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Installing Palatino Linotype with ttf2tex

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Will Robertson

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Aug 2, 2004, 4:21:59 AM8/2/04
to
Hello,

Has anyone had any luck using ttf2tex to install Palatino Linotype
(from WinXP)? Or any other truetype OTF, for that matter?

I've just tried to install it in my TeX system, but unfortunately it
doesn't work. Before I wade into more manual methods of doing this
with fontinst etc., I'd like to confirm that my ttf2tex procedure
wasn't flawed. I used the command

ttf2tex --user --expert --foundry linotype --font palatino lpl

in the directory containing lplr16.ttf, lplb16.ttf, etc. (I also tried
with and without the -N and -n options). It looks like ttf2tfm cannot
find any glyphs at all in the font, however. I believe the problem is
that the glyph data in the font is only present in a cmap rather than
post table.

When I try and typeset a sample document
("\fontencoding{T1}\fontfamily{lplj}\selectfont hello"), pdftex seems
to find the correct files, but no characters can be found:

(/Users/will/Library/texmf/tex/latex/ttfonts/t1lplj.fd
File: t1lplj.fd 2004/08/02 T1/lplj font definitions
)
Missing character: There is no h in font lplr9d!
Missing character: There is no e in font lplr9d!
Missing character: There is no l in font lplr9d!
Missing character: There is no l in font lplr9d!
Missing character: There is no o in font lplr9d!
[1

{/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}{/Users/
will/Library/texmf/pdftex/config/lpl.map}] (./small.aux) )


Obviously the pdf is blank, since no characters were found to be
typeset in the first place. I have seem some references to people
converting this font in the past (even an expired link to all of the
files I need!), but they used more manual techniques - and if indeed
ttf2tex is unable to install this font I'll learn how to follow in
their footsteps.

If anyone can shed light on the situation I'd be most appreciative!

Thanks,
Will Robertson

Malte Rosenau

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Aug 2, 2004, 10:00:11 AM8/2/04
to
Will Robertson schrieb:

> Has anyone had any luck using ttf2tex to install Palatino
> Linotype (from WinXP)? Or any other truetype OTF, for that
> matter?

This is probably not helpful in your case, but I have successfully
installed Linotype Palatino and Gentium using Win2k, MikTeX and
Cygwin. This was pretty straight forward. Run

./ttf2tex.sh --expert --foundry linotype --font palatino lpl

in Cygwin and move the resulting folders to your localtexmf
directory. Update the file database and that's it.

This is my latex file:

\pdfmapfile{=lpl.map}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{lplj}
\begin{document}
123 Test \textsc{Test}
\end{document}

If you want the TeX font metrics, you can find them here

www.gwdg.de/~mrosena/lpl.zip

Kind regards,
Malte

Will Robertson

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Aug 2, 2004, 10:05:36 PM8/2/04
to
Malte Rosenau wrote:
> Will Robertson schrieb:
>
>> Has anyone had any luck using ttf2tex to install Palatino Linotype
>> (from WinXP)?
>
> This is probably not helpful in your case, but I have successfully
> installed Linotype Palatino and Gentium using Win2k, MikTeX and
> Cygwin. This was pretty straight forward.

We seem to have followed the same steps, but your files give me
different results - at least I can see letters now, but they're offset
by two: if I type "abc" in the source I get "cde" in the output; the
kerning's all wrong too.

I suspect Microsoft have updated Palatino between Win2k & XP; I probably
have a copy lying around somewhere...

Many thanks so far!
Will Robertson

Will Robertson

unread,
Aug 3, 2004, 3:16:28 AM8/3/04
to
Will Robertson wrote:
> Malte Rosenau wrote:
>
>> Will Robertson schrieb:
>>
>>> Has anyone had any luck using ttf2tex to install Palatino Linotype
>>> (from WinXP)?
>>
>> This is probably not helpful in your case, but I have successfully
>> installed Linotype Palatino and Gentium using Win2k, MikTeX and
>> Cygwin. This was pretty straight forward.
>
> I suspect Microsoft have updated Palatino between Win2k & XP; I probably
> have a copy lying around somewhere...

