[Matplotlib-users] Re: TeX in xlabel ?

[Robert K. <rk...@uc...>]

John Hunter wrote:

> Another idea I had while reading Knuth's "TeX: The Program" is to use
> the layout information in the TFM font metric files.  Apparently math
> fonts have additional layout information in them, like where to place
> superscripts.  I've looked at several tfm parsing implementations, and
> haven't found one yet that actually extracts this information; most
> extract the standard font information but not the special math
> information.  But if we could access this info, we could include the
> tfm files for common raster sizes and use the layout info crafted by
> the master himself.

Taking this as a challenge (and having little to do while waiting for 
images to process), I wrote a TFM parser that handles the extra 
parameters for math symbols. This format[1] is excruciatingly painful.

http://starship.python.net/crew/kernr/tfm.py

And then I realized that the output of tftopl(1) is incredibly easy to 
parse and contains the same information. <sigh>

Either way, you now have the information you need for some fonts, at least.

[1] 
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/dviware/driv-standard/level-0/dvistd0.pdf

-- 
Robert Kern
rk...@uc...

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter