Re: Behaviour of \latinfamily

[Rebecca and Rowland <rebecca@astrid.u-net.com>]

>> `It [the \latinfamily command] is designed to work with sets of afm
>> files named according to the Fontname scheme, and is supplied with
>> the foundry and font family name only.'
>
>> Vital missing information: the afm files must be named ending in 8a
>> (*You* think this is obvious.  It's not; how am I to guess that afm
>> files for founts on my Mac aren't in Mac encoding?)
>
>How are we to guess that your Mac fonts are using a different encoding?
>It's a matter of perspecitve, I guess.

You don't have to guess that Macs normally use a different encoding because
it's stated explicitly in the fontname and fontinst documentation.

>> `With this information it attempts to execute a[n] \installfont
>> command for every combination of of weight and series for which it
>> can find an appropriate afm file;'
>
>> Vital missing information: *which* combinations precisely?  It certainly
>> doesn't look for *all* combinations.  Which founts will it fake?
>
>It tries all the weights in \latin_weights, all the shapes in \latin_shapes,
>and all the widths in \latin_widths.  (Well, not really.  There's a switch
>that determines whether fontinst attempts to fake narrow fonts, or whether
>it only uses those narrow fonts, which are provided as real fonts.)

Can you explain what the switch is, and what you need to do to change it?
Does fontinst ever change this switch on its own?

>As for the weights, it does nothing, if no corresponding AFM files exists,
>but it tries to add substitutions in order to fill the normal and bold
>series as good as possible.  As for the shapes, it should be using real
>fonts whenever they exist, but it will try to fake oblique and small caps.

Right - thanks for this.  Noted.

>(BTW, the present CTAN version was missing some weights, which were
>simply ignored.  In addition there were some weight mapping which lead
>to problems, such as regular (or book) and medium being mapped to the
>same LaTeX weight.  I don't know when Sebastian will put up the new
>version, in which these problems have been fixed.)

Is this mapping the `m' weight (fontinst name) to `mb' (fd file weight)?

>> `Expert sets, if available, can also be used where possible (for
>> small caps, extra ligatures, etc.) by appending an `x' to the family
>> name; if a `9' is appended to the name, then a set of fonts using
>> old-style digits is built'.
>
>> Vital missing information: how do you persuade it to *use* small
>> caps glyphs (etc) from supplied afm files, and which family name are
>> you talking about?
>
>It should be using real small caps fonts, when they exists and when
>they are installed with the proper names, so that it can find them.

Right - I think I've got this straight now.  Thanks.

[snip]

Thanks :-)

Rowland.