Microsoft's website says the difference is 1.05 compared to 1.40.
Sure enough, an older copy from Win2k worked fine. Apple did this with
Hoefler Text; is there a conspiracy to make TeX-use of these really nice
fonts impossible?

On a related note, it is my understanding that 8bit pdfTeX by default
cannot access the "non-standard" ligatures in Palatino Linotype (&c., of
course) such as Th, Qu, fb, ft, fh, etc. Is it possible to create a
hacked encoding that will allow this by, eg, removing some accented
characters?

Regards,
Will Robertson

Robin Fairbairns

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Aug 3, 2004, 4:03:21 AM8/3/04
to
Will Robertson <wi...@guerilla.net.au> writes:
>Will Robertson wrote:
>> Malte Rosenau wrote:
>>> This is probably not helpful in your case, but I have successfully
>>> installed Linotype Palatino and Gentium using Win2k, MikTeX and
>>> Cygwin. This was pretty straight forward.
>>
>> I suspect Microsoft have updated Palatino between Win2k & XP; I probably
>> have a copy lying around somewhere...
>
>Microsoft's website says the difference is 1.05 compared to 1.40.
>Sure enough, an older copy from Win2k worked fine. Apple did this with
>Hoefler Text; is there a conspiracy to make TeX-use of these really nice
>fonts impossible?

no; there's a general trend to multi-language opentype fonts, and in
this case it would appear that the tex-related tools aren't keeping up.

>On a related note, it is my understanding that 8bit pdfTeX by default
>cannot access the "non-standard" ligatures in Palatino Linotype (&c., of
>course) such as Th, Qu, fb, ft, fh, etc. Is it possible to create a
>hacked encoding that will allow this by, eg, removing some accented
>characters?

of course. if you've the time and energy (it will include hacking at
the translation program that got you the font in the first place.

the real solution is for some tex-like program to talk opentype, and
to offer the ligatures that are available, in some way i can't quite
imagine as i sit here idling my time away...
--
Robin (http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq) Fairbairns, Cambridge

William F. Adams

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Aug 3, 2004, 9:14:14 PM8/3/04
to
robin said:
>the real solution is for some tex-like program to talk opentype, and
>to offer the ligatures that are available, in some way i can't quite
>imagine as i sit here idling my time away...

No need to imagine --- XeTeX does this quite handily for those running Mac OS
X, and for others, well, there's my god-awful hack which'll appear in the next
TUGboat (those who're morbidly curious can check out the preprint which is
finally on-line)

William

--
William Adams
http://members.aol.com/willadams
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

Will Robertson

unread,
Aug 4, 2004, 1:21:41 AM8/4/04
to
r...@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) wrote in message news:<cengs9$iq3$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>...

> Will Robertson <wi...@guerilla.net.au> writes:
> >
> >Microsoft's website says the difference is 1.05 compared to 1.40.
> >Sure enough, an older copy from Win2k worked fine. Apple did this with
> >Hoefler Text; is there a conspiracy to make TeX-use of these really nice
> >fonts impossible?
>
> no; there's a general trend to multi-language opentype fonts, and in
> this case it would appear that the tex-related tools aren't keeping up.

The glyphs in the fonts themselves didn't change, only the internal
tables or whatnot. Hoefler Text from Mac OS X 10.2 worked with ttf2tex
but the one from 10.3 does not. Palatino Linotype from Win2k worked
but it didn't from WinXP. It's like they're stripping away the innards
so that tools like ttf2tex will no longer work.

I suspect it's more for some sort of "copy protection" rather than
specific malice against TeX.


> >On a related note, it is my understanding that 8bit pdfTeX by default
> >cannot access the "non-standard" ligatures in Palatino Linotype (&c., of
> >course) such as Th, Qu, fb, ft, fh, etc. Is it possible to create a
> >hacked encoding that will allow this by, eg, removing some accented
> >characters?
>
> of course. if you've the time and energy (it will include hacking at
> the translation program that got you the font in the first place.

Actually writing my document takes precedence, I fear. I have a small
understanding how the TeX font system works, and know a little how
OpenType fonts work, but not enough to be able to reconcile the two.


