Installing and naming unusual variants

[Ulrik Vieth]

> Hello
> I am not an experienced fontinst expert, but I do have some questions
> which I have not found answered in the documentation:

> I have some Bitstream fonts (PFB+AFM) which are "variants", e.g.

> bhvrt8a.afm		Helvetica Monospaced
> bhvbl8ac.afm		Helvetica Condensed Outline

> etc.

> My questions are:

> 1) What \latinfamily commands do I need to create the necessary .
> vpl, .mtx and .pl files.

I think \latinfamily might work, if you do \latinfamily{bhvt}{}.  
In this case the "t" suffix to the family name is taken as a 
variant name.  (Same situation for hlst (Lucida Sans Typewriter.)

However, I'm afraid the outline variant will not get installed by
\latinfamily, so you'd have to resort to manual \installfamily
commands.

> 2) How to use these fonts (I use the nfss) ?

> I could of course create a "new" font, e.g. yyyr8a instead of
> bhvrt8a.  But I want to use the *shape* changing commands in nfss.

Well, \latinfamily{bhvt}{} will install a new family "bhvt" in
addition to "bhv", so you'd have to use family changing commands
instead of shape changing commands.  (This is similar to using
"cmr" and "cmtt" as different families \rmfamily and \ttfamily.)

Now, for the outline variant, you're out of luck, I'm afraid, 
as you'd have to add the shape manually to the *bhv.fd files.

Hope this helps.

Ulrik Vieth