clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (10/06/90)
In article <1438@kluge.fiu.edu> ibarrac@scs.fiu.edu (Carlos Ibarra) writes: >Is there a way of converting .mf (Metafont) fonts to ditroff fonts for >use with a Postscript printer? We have Metafont and a bunch of nice AMS and >Babel foreign language fonts from TeX 3.0 release, but no way of using them >with ditroff. From a message by lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) I have the >following instructions: > 1) convert the font to your printer's format > 2) generate a width table for the font > 3) add the font to the DESC file for the appropriate device > 4) arrange for troff to download the font > 5) tell troff about the font by running `makedev DESC' in the right place. (he asked how to do steps 1 and 2) Psroff 2.0, available by anon FTP (it hasn't made it through comp.sources.unix yet) will allow you to do steps 1 and 2. 1) There's a utility in it called "pk2ps" which will convert TeX PK's and HP SFP's into Postscript bitmap fonts. This was a testing jig and appears to work well. I believe that the "original" Apple Laserwriter can load about 5-7 10pt fonts done this way before running out of memory. You can scale them to any size you want, but since they originate as 300 DPI bitmaps without any hinting, the output can sometimes look rather rough. For production purposes, I would probably only use these fonts at .5, 1, or 2 times their native sizes. 2) There's another utility called pk2ditwid which will generate ditroff-like (you may have to twiddle them slightly) width tables from TeX PK's and HP SFP's. It is also probable that you'll have to shuffle some of the contents around, because this stuff uses CAT troff font layouts rather than ditroff's. You will need to build all of psroff, but not install it, and then use pk2ps and pk2ditwid to generate your tables and fonts. Psroff is a CAT troff (not ditroff) to postscript/HP PCL/ditroff converter, so its main function won't be of much use to you. Anon FTP information: - gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2) as anonymous, file /pub/misc/psroff-2.0.tar.Z, courtesy Paul Vixie (vixie@wrl.dec.com) - cs.toronto.edu as anonymous, file pub/psroff.tar.Z, pub/psroff.patch[1-2].Z, courtesy Mark Moraes (moraes@cs.toronto.edu) -- Chris Lewis, Phone: TBA UUCP: uunet!utai!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis Moderator of the Ferret Mailing List (ferret-request@eci386) Psroff mailing list (psroff-request@eci386)