> the real solution is for some tex-like program to talk opentype, and
> to offer the ligatures that are available, in some way i can't quite
> imagine as i sit here idling my time away...

Well, I'd tell you what you already know, but that'd be redundant, I
suppose.
XeTeX would work nicely for me, but then I'll miss out on margin
kerning, which I consider a...more obvious...enhancement.

All in good time. With the ExTeX project that I just heard about
starting off and Aleph around there's a veritable cornucopia of TeX
systems that will accept unicode natively. Font support is sure to
catch up in a while.

Regards,
Will Robertson

Will Robertson

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Aug 4, 2004, 11:38:15 AM8/4/04
to
wi...@guerilla.net.au (Will Robertson) wrote in message news:<960db192.04080...@posting.google.com>...

>
> Has anyone had any luck using ttf2tex to install Palatino Linotype
> (from WinXP)? Or any other truetype OTF, for that matter?
>

So the solution was to use version 1.05 of the font from Windows 2000
instead and ttf2tex works as advertised. One last comment: I get heaps
of errors saying "glyph `.notdef' not found" in the italic font.
Opening the font file in FontForge and saving it (without any apparent
modification) appears to have fixed it.

Does anyone know if there a way to select italic small caps? I tried
selecting the various virtual fonts manually, but had no luck...I
assume the doubled up "shape" property of LaTeX a fundamental obstacle
to this.

(Who decided italics and small caps should be mutually exclusive?)

Thanks for all the help
Will

Bryan Bibb

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Aug 4, 2004, 12:27:17 PM8/4/04
to
On 04 Aug 2004 01:14:14 GMT, William F. Adams wrote:
> No need to imagine --- XeTeX does this quite handily for those
> running Mac OS X,

Is the unique feature here a result of working within Mac OSX, or is
there a possibility that this could be realized in other TeX
implementations? I am a Linux user, and am toying with the idea of
getting an iBook just so I can use XeTeX and OpenType fonts. I don't
really /need/ such fonts currently,[0] but they certainly do seem to be
the way of the future.

Bryan

[0] Though my perception is that they hold good promise for
multi-lingual documents. I would love to have better support for
various Semitic scripts, and have not had much luck with Omega (so
far).

--
Bryan Bibb
Dept. of Religion, Furman University
Greenville, SC, 29613
bryan (at) hevel (dot) org

Ralf Stubner

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Aug 4, 2004, 1:01:33 PM8/4/04
to
wi...@guerilla.net.au (Will Robertson) writes:

> So the solution was to use version 1.05 of the font from Windows 2000
> instead and ttf2tex works as advertised. One last comment: I get heaps
> of errors saying "glyph `.notdef' not found" in the italic font.
> Opening the font file in FontForge and saving it (without any apparent
> modification) appears to have fixed it.

IIRC FontForge (by default) adds a post table including glyphnames when
saving a TrueType font. Are there any size differences between the old
and the new font?



> Does anyone know if there a way to select italic small caps? I tried
> selecting the various virtual fonts manually, but had no luck...I
> assume the doubled up "shape" property of LaTeX a fundamental obstacle
> to this.

The slantsc package might help here.

cheerio
ralf

Dan Luecking

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Aug 4, 2004, 3:40:54 PM8/4/04
to
On 04 Aug 2004 01:14:14 GMT, will...@aol.com (William F. Adams) wrote:

>robin said:
>>the real solution is for some tex-like program to talk opentype, and
>>to offer the ligatures that are available, in some way i can't quite
>>imagine as i sit here idling my time away...
>
>No need to imagine --- XeTeX does this quite handily for those running Mac OS
>X, and for others, well, there's my god-awful hack which'll appear in the next
>TUGboat (those who're morbidly curious can check out the preprint which is
>finally on-line)

Where on-line? My web search skills (such as they are) failed to find
it.


Dan

--
Dan Luecking Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
To reply by email, change Look-In-Sig to luecking

Will Robertson

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Aug 4, 2004, 10:52:18 PM8/4/04
to
Ralf Stubner wrote:

> wi...@guerilla.net.au (Will Robertson) writes:
>
>>One last comment: I get heaps
>>of errors saying "glyph `.notdef' not found" in the italic font.
>>Opening the font file in FontForge and saving it (without any apparent
>>modification) appears to have fixed it.
>
> IIRC FontForge (by default) adds a post table including glyphnames when
> saving a TrueType font. Are there any size differences between the old
> and the new font?

