Re: [pdftex] Math Pdftex extensions ?
Paul Pichaureau wrote:
Dear all,
As I'm a fanatic a beautiful typography, I'm following your work on pdftex with great attention, especially enjoying the pdftex extensions already implemented (microtype and all the hz stuff).
Anyway, I'm wondering if you plan to extend pdftex in order to improve the mathematical typography of TeX. I'm developping a big set of mathematical fonts (called mathdesign) and I'm quite aware of the problems of TeX in this domain.
I've precise points in mind: mathematical accents, radical with left and right delimiters, and, of course, the insufficiencies of the tfm format. But you already know that better than me.
So, this is my question: is it planned to improve some of these points in the future ?
if you can point out the specific things that you want to be supported, the pdftex dev team can look into it after all, pdftex is also a playground for new tex functionality (within reasonable bounds) Hans
Le dimanche 15 janvier 2006 à 20:11:02, vous écriviez : HH> Paul Pichaureau wrote: HH> if you can point out the specific things that you want to be supported, HH> the pdftex dev team can look into it HH> after all, pdftex is also a playground for new tex functionality (within HH> reasonable bounds) Well, that's a good question... I do know that some terrific ideas, at first glance, could be a nightmare to implement. But this is some point I find interesting: 1) Of the following document, I shall retain some ideas http://ftp.ktug.or.kr/tex-archive/systems/tex-extensions/clasen/examples/exa... The extended semantics of \mathaccent is a good idea. It could extend the possibilities of TeX significatively. I think you could create a new kind of accent (let's say \exmathaccent) for that. The possibility to switch in cramped styles could be nice for testing purpose, although useless for most users. The generalized radical is nice also... but of limited interest, isn'it ?) 2) Under accents are waited by many users for a long time. The problem remain the lack of a new \skewchar character to tweak the placement of the underaccent. Moreover, extensible underaccent could be a nice improvement in term of typesetting quality. With that, it should be able to design beautiful \under and \overbrace (the actual horizontal braces of TeX are ugly, IMHO). I'm an neophyt in these matters, but I think, if an equivalent to the existing \skewchar is defined, the rest will not be so difficult to implement. I'm aware the existing math fonts will need to be tweaked, but I think this feature deserves many efforts! 3) A point cited by Knuth is a deficiency in the fraction typesetting algorithm: the minimal distance between the numerator and the denominator of a fraction is related to the rulethickness of the mathematical fonts. That could lead to ugly results if the font is very bold (for example Utopia Bold). The perfect solution consists in the introduction of a new fontdimen (let's say fontdimen23). But there is a risk of incompatibility, if someone has already used these fontdimen. A new TeX dimension parameter should be introduced here. 4) The last point I want to cite now is the spacing of formula in script and scriptscript style. For a unclear reason, in script style TeX doesn't introduce any spaces between symbols as it does in text and display style. This is good for computer modern, which is legible at all size. But today, we use scalable fonts which are less legible than CM in small sizes. I think the possibility to switch on the formula spacing in script and scriptscript style should lead to a significant improvement of legibility for some fonts. Well, I have many others ideas. But I present here the most useful/the easiest to implement... I hope ! :-) HH> Hans -- Paul Pichaureau www.alcandre.net
participants (2)
-
Hans Hagen -
Paul Pichaureau