amun@ellis.uchicago.edu (james frederick amundson) (01/08/91)
OK, I found mf2ps. (For those of you who didn't read about it earlier, mf2ps creates postscript outline font versions of metafont fonts.) After having read the article, I'm sold on it. The problem is that it will take me forever to get it up and running. It seems kind of silly for me to spend all this time and effort on it when someone else out there already has it running. Could somebody make mf2ps output available? I really need all of the Computer Modern math fonts in postscript form. Any other fonts would be greatly appreciated. Could one of the ftp sites carry these things? Any help will be greatly appreciated. --Jim Amundson amun@midway.uchicago.edu
wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) (01/09/91)
In <1991Jan8.055007.17766@midway.uchicago.edu> amun@ellis.uchicago.edu (james frederick amundson) writes: > >OK, I found mf2ps. (For those of you who didn't read about it >earlier, mf2ps creates postscript outline font versions of metafont >fonts.) After having read the article, I'm sold on it. Having just read the article, I am unconvinced. The authors' goal, in an abbreviated form, is to automatically take METAFONT descriptions and produce PostScript outline fonts of equal quality and smaller size. The fonts shown in the article had neither. Yanai and Berry did most of their font comparisons at 300dpi. This was a mistake. At that resolution, the PostScript Computer Modern is from three to seven times the size of the METAFONT-produced bitmap font, depending on the magstep. Only if your document demands all of magsteps 0, .5, 1, 2, 3, and 4 do you get even a slight space savings. As for quality, the results given are somewhere between useless and dishonest. The PostScript fonts at 300dpi produce results with several inaccuracies and, in general, a much rougher look than the METAFONT fonts. After this is demonstrated, the authors go on to compare the PostScript fonts at 600dpi and 1270dpi with those same 300dpi METAFONT fonts. This is absurd. Nor does it help that, even at 1270dpi, the PostScript fonts contain some of the same inaccuracies they did at 300dpi. It was humorous to read, however, that in peforming this unfair comparison, they performed all paste-up by hand "for fairness in the comparison". The work they've done is, in fact, somewhat interesting, and it could eventually be useful for high resolution printing. However, it is also very preliminary. (Also, it doesn't increase my confidence in a font-hacking article when the fonts used in setting the article itself are frequently rough and broken.) As it stands, I don't have enough reason to try dealing with their Pascal code. I would, however, be interested in hearing about any success people have with it, especially at high resolutions. -David -- ============================================================================ David Wald wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu "Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be called sonship of God" -- Matt 5:9, from a faulty QuickVerse 2.0
lhume@spam.ua.oz (Leigh Hume) (03/02/91)
I've not heard of mf2ps before. Does it do a metafont .gf or .pk to postscript
conversion? If so how good is it and where can I get it by ftp or whatever
means. I've been told this conversion is possible and guessing that the
results will take up considerably less disk space than even the pk form.
What type of Adobe font does it produce type 1 or 3. Blue Sky, the Textures
people seem to be working on a type 1 adobe postscript versions of the CM
fonts.
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+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (03/02/91)
In article <521@spam.ua.oz>, lhume@spam.ua.oz (Leigh Hume) writes: > I've not heard of mf2ps before. Does it do a metafont .gf or .pk to postscript > conversion? If so how good is it and where can I get it by ftp or whatever > means. I've been told this conversion is possible and guessing that the > results will take up considerably less disk space than even the pk form. > What type of Adobe font does it produce type 1 or 3. Blue Sky, the Textures > people seem to be working on a type 1 adobe postscript versions of the CM > fonts. mf2ps is a modified version of MF (Unix Pascal(!)) which outputs Type 3 PostScript outline fonts. (Outputting Type 1 Fonts with hints would have taken more foresight than was present in the creation of CM, at least). A full write-up, adapted from the author's Masters Thesis appears in TUGboat 11#4. You can order back issues of TUGboat or get information about joining the TeX Users Group by writing to TeX Users Group P.O. Box 9506 Providence, RI 02940-9506 401-751-7760 tug@math.ams.com MF2PS is available from ymir.claremont.edu in [anonymous.tex.utilities.mf2ps] -dh --- Don Hosek To retrieve files from ymir via the | dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu mailserver, send a message to | Quixote TeX Consulting mailserv@ymir.claremont.edu with a | 714-625-0147 line saying send [DIRECTORY]FILENAME where DIRECTORY is the FTP directory (sans "anonymous") and FILENAME is the filename, e.g. "send [tex]00readme.txt". There is a list of files in each directory under the name 00files.txt Binary files are not available by this technique.
ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Arthur Ogawa) (03/02/91)
In article <521@spam.ua.oz> lhume@spam.ua.oz (Leigh Hume) writes: |I've not heard of mf2ps before. Does it do a metafont .gf or .pk to postscript |conversion? If so how good is it and where can I get it by ftp or whatever |means. I've been told this conversion is possible and guessing that the |results will take up considerably less disk space than even the pk form. A close reading of the article and attention to the comparison chart at the end indicates that file size of the output of mf2ps is disappointingly large. This seems to be a consequence of using "too many" Bezier splines to fit the outline of the letterforms [my own hypothesis]. By comparison, the Blue Sky fonts are 1/10th the file size. |What type of Adobe font does it produce type 1 or 3. Even though mf2ps produces Type 3 fonts, there is nothing standing in the way of casting the output as a Type 1 font, with attendent advantages. Volunteers? |Blue Sky, the Textures people seem to be working on a type 1 adobe |postscript versions of the CM fonts. BSR's CM/PS family now stands at 40+ fonts out of 75. They are also engaged in converting other mf-generated fonts that are not CM.
david@moroka.dog.oz.au (David Le Blanc) (03/05/91)
I have just downloaded mf2ps from ymir.claremont, and found to
my horror that is required a Sun 2 with a pascal compiler!
Does anyone have or know of a current working version that does
not require a Sun2 (We only have 3's and 4's) nor a pascal compiler?
mf2ps is supposed to be a modified metafont compiler that output
postscript type 3 fonts. If there is a similar/better program around
then kindly point the way!
Replies appreciated muchly.
Cheers
David.
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