I had to do it with the bold and bold italic founts as well. Weird,
though: the new ones are 20kB SMALLER. Clearly FontForge is doing
something, but most of all I'm just happy that they now work without
spitting out an error everytime a glyph is used!

>>Does anyone know if there a way to select italic small caps? I tried
>>selecting the various virtual fonts manually, but had no luck...I
>>assume the doubled up "shape" property of LaTeX a fundamental obstacle
>>to this.
>
> The slantsc package might help here.

That looks promising. All (!) I have to do now is work out how to
extract the italic small caps with ttf2tex, since it doesn't seem to
have done it by default. Sounds like a job for the day when I get all of
the extra ligatures going, as well.

Thanks,
Will

Will Robertson

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Aug 4, 2004, 11:04:49 PM8/4/04
to
Bryan Bibb wrote:

> On 04 Aug 2004 01:14:14 GMT, William F. Adams wrote:
>
>>No need to imagine --- XeTeX does this quite handily for those
>>running Mac OS X,
>
> Is the unique feature here a result of working within Mac OSX, or is
> there a possibility that this could be realized in other TeX
> implementations?

A little bit of both. AFAIK, the code that enables the OpenType font
features is open (and cross platform), but the main code that actually
puts the glyphs in their place is literally the (closed source) Mac OS X
font system - the hard work of XeTeX is gluing the two systems together,
whereas the hard work from scratch would be to interface the OpenType fonts.

(I only have a top-down understand of the whole thing, so I'm sure I've
made some overly broad simplifications and probably misunderstood things
along the way.)

You might like to join the mailing list and ask the developer himself.
He's very friendly. Comes from being English, I think.

Will Robertson

William F. Adams

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Aug 4, 2004, 11:32:17 PM8/4/04
to
I'd said:
>>... well, there's my god-awful hack which'll appear in the next

>>TUGboat (those who're morbidly curious can check out the preprint which is
>>finally on-line)

and Dan asked:

>Where on-line? My web search skills (such as they are) failed to find
it.

http://www.tug.org/tug2003/preprints/Adams/adams.pdf

I'd be obliged at any thoughts or suggestions for improving it.

William F. Adams

unread,
Aug 4, 2004, 11:40:53 PM8/4/04
to
bryan asked:
(re: XeTeX)

>Is the unique feature here a result of working within Mac OSX, or is
>there a possibility that this could be realized in other TeX
>implementations? I am a Linux user, and am toying with the idea of
>getting an iBook just so I can use XeTeX and OpenType fonts. I don't
>really /need/ such fonts currently,[0] but they certainly do seem to be
>the way of the future.

Will Robertson did a very good job of describing the situation.

In the meanwhile, one can wait for the release of the Omega tools for making
use of OpenType fonts in Omega, or use Eddie Kohler's OpenType conversion
tools.

And Scribus can make use of them as well.

But http://www.pango.org hasn't been updated since August of last year :(

Will Robertson

unread,
Aug 5, 2004, 12:11:16 AM8/5/04
to
William F. Adams wrote:

> In the meanwhile, one can wait for the release of the Omega tools for making
> use of OpenType fonts in Omega, or use Eddie Kohler's OpenType conversion
> tools.

Which, to my disappointment last week, only caters for Postscript-based
OpenType fonts. Microsoft's fancy WGL fonts are unfortunately TrueType
based.

Will Robertson

Jonathan Fine

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Aug 5, 2004, 7:45:50 AM8/5/04
to
"Bryan Bibb" <br...@see.sig> wrote in message
news:slrnch23j3...@whirlwind.furman.edu...

<snip>

> Is the unique feature here a result of working within Mac OSX, or is
> there a possibility that this could be realized in other TeX
> implementations? I am a Linux user, and am toying with the idea of
> getting an iBook just so I can use XeTeX and OpenType fonts. I don't
> really /need/ such fonts currently,[0] but they certainly do seem to be
> the way of the future.

I have mixed feelings about this development.

