Hi all, tl;dr: by which name to refer to a font. I was about to recommend (tomorrow; context: an introductory LaTeX course) *the* way of referring to a font by its name. As we all know, the same font (as in file) usually comes with a variety of possible denominations. “otfinfo -i” on a *file name* results in a list of *full name*, *Postscript name*, *unique id*, etc., which all might have some valid purpose. I have come across answers to assignments that made me wonder “How on earth did E get that to work on Eir system?”. There’s some background info [1] on the Fontforge pages but it doesn’t really answer my question: Which identifier is least likely to break things and at the same time most portable between both frontends (Fontspec, Simplefonts, typescripts) and platforms (Win/Linux/Mac)? For some time now I myself settled for the Postscript name as it never caused problems in typescripts and it’s got no spaces. The filename might be the most explicit one, but oftentimes contains spaces which I *always* replace with underscores prior to installing a font; also case insensitive filesystems might cause trouble. Also, some fonts have weird file naming schemes (e.g. CMU and the Paratype fonts), so extra comments may be required to support legibility of the resulting code. The typescripts that come with Context use both (“name:” and “file:”) but I have no clue why exactly which method was chosen over the other in what case. The fontspec documentation (and the Simplefonts module and our course so far) conforms to the WYSIWYG tradition of purportedly more human-readable, spaced identifiers, e.g. “TeX Gyre Bonum Bold”. (Cf. [1]: “FullName is designed to be read by humans”.) So I judged that my preferred choice might not be as good as I think. I got cold feet and am about to remove the slide where I recommend the PS name (I can do that later anyways). Is there -- apart from personal opinions -- some valid reason to prefer one name over the other *in general*? Thanks for any advice and opinions. Philipp [1] http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/fontinfo.html#Names
On 17-5-2012 16:11, Philipp Gesang wrote:
So I judged that my preferred choice might not be as good as I think. I got cold feet and am about to remove the slide where I recommend the PS name (I can do that later anyways). Is there -- apart from personal opinions -- some valid reason to prefer one name over the other *in general*?
For a project that has to run for a long time, I prefer filenames (file:). When fonts are stable names can be used too and the name resolved will check several names in the font. Spaces are ignored and names are lowercases. There's also some fallback name construction going on. Anyhow, the biggest problem is with fonts that have the same names (but different files). You can get some info when you run mtxrun --script font --all --list pal which shows all fonts with pal in the name(s) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
It *appears* things like hyphens and underscores are also ignored in addition to ignoring spaces. Is that correct? When I do : [wwm@Linden]$ mtxrun --script fonts --list --info --all pattern=MyFont* and compare against some existing typescripts I see the filename in the typescript is something like: file:myfontname whereas the system filename is /path/to/font/My_Font-Name.otf ksh93 on FreeBSD 9.0-i386 + texlive 2011 Bill Meahan K8QN "I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances." -- Anne Tyler On 05/17/2012 18:00, Hans Hagen wrote:
For a project that has to run for a long time, I prefer filenames (file:). When fonts are stable names can be used too and the name resolved will check several names in the font. Spaces are ignored and names are lowercases.
On 18-5-2012 00:16, Bill Meahan wrote:
It *appears* things like hyphens and underscores are also ignored in addition to ignoring spaces. Is that correct?
indeed
typescript is something like: file:myfontname whereas the system filename is /path/to/font/My_Font-Name.otf
indeed Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
On 2012-05-18 00:00, Hans Hagen wrote:
On 17-5-2012 16:11, Philipp Gesang wrote:
So I judged that my preferred choice might not be as good as I think. I got cold feet and am about to remove the slide where I recommend the PS name (I can do that later anyways). Is there -- apart from personal opinions -- some valid reason to prefer one name over the other *in general*?
For a project that has to run for a long time, I prefer filenames (file:). When fonts are stable names can be used too and the name resolved will check several names in the font. Spaces are ignored and names are lowercases. There's also some fallback name construction going on. Anyhow, the biggest problem is with fonts that have the same names (but different files).
I see. But even the filename can be treacherous: afair there is a times.ttf among the MS core fonts but it’s different from the one shipped with their office tools. The font name guessing, otoh, seems pretty elaborate, though I have not had the opportunity to look at it in detail.
You can get some info when you run
mtxrun --script font --all --list pal
which shows all fonts with pal in the name(s)
... made me just appreciate how many great fonts come with the minimals. Thanks Philipp
Hans
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On 18-5-2012 08:20, Philipp Gesang wrote:
On 2012-05-18 00:00, Hans Hagen wrote:
On 17-5-2012 16:11, Philipp Gesang wrote:
So I judged that my preferred choice might not be as good as I think. I got cold feet and am about to remove the slide where I recommend the PS name (I can do that later anyways). Is there -- apart from personal opinions -- some valid reason to prefer one name over the other *in general*?
For a project that has to run for a long time, I prefer filenames (file:). When fonts are stable names can be used too and the name resolved will check several names in the font. Spaces are ignored and names are lowercases. There's also some fallback name construction going on. Anyhow, the biggest problem is with fonts that have the same names (but different files).
I see. But even the filename can be treacherous: afair there is a times.ttf among the MS core fonts but it’s different from the one shipped with their office tools. The font name guessing, otoh, seems pretty elaborate, though I have not had the opportunity to look at it in detail.
I always put such fonts in tex/texmf-fonts/fonts/data so that I'm sure what gets used. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
participants (3)
-
Bill Meahan -
Hans Hagen -
Philipp Gesang