Thanks Thomas for the manual. I have already printed it, and cannot wait to give it a try. In the mean time I welcome any other concrete tips for installing a new font, step by step that is. If you recall the earlier postings: my idea would be to start with a new font consisting of only one pfb file. I would like to understand each Context instruction in the files, in order to be better able to reproduce it. In my previous attempts, I often copied instructions without really understanding why they were needed. In my last attempt the pk file was not generated, perhaps not due to Context...? (Although the font did work under Latex.) In the end my ideal would be a context which typesets Arabic, Russian and Turkish, plus transcription according to a code I developed myself. Kind regards, Robert Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

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Rob Ermers said this at Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:03:24 +0200:

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I completely agree. Context works fine but, like you, I have not succeeded in installing any new font thusfar.

Okay, I get the message: there are quite a few frustrated would-be font users out there. I see it as being something that someone can understand (and explain) fairly well in the abstract, but the details throw up distribution-specific problems.

Not only that, Adam, but the configuration issues involve so much minutae that it is very easy to make simple mistakes that cause, e.g, typescripts to fail. As Ciro suggested, what what would be useful is a gui that completely automates the process and that asks all relevant questions and generates everything ConTeXt needs to install and run Latin fonts, including expert fonts like Minion.**** (Maybe oneday the gui can be extended for Chinese, Arabic, etc.)

On the other hand, I did manage to get a virtual font created by fontinst (old style numeral cmr) to work in ConTeXt without using any of the ConTeXt-specific utilities. I wrote the typescript entirely from scratch, with optical scaling and all; if that complicated set of typefaces could work, any Latin font should work. But debugging this sort of thing may take time, which can be frustrating.

****Qt4.0 will be gpl, I'd love to see e.g., an elegant crossplatform Qt/Ruby application that does this:-)

Best Idris

============================ Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523

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On Apr 3, 2005, at 6:15 PM, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

As Ciro suggested, what what would be useful is a gui that completely automates the process and that asks all relevant questions and generates everything ConTeXt needs to install and run Latin fonts, including expert fonts like Minion.**** (Maybe oneday the gui can be extended for Chinese, Arabic, etc.)

Idris, I disagree strongly. First: fonts are a complex business, and when you venture outside of the normal Western character range, things start to get really messy (I speak from experience, having just completed work on Greek Extended). I'm not saying a GUI will never be able to cope with all this complicated stuff. But I do think that an extraordinary amount of work would be needed to catch all the exceptions, ifs and buts that would be involved. And I do think that this work could better be spent on other, much more important business. To be honest: in my personal opinion (and this is a very personal opinion), die-hard GUI users who just loathe the command line should not be using TeX. I also think that despite all the efforts that ConTeXt makes, it would be rash to make inexperienced users believe that handling fonts in TeX is a simple matter of pointing and clicking. The frustration would be huge when things do not work out as expected - and they will. In a way, the current state puts a gentle, but firm sign on font handling saying "This might be a bit difficult. Be warned!" And I don't think this is a bad thing. No offense, but that's what I think about this issue. Best Thomas