Re: [groff] man -Tdvi replaces $ by £

[Pali Rohár]

On Tuesday 29 May 2018 07:44:00 Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> > grodvi invoked by man -Tdvi replaces all occurrences of dollar
> > character ($) by pound sterling character (£).
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> > .TH test 1
> > .BI "perl example: " "$str =~ m/^[a-z]$/;"
> 
> This example tries to use `$' within bold italic.  However, the TeX CM
> font `cmbi10' doesn't provide this character.  File `dvi.tmac' contains
> 
>   .fspecial TBI CWI
> 
> which means that it tries `CWI' as a font-specific fallback for glyphs
> missing in TBI.  However, `CWI' was generated with the same mapping
> table as `CW', which was wrong.
> 
> Now fixed in git.  Thanks for the report.
> 
> Note that -Tdvi uses the original CM fonts, which have a very limited
> glyph set.  If you use the updated CWI font you will see that you get
> upright dollar glyphs, since CM doesn't contained slanted dollar
> signs.

Hi! Now I found out that there is standard Knuth's font which provides
slanted dollar sign. It is however slanted, not real italic. But still
better then upright roman variant.

It is in font cmbxsl10 at position 36 (ASCII $).

Similarly there is cmsl10 variant for (non-bold) slanted font with
dollar sign.

It would be nice to use cmbxsl10 resp. cmsl10.

> Adding `-mec' on the command line makes groff use the EC fonts, which
> actually contain slanted dollar glyphs.
> 
> > Is there any particular reason why [...] ascii characters [are
> > replaced] by accents?
> 
> They are not replaced by accents.  They are already using the best
> available shape.  Note that most non-typewriter fonts have both tilde
> and hat glyphs located at the top and not in the middle.
> 
> Textual representation forms can be printed by using `\(ti' instead
> of `~' and `\(ha' instead of `^'.  Some remarks.

Hm... \(ti instead of ~ looks much more better in source code examples.

> . `\(ti' used with the CM fonts indeed provides a different shape,
>   taken from the CM symbol font.  However, I would call this shape a
>   bug, since it is definitely no longer a tilde.  IMHO, `\(ti'
>   shouldn't get a separate shape for CM.
> 
> . If you are using `-mec' to activate the EC font family, `\(ti' is
>   taken from the `tc*' text companion fonts, where this glyph is
>   sitting on the baseline; it is not centered vertically on the font's
>   x axis.  This is a bug, too: `\(ti' shouldn't get a separate shape
>   for EC.
> 
> . For EC fonts, `~' and `^' are already the larger shapes.  The
>   smaller accent shapes can be printed with `\(a~' and `\(a^'.
> 
> I don't have sufficient time to fix those two buglets, unfortunately.

:-( It would be nice to see these problems in grodvi fixed.

-- 
Pali Rohár
address@hidden