TeX uses 8-bit fonts. It's good that there is a TeX derivative that can
use Unicode fonts, and OpenType in particular. I understand why this
development has taken place, and sympathise with the motives.

My sadness is because Don Knuth wrote (TeXbook p226) that he
> doesn't want incompatible pseudo-TeX systems to proliferate


Jonathan


Will Robertson

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Aug 5, 2004, 8:56:28 AM8/5/04
to
Jonathan Fine wrote regarding XeTeX:

>
> I have mixed feelings about this development.
>
> TeX uses 8-bit fonts. It's good that there is a TeX derivative that can
> use Unicode fonts, and OpenType in particular. I understand why this
> development has taken place, and sympathise with the motives.
>
> My sadness is because Don Knuth wrote (TeXbook p226) that he
>
>>doesn't want incompatible pseudo-TeX systems to proliferate

Ah, but didn't he also say:

> I expected extensions [to TeX] whenever someone had a special-purpose
> important project
...
> So I built a lot of hooks into the code so that it
> should be fairly easy...to set up a new program for special occasions
...
> [However,] people are working with TeX at the macro level [rather than
> writing new programs based on TeX]

(In TUG'95 Questions & Answers with Prof. Donald E. Knuth: TUGboat, Vol
17 (1996), No. 1 --- tb50knut.pdf)

Perhaps it would be better to be sad about the horrible font mess Adobe,
Apple and Microsoft have gotten us into, and how slowly it seems to be
for us to find a good cross platform way to solve the difficulties that
exist.

Will

Ralf Stubner

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Aug 5, 2004, 10:43:55 AM8/5/04
to
Will Robertson <wi...@guerilla.net.au> writes:

> I had to do it with the bold and bold italic founts as well. Weird,
> though: the new ones are 20kB SMALLER. Clearly FontForge is doing
> something, but most of all I'm just happy that they now work without
> spitting out an error everytime a glyph is used!

Do the SC glyphs work correctly? I just run the following FontForge
script on version 1.40 of Palatino Linotype, and I do see this size
reduction and a post table with proper names. However, kerning data is
now in a form not accessible to ttf2afm, the names for the SC glyphs is
a.sc instead of Asmall as expected by ttf2tex.sh and there is an offset
in the naming. This might be related to the internal error 'Impossible
script lang in AddSliToFeature' which FontForge (version 20040801) gave
me. Oh well ...

#!/usr/bin/env fontforge
Open($1)
Generate($1:r + "-post.ttf", "", 0x80)
Quit()

> All (!) I have to do now is work out how to extract the italic small
> caps with ttf2tex, since it doesn't seem to have done it by default.
> Sounds like a job for the day when I get all of the extra ligatures
> going, as well.

IIRC ttf2tex.sh implements the scheme found on
<URL:http://www.radamir.com/tex/ttf-tex.htm> but uses additional
encoding vectors T1-SC.enc etc. So one could do the relevant steps for
italic SC/OsF by hand.

cheerio
ralf

Will Robertson

unread,
Aug 5, 2004, 10:49:16 AM8/5/04
to
Ralf Stubner wrote:

> Will Robertson <wi...@guerilla.net.au> writes:
>
>
>>I had to do it with the bold and bold italic founts as well. Weird,
>>though: the new ones are 20kB SMALLER. Clearly FontForge is doing
>>something, but most of all I'm just happy that they now work without
>>spitting out an error everytime a glyph is used!
>
>
> Do the SC glyphs work correctly? I just run the following FontForge
> script on version 1.40 of Palatino Linotype, and I do see this size
> reduction and a post table with proper names. However, kerning data is
> now in a form not accessible to ttf2afm, the names for the SC glyphs is
> a.sc instead of Asmall as expected by ttf2tex.sh and there is an offset
> in the naming. This might be related to the internal error 'Impossible
> script lang in AddSliToFeature' which FontForge (version 20040801) gave
> me. Oh well ...

Version 1.40 didn't work for me at all, full stop. I had to use version
1.05 (from Windows 2000), which ttf2tex installed fine.

