[OS X TeX] More Minion Pro questions

[Richard Seguin]

On Apr 25, 2012, at 6:40 PM, Richard Seguin wrote:

> 
> On Apr 25, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Michael Sharpe wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Apr 25, 2012, at 8:37 AM, Richard Seguin wrote:
>> 
>>> I do (supposedly) have the semibold fonts installed. I bought the two semibold .otf weights, and then used TeXFontUtility to install all three weights on top of the two that were there (after which I reinstalled the newest encoding files.) Maybe I should completely delete Minion Pro and do it again. It almost seems as if it's (usually?) substituting bold when I request semibold.
>> 
>> Richard,
>> 
>> You need a different set of support files when you have semibold. It would be best to start over so the correct files are downloaded from CTAN, then apply the more recent encoding files.
>> 
>> I just uploaded to 
>> 
>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3825336/TeX/index.html
>> 
>> updates to the packages bickham and mathalfa that I believe work correctly. I'm going to do more testing before sending them to CTAN.
>> 
>> Michael
> 
> Michael,
> 
> I reinstalled Minion Pro from scratch and did some more testing. If I compare output using the smallfamily and medfamily options, there is a distinct difference. When I select the medfamily option, all bold text is coming out slightly slimmer than with small family, whether I specify semibold or not, from \normalsize to \huge. With medfamily, if I change text from bold to semibold there is no apparent change. So, it appears that the medfamily option is automatically forcing all bold to semibold for some reason, even without using \renewcommand*{\bfdefault}{sb} or \def\semib#1{{\fontseries{sb}\selectfont #1}}. In other words, using the medfamily option seems to do the same thing as \renewcommand*{\bfdefault}{sb}. Or, so it appears. I'm a little puzzled. This isn't a disaster since I prefer semibold with anything above \large in size, but there is nothing in the documentation that indicates that this should happen.
> 
> I have some boring admin work I have to do tonight and might not be able to get back to Bickham until tomorrow.
> 
> Richard

Michael, 

Puzzle solved! Apparently the medfamily option really does make the association \bfseries <---> MinionPro-Semibold. And when it does that, it associates MinionPro-Bold with the "eb" series.

So, if you are using the medfamily option and want \bfseries to be associated with MinionPro-Bold, you just have to include

\renewcommand*{\bfdefault}{eb}

Then, \textbf{ … } will give you the bold font, and \semib{ … } will give you the semibold font. I've tested this out.

Note: for those who haven't been following this closely, I've defined, as suggested by Michael,

\def\semib#1{{\fontseries{sb}\selectfont #1}}

So, I'm happy with this. This fact should have been included in the MinionPro package documentation though, because it is a little confusing. I wonder what happens in this respect when you have all four font weights and select the fullfamily option. I don't have the medium weight to test with.

Tomorrow: back to Bickham.

Richard