[tex-live] Embedding TrueType fonts in manuals

[Frank Küster]

Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña <jfs at computer.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 09:39:27AM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
>> The workflow for producing the Debian installation instructions uses
>> *dvipdf*, not dvipdf*m* or dvipdf*mx*.  That's a wrapper which envokes
>> dvips and gs.  I have no idea why that was chosen - perhaps just
>> "historical reasons".
>
> Actually, the d-i manual uses dvipdf, but many other documents in the Debian
> Documentation Project use  debiandoc2latexpdf which uses 'pdflatex' as a
> backend. The reason for this is that the d-i manul is written in Docbook-XML
> but most other documentation is (still) written using DebiandocSGML.
>
> Are there any known issues/recommendations with pdflatex we should take into
> account in the build process?

I've never seen dvipdf (the dvips/gs wrapper) being used other than in
automated package building, whereas loads of people use pdflatex for
daily work, with complicated documents and/or workflow, and still quite
a lot (in particular in non-western countries) use latex and dvipdfm(x).
Therefore it's likely that there are actually less issues with both of
these ways than with dvips/gs.

The only drawback is that, as bugs are being fixed, some workarounds
might stop producing the desired results.  Bitrot therefore will likely
have worse effects than with dvips/gs.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)