> #!/usr/bin/env fontforge
> Open($1)
> Generate($1:r + "-post.ttf", "", 0x80)
> Quit()
>
>
>>All (!) I have to do now is work out how to extract the italic small
>>caps with ttf2tex, since it doesn't seem to have done it by default.
>>Sounds like a job for the day when I get all of the extra ligatures
>>going, as well.
>
>
> IIRC ttf2tex.sh implements the scheme found on
> <URL:http://www.radamir.com/tex/ttf-tex.htm> but uses additional
> encoding vectors T1-SC.enc etc. So one could do the relevant steps for
> italic SC/OsF by hand.

Yeah, that's what I was planning, *if I ever discover the need to use
italic small caps in my document* :)

Cheers,
Will

Jonathan Fine

unread,
Aug 5, 2004, 10:56:49 AM8/5/04
to
"Will Robertson" <wi...@guerilla.net.au> wrote in message
news:4112...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...

> Jonathan Fine wrote regarding XeTeX:

<snip>

> Ah, but didn't he also say:
>
> > I expected extensions [to TeX] whenever someone had a special-purpose
> > important project
> ...
> > So I built a lot of hooks into the code so that it
> > should be fairly easy...to set up a new program for special occasions
> ...
> > [However,] people are working with TeX at the macro level [rather than
> > writing new programs based on TeX]
>
> (In TUG'95 Questions & Answers with Prof. Donald E. Knuth: TUGboat, Vol
> 17 (1996), No. 1 --- tb50knut.pdf)

Will, thanks for the quote from Don Knuth.

Yes he did, and the macro level comment is very interesting.

However, even though using OpenType is important, I don't think that today
it could count as a special purpose.

> Perhaps it would be better to be sad about the horrible font mess Adobe,
> Apple and Microsoft have gotten us into, and how slowly it seems to be
> for us to find a good cross platform way to solve the difficulties that
> exist.

Well, I am sad about that also. And would be sadder yet, if fonts were
my main thing.

My hope is that we can solve the difficulties and help other users out
of the mess.

My fear is that we get dragged in, causing incompatible pseudo-TeX systems
to proliferate.

Resolution of PostScript font difficulties in the 1990s was very helpful
for the TeX community.


Jonathan


David Kastrup

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Aug 5, 2004, 11:08:28 AM8/5/04
to
"Jonathan Fine" <J.F...@open.ac.uk> writes:

> "Will Robertson" <wi...@guerilla.net.au> wrote:
> > Jonathan Fine wrote regarding XeTeX:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Ah, but didn't he also say:
> >
> > > I expected extensions [to TeX] whenever someone had a special-purpose
> > > important project
> > ...
> > > So I built a lot of hooks into the code so that it
> > > should be fairly easy...to set up a new program for special occasions
> > ...
> > > [However,] people are working with TeX at the macro level [rather than
> > > writing new programs based on TeX]
> >
> > (In TUG'95 Questions & Answers with Prof. Donald E. Knuth: TUGboat, Vol
> > 17 (1996), No. 1 --- tb50knut.pdf)
>
> Will, thanks for the quote from Don Knuth.
>
> Yes he did, and the macro level comment is very interesting.
>
> However, even though using OpenType is important, I don't think that
> today it could count as a special purpose.

Then I propose that you travel backwards in time until OpenType
becomes a special purpose again, get comfortable with the idea of
extending TeX, and then come back into our time. You can then be
appalled at the delay it took to adapt TeX to the special purposes of
former times that are commonplace right now.

> My fear is that we get dragged in, causing incompatible pseudo-TeX
> systems to proliferate.

Then don't let yourself be dragged in, and use the compatible
non-pseudo TeX for as long as you desire.

--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
UKTUG FAQ: <URL:http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html>

Jonathan Fine

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Aug 5, 2004, 12:45:50 PM8/5/04
to
"David Kastrup" <d...@gnu.org> wrote in message
news:x5isbx4...@lola.goethe.zz...
> "Jonathan Fine" <J.F...@open.ac.uk> writes:

<snip - response to be posted next week perhaps>

> > My fear is that we get dragged in, causing incompatible pseudo-TeX
> > systems to proliferate.
>
> Then don't let yourself be dragged in, and use the compatible
> non-pseudo TeX for as long as you desire.

