gary@qubix.UUCP (Gary Wiedenmann) (11/17/83)
The new device independent TROFF seems to have lost some functionality of the old nroff/troff. .ft x, where x is a number not a font name, doesn't seem to be detected as a request to activate a font slot previously loaded with a .fp command, but rather tries to load font x.out from the font library. I didn't notice this until I checked out the macro packages, such as MS, which use .ft x a lot. Anyone know whats going on? Gary Wiedenmann Qubix Graphic Systems Inc. 18835 Cox Ave Saratogo, Ca. 95070 408-370-9229 x211 ...{decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!qubix!gary ...ittvax!qubix!gary decwrl!qubix!gary@Berkeley.ARPA
iau@ukc.UUCP (I.A.Utting) (11/21/83)
When I try to reproduce your problem, the intermediate language output looks fine. However, I noticed some time ago that some of the ditroff back-ends (dcan etc.) don't take enough notice of `x font ...' changes causing a new font to be loaded over an existing one (ie. they track font changes by position number irrespective of which real font is installed there). I have also noticed that strange fonts are called for if a character name appears in the DESC `charset' table but not in any of the font tables. Without knowing which back-end you're using, it's difficult to be more specific, but this note might give you some clues. In any event, I would suspect the back-end rather than ditroff itself. While I'm typing this, some more general observations: o Not all fonts are available at all point sizes. It would be useful to specify the available sizes for each font, rather than for the typesetter itself. o Has anyone any ideas on improving the (virtually non-existent) kerning facilities? o PIC (and maybe other pre-processors) sometimes cause word-space markers to be generated and sometimes not. When? Why? (I had hoped to use these markers to correct for kerning inserted by the back-end, but this effect makes it tricky). Ian Utting, University of Kent at Canterbury. UK. vax135!ukc!iau