[OS X TeX] Fonts included with Textures?

Ross Moore ross at ics.mq.edu.au
Wed Mar 27 06:40:51 EST 2002



> >
> Hi All
> 
> I've just done a successful install of the Lucida fonts, purchased from 
> Y&Y, and following Gary Gray's instructions. It turns out that it is not 
> necessary to do any transforming of uppercase to lowercase. They work 
> either way.
> >
> > [2] No renaming necessary, maybe just transforming uppercase into 
> > lowercase. You will get:
> >
> > mtex.pfb
> > mtsy.pfb
> > rmtmi.pfb
> >
> 
> The next question though is whether it is really necessary to convert 
> .pfa files to .pfb files since the latter are just packed versions of 
> the former and they need to be unpacked anyway every time they are sent 
> to the printer. (If .pfb files are really needed them it seems like a 
> mistake.)

No. A binary format is necessarily smaller in size than an ascii format,
since all the bits are significant, whereas this is not so for ascii letters.
Thus transmission times to the printer are generally reduced.

Why do you think that the .pfb gets converted to .pfa before sending ?
Which print-spoolers do that, and why ?
It certainly isn't necessary, since a PostScript interpreter can read
the binary form directly into its internal format.
Similar it reads the (longer) ascii form directly into internals.
There is no a priori reason why any ascii/binary conversion between
the two forms needs to take place.

Indeed, the binary form is more likely to be closer to the internal format
than is the ascii format.


Of course the Mac [print-manager may be peculiar.


Cheers,

	Ross

 
> Adrian Heathcote
> 
> 
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