RAYBRO%HOLON@utrcgw.utc.com ("William R Brohinsky", ay) (05/16/91)
I don't remember if I asked this here, but if I did, the response must have not been memorable, so I'll ask again. Does anyone know how to actually USE MFT? I know that it will take my metafont input and make a tex file, and I even know how to call it on the command line. However, there is no MFTbook, nor is the woven WEB source much use in figuring out how to actually utilize it to make MF source comprehensible. I am setting out to try to modify the MusicTeX font files (to add some of the needed signs that haven't been included). I should like (since there is a fairly long road ahead for me: I don't have a good grasp of German OR French OR METAFONT, so it should be a real experience!) to be able to reformat the source .mf files and use MFT to document the whole project, especially since Tom Rokicki has included MFT as a working executable in AmigaTeX3.1. I will state for the record that I've read the METAFONTbook from cover-to- cover once, and I've also made up and read the MFT Web document. If there's something obvious that I'm missing in one or the other of these, please direct me. Otherwise, we don't have any of the journals or transactions usually associated with DK here (at least not the ones he lists in the source document section of the CMR font sources book, is it volume F from Computers and type setting?). If anyone has a copy of any of these articles that are still valid (I can't run sail!) and would send me a xerox, I'd be much obliged. raybro raybro%holon@utrcgw.utc.com William R. Brohinsky UTRC MS 120-23 400 Silver Lane E. Hartford, CT 06108 I will summarize and post any replies e-mailed directly to me. raybro
dahosek@biivax.dp.beckman.com (05/17/91)
In article <7509D91FAEFF000FF1@utrcgw.utc.com>, RAYBRO%HOLON@utrcgw.utc.com ("William R Brohinsky", ay) writes: > I don't remember if I asked this here, but if I did, the > response must have not been memorable, so I'll ask again. > Does anyone know how to actually USE MFT? I know that it will take > my metafont input and make a tex file, and I even know how to > call it on the command line. However, there is no MFTbook, nor > is the woven WEB source much use in figuring out how to actually > utilize it to make MF source comprehensible. Yep, there is _no_ documentation on MFT which made it especially hard for me when I wrote the VM/CMS change file. Anyway, as it turns out, MFT is fairly straightforward. The MFT program reads three input files. The first is the MF source which we'll look at later, the second is the MFT style file (carries an extension of MFT) and the third is the change file (I've never used it and Knuth _thinks_ he might have used it for some fine tuning of Volume E of C&T, but he's not sure). MFT works through special interpretation of comments. In fact, the MFT style file consists solely of comments. A comment which begins with two percent signs represents TeX code which will be inserted directly into the TeX file created by MFT. For example, cmbase.mft contains the following: %% % nine-point type: %% \catcode`@=11 % borrow the private macros of PLAIN (with care) %% \def\ninebig#1{{\hbox{$\textfont0=\tenrm\textfont2=\tensy %% \left#1\vbox to7.25pt{}\right.\n@space$}}} %% \catcode`@=12 % now @ is a nonletter again (note the handling of a TeX comment at the beginning of the example). This mechanism is used largely to define extra macros, as above, but could also be used for inserting pagebreaks, section titles etc. Three percent signs indicates the beginning of a formatting rule. Again from cmbase.mft: %%% } ( ) ]] {{ }} ! ^ %%%% tokens that need no special formatting %%% step upto downto %%%% boldface binary operators %%% addto fill unfill draw undraw %%%% boldface unary operators The first "word" on the formatting rule gives the token which the others are to be "formatted like" so, for example, "upto" and "downto" will receive the same formatting as "step" does (this is similar to WEB's @f directive). Note that MFT automatically handles things like braces and other special characters in the output. Finally, four percent signs indicates a comment to MFT; it will have no effect on the processing or output: %%%% MFT commands for the Computer Modern base In the MF file itself, the following conventions are observed: (1) every space of indentation in the source turns into one quad of indentation in the output (2) comments are printed as TeX text flush right. (3) to refer to MF code in a comment, enclose it in vertical bars: "print |z| values on proof sheets" (4) to join to lines of MF code together on output, use %% \join (5) to force a comment flush left (e.g., at the top of the file when things are being identified), use \] at the end of the comment. I believe this covers all the various features of MFT, albeit in somewhat encapsulated form. At present, I believe the following is the complete list of TeX/MF distributions which include MFT: -emTeX (MS-DOS, OS/2) -U Washington (Unix) -Northlake Software (VMS) -Stanford (VM/CMS) -dh -- Don Hosek // Quixote Digital Typography 714-625-0147 dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu On contract to Beckman Instruments 714-961-4562 dahosek@beckman.com