cmr PS-Type1 Fonts - Summary (fwd)
Petr Sojka
sojka at daeron.ics.muni.cz
Thu Dec 22 19:30:03 CET 1994
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 94 13:14:09 +0100
From: Guido Sawade <sawa0432 at mailszrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
To: emtex-user at chemie.fu-berlin.de
Subject: cmr PS-Type1 Fonts - Summary
Dear emTeXers,
several weeks ago I asked for a complete site of
the cmr font family in PostScript Type-1 format.
Since I have recieved lots of answers (on very
different topics :) I decided to write a little
summary about using cmr Fonts for high resolution
printing.
-------------------------------------------------------------
1. Why haven't been (all) cmr Type-1 fonts on CTAN,
although archie reported their presence?
- Rainer Schoepf (ftp-adm CTAN Germany):
"Dont't know how archie's database is generated"
"Use the fonts from /fonts/ps-type3/"
- Geoff Tobin wrote that B Malyshev
"... has replaced them by the higher-quality
BaKoMa fonts, which are available in both Type 1 and TrueType
form..."
2. What about cmr Type-1 fonts on CTAN now?
- Geoff Tobin wrote:
"...available in both Type 1 and TrueType form
CTAN: fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma
The only remaining paradissa files are those not covered by
BaKoMa, and are at:
CTAN: fonts/cm/ps-type1/paradissa"
(That is right, I got them all)
- and Basil Malyshev himself wrote about his new fonts
"Differences of this version with previous are:
1. Space character is added.
2. Encoding is changed to be compatible with some products
(This is resonable for TrueType version)
3. Character shape outlines have more optimal encoding
and TrueType outlines have simplified encoding with respect
to PostScript version."
3. Why does one want to use PS-Type1 fonts, even if there are
pk fonts?
i) Using cmr with TeX/dvips
Well, if one is using cmr10 in 10 or so different sizes,
for three outputting machines with different resolutions,
one needs (worst case) 3 x 10 = 30 pk files
but only one (= 1) file cmr10.pfb file.
(and a possibility to print PostScript :)
ii) Writing with cmr fonts by non-TeX graphics programs.
For instance using CorelDraw for creating graphics
which should look like the other TeX code where they
become embedded.
iii) Reaching a higher degree of device independence.
Assume you are preparing a document which should be
printed after color separation by a photo typesetter
in a resolution of 2540dpi or 5080dpi, proofs must be printed
whith a b/w Laser Printer (300dpi) and some color devices
(360 and 600 dpi). Would you know immediatly how to prepare
a single document serving that? (Answer later, see 6.)
4. Could one send PostScript Fonts to another. (one asked me to send
him my collection of Adobe Fonts)
This is no problem for the BaKoMa or Paradissa fonts by
Basil Malyshev (Many Thanks to Metod Kozely who sent me his
complete set of Paradissa fonts several nights ago),
because they are free.
But Adobe fonts for instance are copyrighted like the most fonts.
The cheapest way I know to get a nearly complete set of
high quality PostScript ---in analogy to the standard adobe---
fonts is buing an old CorelDraw (In germany one can buy V. 3.0
for 100 DM \approx 65 US\$).
5. What is the best font choice: Type-1, Type-3 or PK?
I made several tests to find the answer. I printed a single
page containing six fonts by a 300dpi LaserJet printer.
The PostScript output has been scaled by dvips by a factor of 10
and 20. The simulated resolution of 300x10 = 3000 dpi is discussed
here. For my eyes the Type-3 fonts look better, smother---but:
not exactly like the pk-fonts. The type-1 fonts look very close
to pk, the differences come from a different blacker parameter I
think.
(Note: probably not much people else look so close onto fonts like me,
but I'm with the Institute of Optics, working with resolutions
lower than the optical wavelength day by day ... :)
The type-1 and type-3 fonts need the same time to become rendered
by GhostScript, but this is 3 times slower than using the pk fonts.
An other aspect is the size of the PostScript output file.
ps fonts: file size: 6145 Bytes
pk fonts: 54471 Bytes
this is why in ps case only fontname references are in the output,
the location of the fonts must only be known by the printing
software.
And last but not least the sizes of the font files itself (do not ignore
that, since it could be necessary to submit all the fonts used by the
document to the printing service)
3000 DPI pk fonts
==================================================
14.11.94 8.24 68664 0 cmbx10.pk
14.11.94 8.23 74032 0 cmcsc10.pk
14.11.94 8.23 71144 0 cmr10.pk
14.11.94 8.25 87816 0 cmsl10.pk
14.11.94 8.25 57552 0 cmss10.pk
14.11.94 8.24 102460 0 cmti10.pk
= 404,116 Bytes
PostScript Type-1 fonts
==================================================
9.11.94 17.56 36100 0 cmbx10.pfb
9.11.94 17.56 36113 0 cmcsc10.pfb
9.11.94 17.56 36648 0 cmr10.pfb
9.11.94 17.56 41242 0 cmsl10.pfb
9.11.94 17.56 27522 0 cmss10.pfb
9.11.94 17.57 45739 0 cmti10.pfb
= 223,364 Bytes
PostScript Type-3 fonts
==================================================
10.08.92 2.00 77431 0 cmbx10.ps
10.08.92 2.00 78515 0 cmcsc10.ps
10.08.92 2.00 80497 0 cmr10.ps
10.08.92 2.00 86241 160 cmsl10.ps
10.08.92 2.00 57804 160 cmss10.ps
10.08.92 2.00 88160 0 cmti10.ps
= 468,648 Bytes
And if you like to compress your fonts by zip, there is a little
advantage for the (ASCII) code of the type-3 fonts:
Length Method Size Ratio Date Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ------ ----- ----- ---- ---- -------- ---- ----
80497 DeflatN 20637 75% 10-08-92 02:00 afe7792a --w- CMR10.PS
36648 DeflatN 34763 6% 09-11-94 17:56 8fecfb14 --w- CMR10.PFB
6. What about producing really portable PostScript documents.
Since the usage of pk fonts fixes the output resolution, one should
use the PS pendants instead. dvips offers two possible ways for
that.
a) declaring the fonts as external.
One should edit the psfonts.map file, for cmr10 as external font:
cmr10 cmr10
In the output dvips writes only a reference onto this name
cmr10 the outputting device must have acces to a downloadable
font 'cmr10.pfb' for instance. This is done for GhostScript with the
following line in its FontMap file:
/cmr10 (cmr10.pfb) ;
b) Include the font as header in the ps file.
One should use a little different line in psfonts.map:
cmr10 <cmr10.pfb
Then dvips includes the cmr10.pfb file as header in the output.
dvips looks for cmr10.pfb in the pathes specified by DVIPSHEADERS
or the corresponding entry 'H ...' in config.ps.
In this case the output device needs nothing to know about the
fonts used in the document, but the produced ps-files can
become very large.
(A couple of testpages of a book reaches 0.5MB only for fonts
easily)
-------------------------------------------------------------
---
Gruss / Regards
Guido Sawade <sawade at marie.physik.tu-berlin.de>
TU Berlin, Opt. Inst., PN 0-1, 10623 Berlin, FRG
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