mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (07/08/88)
<Overall, I liked what I could do with it, but I have some questions that
<I am hoping some of you can answer. I am still not quite sure of what size
<fonts I need. I have the set of fonts that were available along with the
<previewer. I also have the fonts from Utah in 100,121,145,174,208,250 DPI.
<In addition I have downloaded all the fonts that were available on our
<VAX.
<When I try to preview a simple LaTeX document done in 12pt style option,
<I get several errors as to font files not being found in various sizes.
<What I would like to know is the strategy employed by DVIVGA in determining
<what font in the original document gets mapped to which font for previewing.
<And how this mapping changes when I go to a different previewer magnification.
This is all very complex. I would say that you have all the fonts you really
need unless you want to preview Slitex. The font getting mechanism works
as follows: First it look for the actual font you specify, in the first
form you specify in the environment variable FONTLIST (case does matter).
By form I mean pk, pxl or gf. I recommend for the fonts you have
to set FONTLIST=pk. Then it looks at the other forms of font files in
the order specified in FONTLIST. Then it goes looking for fonts specified
in the font substitution file. Normally this will be the supplied
texfonts.sub file. Read the .doc file for how it looks for the font sub
file. It is vitally important that it find this file. If it doesn't,
you are in big trouble. Anyway, presumably, if it finds a substitute
listed, that file will actually exist and will be used. (If it
doesn't exist, get it or change the texfonts.sub. If by some bug,
the substitute file is missing, the whole substitution process starts
over there). Failing to find a substitute in texfonts.sub, it
starts looking for fonts of the same name in nearby sizes. It looks
one size (i.e. halfmagstep) smaller, then one larger, then two smaller,
two larger, etc.. If this process fails, you get blanks for that font.
The fonts I provided in addition to the ones from Utah are chosen so
that I always find the actual file requested for normal Latex
input at the default size and one-half magstep smaller. If I use
<11 pt> or <12pt> it works for a whole step smaller. OF course,
your LAtex files may be different from mine. The texfonts.sub file
is designed to do a reasonable substitution job for magnifications
down to -m289, which is really small.
The fact that sometimes substitute fonts are used is no cornern
for alarm. In general it does a good job. The only real problem is
that a given letter in a smaller point size is generally wider in
proportion to its height than in a larger point size. The upshot is
that at smaller magnifications, letters get crowded together.
You should use the -d24 switch to see how substitution actually
proceeds for your file. It is vital that texfonts.sub be found, somewhere.
The only font that really HAS to be there in the right size is
CMEX10. You might also consider the circle and line fonts to be in the
same catagory - I haven't needed them yet. If the lines in your
tables get out of line, or pieces of circles don't line up, you
might need to get these in sizes down to 70 d.p.i.
Doug McDonald