David, thank you for this. Let me restate the issue.

Don Knuth wrote (TeXbook p226) that he
> doesn't want incompatible pseudo-TeX systems to proliferate

It's not something I want, either. For what it's worth (smile).

How about yourself.

May I ask, what's your view on Don's wish?


Jonathan

PS Don't hurry to reply - I'll be off-line for several days.


Malte Rosenau

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Aug 5, 2004, 1:05:52 PM8/5/04
to
William F. Adams schrieb:

> http://www.tug.org/tug2003/preprints/Adams/adams.pdf
>
> I'd be obliged at any thoughts or suggestions for improving it.
>

The quotation in the second line "Of the making of books, there is
no end" is from Ecclesiastes 12:12 AFAIK. It might be in the
Qur'an as well, but at least an online search didn't bring up any
references.

Kind regards,
Malte

David Kastrup

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Aug 5, 2004, 1:15:54 PM8/5/04
to
"Jonathan Fine" <J.F...@open.ac.uk> writes:

> "David Kastrup" <d...@gnu.org> wrote:
> > "Jonathan Fine" <J.F...@open.ac.uk> writes:
>
> <snip - response to be posted next week perhaps>
>
> > > My fear is that we get dragged in, causing incompatible
> > > pseudo-TeX systems to proliferate.
> >
> > Then don't let yourself be dragged in, and use the compatible
> > non-pseudo TeX for as long as you desire.
>
> David, thank you for this.

It is my greatest and absolutely sincere and exquisite pleasure to be
granted the priviledge of conversing with a great thinker.

> Let me restate the issue.

I am very grateful that it is not beyond you to cast into simpler
words what I must have been unable to understand the first time
around. My heart-felt warmest thanks for the consideration you extend
towards individuals lacking your encompassing powers of comprehension.

> Don Knuth wrote (TeXbook p226) that he doesn't want incompatible
> pseudo-TeX systems to proliferate

He wrote and said a few things later on concerning his surprise that
far fewer extensions of TeX seemed to have been attempted than he had
expected. In his paper "The future of TeX and METAFONT" he says:

Of course I do not claim to have found the best solu- tion to
every problem. I simply claim that it is a great advantage to have
a fixed point as a building block. Improved macro packages can be
added on the input side; improved device drivers can be added on
the output side. I welcome continued research that will lead to
alternative systems that can typeset documents better than TeX is
able to do. But the authors of such systems must think of another
name.

So he actually _welcomes_ research improving upon TeX.

> It's not something I want, either.

How does other people using other programs negatively affect you?

> For what it's worth (smile).
>
> How about yourself.
>
> May I ask, what's your view on Don's wish?

My view is that it would be disrespectful to refuse standing on the
shoulders of giants when invited to. He is a scientist, working for
the love of progressing the art of mathematics, computer science, and
typesetting. He has laid a milestone, he has given it a name, he has
stated that he wants it to be an immovable point and testament to his
achievement, to mark where his personal journey ended. And he has
invited people to venture out beyond from this point.

The last chapter of the TeXbook ends with
"Final exhortation: GO FORTH now and create masterpieces of the
publishing art."

If you want to get an impression of Knuth's stance towards working on
successors of TeX, take a look at him chastising efforts like PDFTeX,
eTeX, Omega. Can you find a single complaint of him, anywhere?

Now contrast this with his reaction when CMR variants with differing
(`corrected') metrics were in limited circulation. He was downright
furious about that and raised a considerable stink in the TeX
community, trying to get the situation corrected.

Does not that difference tell you something about his wishes?

William F. Adams

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Aug 5, 2004, 4:53:43 PM8/5/04
to
mrosena noted:

>The quotation in the second line "Of the making of books, there is
>no end" is from Ecclesiastes 12:12 AFAIK. It might be in the
>Qur'an as well, but at least an online search didn't bring up any
>references.

I really should find a better reference for the Prophet Muhammad having said
this than the mention at the end of Adrian Wilson's _The Design of Books_, but
I studied Korean, not Arabic when I had the chance to pick :(

It's very possible (probable?) that AW is mis-attributing it, so switching to
the Biblical cite is probably a good idea.

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