Re: What are the correct (font) dependencies for div-to-X converters?
Hi!
From: Florent Rougon <f.rougon@free.fr>
> Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > Yes, but in this case the dependency is pointless, because for creating
> > the dvi files the admin will install something like the texlive meta
> > package, anyway.
>
> I'd say the right set of dependencies is whatever provides the external
> programs called by the program question, i.e. ttf2pk and such tools. As
> for the fonts, they are really unpredictable data that depends on the
> particular documents the user wants to process.
>
> You can suggest some fonts such as CM in cases similar to dvips, and
> maybe also suggest fonts with CJK support for packages that are mostly
> used in these environments, if there are "standard" fonts such as CM for
> these environments (maybe Danai or Atsuhito can tell us).
As far as dvi2ps is concerned, I don't think any of the latex-cjk-*
font packages are necessary. An extra dependency will not create any
added value, because apparently dvi2ps is designed to be used with TeX
flavours specifically designed for Japanese (JTeX, pTeX, etc.) with
their own set of fonts.
If someone uses dvi2ps, s/he will have to know for himself how the TeX
file was processed, and what fonts were used. These could be
Morisawa, ptex-jisfonts, etc. We can't know for sure. They could
even use locally installed fonts that are not packaged for Debian, or
come under a different font name (e.g. differences between Linux
distro's).
A DVI converter doesn't work like a regular converter, because DVI
files don't embed any fonts. It expects the same font names to be
installed from compilation time. A user who's trying to convert a DVI
will have to know what fonts were used, and I think this is something
package maintainers can't foresee. Users who install dvi2ps will most
certainly already have one of these TeX flavours with the necessary
fonts.
So if you have to depend on fonts, I would suggest to depend only on
the package that includes "dvips", i.e. either texlive-base-bin or
tetex-bin. I think that in this regard, dvi2ps (and dvipng) should be
treated the same way as dvips.
You might add something in the package description clarifying that DVI
conversion tools also need to have the same fonts as the original
author used. That's all one can do, IMHO.
Cheers
Danai SAE-HAN
韓達耐
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作者:范成大（１１２６－１１９３）
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