[Aleph] OpenType fonts

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

Hi all,

OpenType fonts are all the rage today. Are there any critiqes of the  
format, or discussions of its limitations?

How many typesetting applications can actually take full advantage of  
opentype fonts?

What are the chances that OpenType (at least some of its advanced  
features) will go the way of MultipleMaster fonts?

The answers to these questions have a bearing on my own advanced Classical  
Arabic script project. For example, the ovf+ocp mechanism of Aleph seems  
much richer than what otf offers, so should I bother with otf at all or  
just stick to enriched Type1 fonts (>256 glyphs, used by LatinModern)?

I may be mistaken, but it seems that the Aleph utilities need updating to  
take full advantage of enriched Type1 fonts (not to mention otf fonts).  
Right now I am still building ovf's from a series of standard type1's.

Here is one possible limitation of otf (please correct me if I'm wrong):  
While an otf can contain an alternate glyph of a given character, it  
cannot tell the typesetting application that, if there is the equivalent  
to underfull paragraph spacing, replace the default <glyph>.1 with  
<glyph>.2. This sort of thing is common in, e.g. old Arabic lead-press  
books and in handwritten books. TeX should be capable of this, though it  
remains to be seen whether this should be implemented at the engine level  
(a la pdfetex) or at the macro level.

Best
Idris

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