UK TeX FAQ -- question 81

### Acquiring bitmap fonts

When CTAN was established, most people would start using TeX with a 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) laser printer, and sets of Computer Modern bitmap fonts for this resolution are available on CTAN (there are separate sets for write-black and write-white printers.

At that time, there were regular requests that CTAN should hold a wider range of resolutions, but they were resisted for two reasons:

1. When a bitmap font is created with Metafont, it needs to know the characteristics of the device; who knows what 600 or 1270 dpi device you have? (Of course, this objection applies equally well to 300 dpi printers.)
2. Bitmap fonts get big at high resolutions. Who knows what fonts at what sizes people are going to need?

Fortunately, (La)TeX distribution technology has put a stop to these arguments: most (if not all) current distributions generate bitmap fonts as needed, and cache them for later re-use. The impatient user, who is determined that all bitmap fonts should be created once and for all, may be supported by scripts such as allcm (distributed with teTeX, at least; otherwise such a person should consult "the use of Metafont").

If your output is to a PostScript-capable device, it may be worth switching to Type 1 versions of the CM fonts. Two free versions are currently available; the older (bakoma) is somewhat less well produced than the bluesky fonts, which were originally professionally produced and sold, but were then donated to the public domain by their originators Y&Y and Bluesky Research, in association with the AMS). Unfortunately, the coverage of the sets is slightly different, but the present author hasn't found the need to use bakoma since bluesky became available. In recent years, several other 'Metafont' fonts have become available in Type 1 format; it's common never to find the need of generating bitmap fonts for any purpose other than previewing (see "previewing documents with Type 1 fonts").

The commercial font suppliers continue just to keep ahead of the free software movement, and provide Type 1 versions of the EC fonts, CM-style Cyrillic fonts, as well as a range of mathematical fonts to replace those in the CM family (see "choice of scalable fonts").

`bakoma`
  fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma.tar.gz
`bluesky`
  Browse fonts/cm/ps-type1/bluesky/
`cm fonts (write-black printers)`
  fonts/cm/pk/pk300.zip
`cm fonts (write-white printers)`
  fonts/cm/pk/pk300w.zip