Re: Bug#351525: dvipdfmx: how to properly implement map files support for dvipdfmx
Frank Küster wrote:
> Why not simply extend this behavior to not include lines for fonts that
> have this "how-to-generate-slanted" feature, or instead to keep only the
> information for the base font?
I thought updmap supports the different slanting syntax of different
drivers, but this seems not to be the case. I have to investigate this
further and will open a separate bug against tetex-bin.
Anyway, I don't think that how to artificially slant fonts is the real
issue here. IMHO the main problem is that updmap is Type1 centric. Let's
review what updmap does: Based on a central configuration file it
creates map files for different applications, taking care of the
different syntax understood by those programs. It can do a number of
useful things here. Switch between Metafont and Type1 fonts for dvips,
change downloading of Base35 and Base14 fonts, and the naming of the
Base35 fonts.
All this is nice and well, but it is difficult to extend it to present
needs. Nowadays, we have not only Type1 fonts but also TrueType and
OpenType fonts. Different applications have different levels of support
for these formats. For example, pdftex and dvipdfmx can use TTFs
directly, with dvips one has to jump through one of several possible
hoops (ttf2pk, Type42, ttf2pt1, let ps2pdf do the font embedding).
Incorporating such things into updmap is difficult.
IMHO the right approach would be to let updmap configure the different
base fonts etc, which it does very well. For other font packages, pdftex
shows the right way with its \pdfmapfile primitive. The style file used
for loading the font would not only change things like \rmdefault, but
would also load the appropriate map file using ifpdf.sty and suitable
options. Of course, dvips, dvipdfmx etc would have to be extended to
support some sort of 'map file special', but that should be doable.
Of course, all this is way beyond the scope of Debian packaging.
cheerio
ralf
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