonts are similar to Type 1. The file extensions are similar to
    Type 1 fonts ( they are distributed as pfa and afm files ), but they are
    not supported by X, and because of this, there are not very many linux
    applications which support them. 
   

 
