[tex-live] Conflits in gsfonts packge and tex-live distro

Pander pander at users.sourceforge.net
Thu May 21 09:19:19 CEST 2009


Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

...

> The UniqueID should better be removed because Adobe doesn't asign new
> ones any more.  It doesn't hurt if it's missing, but you run into
> trouble if two different fonts have the same one.

Perhaps it is worthwhile that an independent (open) font group would
like to take the task upon them of assigning unused unique font id to
people that request one.

Getting off-topic now: I'm a bit new in the world of fonts but after
having worked intensively with font files, I must say that sometimes a
lot of meta data is missing or incorrect.

I think a "stamp of approval" or "certificate of correct meta data" for
correct meta data on types would be in place (if it does not exist). May
be an automated webservice could do the assigning of new unique font ids
and at the same time do some basic checking.

To illustrate my point I have attached a list of some font types (pfb,
otf and ttf) that are not really convenient (to say the least):

Let's start out with some (sort of) normal styles:
Bold
Italic
Bold Italic
Regular
Demi Bold,Bold
Oblique,Italic
Slant
Mono
Book,Regular
Demi Bold
Demi Bold Italic
Medium
Bold,Regular
Bold Oblique
Oblique
Regular Condensed
Demi
Demi Oblique
Book Oblique
Regular Oblique
Bold Condensed Italic
Bold Condensed
Demi Italic
Demibold
Demibold Italic
Demibold Oblique
Bold Extended
Bold Extended Italic
Bold Extended Slanted
Roman Bold Variant
Semibold Oblique
Semibold
Unslanted Italic
Variable Width Typewriter Italic
Roman Bold
Slanted
Light
Light Italic,Italic
Light Italic
Light,Regular
Medium Italic
Medium,Regular
Medium Italic,Italic
Heavy Italic,Italic
Heavy,Regular
Condensed
Condensed Bold Oblique,Bold Oblique
Condensed Bold,Bold
Condensed Oblique,Oblique
Condensed,Book
Condensed Bold Italic,Bold Italic
Dunhill Roman

Some might say words like Dunhill, Condensed, Heavy, Medium and Light
belong in the font name, not in the style. Let us leave that outside of
this story for now.

Now some that could better have a space:
BoldCondensed
ItalicCondensed
BoldOblique
BoldItalic
ExtraLight
BoldCondensedCondensed
CondensedCondensed
ItalicCondensedCondensed
BoldItalicCondensed
RegularCondensed
Bold-Italic
Light-Regular
Light-Italic
Heavy-Regular
Heavy-Italic
Medium-Regular
Medium-Italic
Bold SmallCaps
SmallCaps
MediumItalic

Some that need capitalisation:
regular
bold

Some that need no abbreviation:
Med-Regular
Med-Italic
Cond-Bold
Cond-BoldItalic
CondHeavy-Regular
CondHeavy-Italic
CondLight-Regular
CondLight-Italic
CondMedium-Regular
CondMedium-Italic
Cond-Regular
Cond-Italic
o
b

Some that need ,Regular:
Book
Roman
Normal
Plain

Some that need Regular:
Small Caps (because sometimes also Bold Small Caps exist)
Caps and Small Caps (because sometimes also Bold Caps and Small Caps exist)

Some that do not need Regular:
Bold Italic,Regular
Italic,Regular
Regular Italic
Regular Condensed Italic
Regular Italic,Italic

Some that need English translation:
Entona
EntonaReonta
Ortha
Pezokefalaia
Reonta

Strange characters:
\\040Regular
\\040Bold\\040Italic
\\040Bold
\\040Italic
t-Regular
t-Italic

Part of name in style (somewhat the same story as Heavy and Medium in
style of in name, but Sans Serif and Serif is at a higher classification
and should not belong here):
Sans Serif Slanted
Sans Serif Bold Extended Slanted
Sans Serif Quotation
Sans Serif
Sans Serif Demi Condensed
Typewriter Slanted
Sans Serif Quotation Inclined
Sans Serif Bold Extended

Too much information:
Small Caps & Old Style Figures

And many, many fonts, also repeat the font name or the size in points
inside the style :( Even illegal characters in OTF file meta data on
which the xml parser employed by ttx is choking.

I know part of the style info is also in the file names, but even that
is not 100% correct. but I must say that the software handling all this
for selecting the correct font for TeX and via fontconfig for other apps
is very good if you look at all the variants or errors.

To return to the "correct meta data" approval for fonts, it boils down
to what the community is able (or would like to) to pull of. As I said,
I'm new in the font world, hence my newly acquired amazement ;) Probably
I'm not the only one having noticed this.

Regards,

Pander


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