Re: [Indic-computing-devel] Roadmap - suggestions

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2001 21:37:25 -0800 (PST)
jk...@Fr... (Joseph Koshy) wrote:

> 
> 
> >>>>> "as" === "Arun Sharma" writes:
> 
> [On how to ensure we have some open-source fonts]
> 
> as> Is there an alternative we're considering ? Since open type and true
> as> type fonts are documented open standards [1], most font editing 
> as> tools should be able to import glyphs and reedit.
> 
> Quite right.  The point was that the internal storage format of
> PfaEdit, though human readable, does not get us much more than using
> TT/OpenType directly.
>
 To be truely open source, apart from the TTF/OTF , the font tables (cmap, base, gsub, gpos etc) should be provided. In opentype context this becomes important as some tools (some??, VOLT is the only tool) dont allow modification of existing tables, they discard existing opentype tables to create new ones. So to add few more rules to an existing opentype font would not be possible in VOLT, if only the final font is avialable.
 
> As for alternatives: METAFONT sources exist for a number of indian
> scripts today.  However, getting these to work outside of the TeX
> environment is something I have not been successful at.  There seem to
> be utilities available to convert TTF fonts to METAFONT sources but
> not vice-versa.
> 
  There is a MF to postscript tool at
ftp://ftp.radio-msu.net/pub/tex/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/mf2ps/

  This means convert mf to ps (type1) , then type1 to truetype.

ftp://ftp.radio-msu.net/pub/tex/tex-archive/fonts/utilities
  has the full set of convertors.

One useful thing that can be done is to convert MF to type1 or TT . Since MF were created from a doc writing purpose, they would be usesful in their TTF versions also.


Regards,
Karunakar