[comp.text] dvi2ps hacking

jzavgren@bbn.com (John Zavgren) (09/11/88)

Dear comp.text:

  Last week I posted a plea for help in getting a new version of dvi2ps running.
My mail message contained the following lines:

|>>When I run [dvi2ps] it tries to open nonexistent font files that have
|>>rather odd-sounding names, for example, amsy10.1000. Frankly, I'm
|>>stymied. Can anyone tell me what's going on?

  Much to my chagrin, most of the people who read this thought my
problem was a misunderstanding about Computer Modern versus
Almost Modern fonts. 

  I am sorry that I gave that impression. The problem stems not
from AM versus CM; I have both. The problem is in "the suffix" not
the "preefix". amsy10.100 is odd-sounding to my machine because there
are no font files that end in ".1000". None. 

  Has there been a renaming or reorganization of font files while I was
asleep? If so, shall I rebuild the whole system so it is up to date. Or,
shall I just hack up the code for dvi2ps so it works? 

RSVP
John Zavgren

iwm@asun2.ic.ac.uk (Ian Moor) (09/12/88)

>The problem is in "the suffix" not
>the "preefix". amsy10.100 is odd-sounding to my machine because there
>are no font files that end in ".1000". None. 

I've seen one or two different formats for TeX font names, if the
file extension is limited to 3 chars or large directories are discouraged
then they look like:
    /lib/tex/fonts/1000/amsy10.pxl
rather than
   /lib/tex/fonts/amsy10.pxl1000

It may be that if file name length is limited, the `pxl' has been dropped.

Somewhere in dvi2ps you will find a call to sprintf with the name and size
of font as its arguments, what you need to do is change the format string
to conform to local conventions. I cant be more specific as I don't have
the source online.

dao@cs.nott.ac.uk (David Osborne) (09/20/88)

In article <29544@bbn.COM> jzavgren@bbn.com (John Zavgren) writes:
>  Last week I posted a plea for help in getting a new version of dvi2ps running.
>The problem is in "the suffix" not
>the "preefix". amsy10.100 is odd-sounding to my machine because there
>are no font files that end in ".1000". None. 
>
>  Has there been a renaming or reorganization of font files while I was
>asleep? If so, shall I rebuild the whole system so it is up to date. Or,
>shall I just hack up the code for dvi2ps so it works? 

the numeric suffixes (or prefixes, depending on how your font
directory tree is arranged) relate to the resolution and magnification
of the font.  TeX allows use of magnified fonts and the mag factor
is conventionally multiplied by 1000, but this is also conventionally
expressed in terms of fonts for 200 dots-per-inch output devices.
thus, "amsy10.1000" is the `Almost Modern' Symbol font with font_height
of 10 points, unmagnified (magnification = 1), for a 200 dpi printer.

if this were for a 300 dpi device, as is now more common, the "1000"
would become "1500" ( 300/200 * 1000 ).  TeX's usual increments of
powers of 1.2 in the magnification (\magstep1, \magstep2) then produce
suffixes like 1800, 2160 and so on
( 1643 for \magstep0.5 ... i.e. 1500 * sqrt(1.2) )

check the resolution that your dvi2ps is looking for...
sounds like it's trying to use fonts for a 200 dpi printer.

dave.
-- 
David Osborne
Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
  Phone:    +44 602 484848 x2064
  JANET:    dao@uk.ac.nott.cs
  BITNET:   dao%uk.ac.nott.cs@ukacrl.bitnet
  Internet: dao%uk.ac.nott.cs@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
                   or        %ukacrl.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
  UUCP:     {...!mcvax}!ukc!nott-cs!dao