Re: A new ignoramus question about user-installed fonts

[Oliver Corff]

Hi Branden,

thank you very much for your encouraging feedback.

Indeed I did neither mention nor note in the example file (multitest.ms
--- I thought the .ms in the file name tells the story) that I use
groff_ms(7) as it is really at a sweet spot between simplicity of use
and aesthetics of produced document.

I remember I had used the .fam request before, at the very beginning of
a document, which always produced the desired result: the *entire*
document is typeset in the selected family.

However, since this time I used .fam for the first time somewhere within
the document, I first failed to understand that, in this case, its scope
is limited to the current paragraph. This is a tentative statement from
my side, I should really test which of the .LP, .PP, .SH, .NH etc.
requests will end the effect of the .fam request.

After reading your mail, I tried again to start the whole document with
the .fam Libertine request, et voilà, the whole document is typeset in
the chosen font family.

In the meantime, I tried to typeset several pages of Chinese, but alas,
there were quite a few blank positions in the text, and I assume that at
the current state the limitations in the number of characters (message
by GhostScript: Can't embed the complete font DFSongStd as it is too
large, embedding a subset.) will work for texts which contain snippets
of Chinese, e.g. scholarly articles with Chinese references (words,
proper names, literature). I'll write a test which increments the number
of different Chinese characters used in one document and tests the
threshold which triggers the above-mentioned message.

Thank you very much for the hint regarding .fam,

Best regards,

Oliver.



On 21/04/2023 19:15, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Oliver,
>
> At 2023-04-21T14:59:43+0200, Oliver Corff wrote:
> > I successfully ran Peter's font-install.sh to install Linux Libertine
> > as a new font.
> [...]
> > The first observation:
> >
> > .PP
> >
> > .\"fam Libertine
> >
> > Орос хэл, монгол үлгэр. Үлэг гүрвэлийн өндөг.
> >
> > If I start a new paragraph, the .fam Libertine request seems to have
> > been forgotten. Is it limited to the scope of the current paragraph?
> >
> > I have to say again:
> >
> > .fam Libertine
> You did not say, but I surmise that you are using the ms(7) package.
> (man(7) also has a `PP` macro, but does not behave the same way.)
>
> > Is it limited to the scope of the current paragraph?
> Yes, if you use a low-level request like this.  groff ms(7) supports the
> `FAM` string to persistently change the font family, starting at the
> next paragraph.[1]  This is documented in groff_ms(7) and (in the
> forthcoming 1.23.0) the ms.ms document.
>
> If you have read my unfortunate exchanges with Christof Meerwald, you
> know how I feel about the use of low-level requests when a macro package
> provides a facility for accomplishing the same objective.[2]
>
> I'm thrilled to hear that this is working well, and will work better for
> more people as soon as we can release!
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>
> [1] This basic feature goes "all the way back".
>
> ^351da0dcd macros/tmac.s (James Clark          1991-06-02 04:20:34 -0500 1155) 
> .de par@reset
> [...]
> ^351da0dcd macros/tmac.s (James Clark          1991-06-02 04:20:34 -0500 1174) 
> .ft 1
> ^351da0dcd macros/tmac.s (James Clark          1991-06-02 04:20:34 -0500 1175) 
> .fam \\*[FAM]
>
>      ...but I have tweaked it for groff 1.23.[3]  Exactly two years ago,
>      as it turns out...
>
> [2] See attachment.  ;-)  :-P
>
> [3] 
> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=90e85401af4749809469a1b47e7504b0364fe6f8

--
Dr. Oliver Corff
Wittelsbacherstr. 5A
10707 Berlin
G E R M A N Y
Tel.: +49-30-85727260
Mail: oliver.corff@email.de

multitest.ms
Description: Text Data

multitest.pdf.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document