[OS X TeX] Font files clarified

[Adrian Heathcote]

All

I once asked the question whether teTeX on the mac OSX needed to have 
fonts in pfb format, or whether pfa was possible as well. Ross M. 
replied that for pdftex pfb was needed, though not necessarily with 
dvips. This issue has come up on the pdftex list and I asked Thomas 
Esser for clarification. Here is his response:

(I had said) This all came up in a discussion of whether tetex needs to 
have font
files in .pfb format or whether with the correct .map file it would be
possible to use .pfa's or macintosh's .lwfn type font files.

I have no idea what .lwfn files are, but I just have tested that pdftex
works with pfa files.

Thomas

This leaves the question of whether it is possible to simply leave the 
font outline file in lwfn format (appropriately renamed of course). I 
point out that Tom Kiffe's CMacTeX is able to use untransformed lwfn 
files, with an appropriate lwfn map file.

Unless there is some kink in the story that i have missed (always 
possible I admit) this means that using postscript fonts in tex should 
not require adapting the outlne fonts, merely creating the auxilliary 
files such as the tfm's and the vf's.

(In fact I wonder if even the vf's might be dispensible with pdftex.)

Adrian Heathcote
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