[NTG-context] Using Postscript Type 1 fonts in ConTeXt/XeTeX?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 8:37 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> Some of your statements seem wrong or at least confusing to me:
>
>  Am 2008-03-01 um 13:19 schrieb Roland:
>
>
>  > Seems we never posted the conclusion about this problem: XeTeX simply
>  > doesn't work with the old Mac Type 1 Postscript fonts on Mac OS X
>  > (Leopard or before). The reason is that these old fonts store their
>  > data in the resource fork, which Unix utilities like XeTeX don't see.
>  > Only TrueType or OpenType fonts will be recognised and loaded
>  > correctly.
>
>  As you state later, all data fork fonts (TrueType, OpenType and
>  PostScript) should work.
>  For I never tried XeTeX I don't know if PS Type 1 and 3 will work.

They do. But the mac Type1 fonts come in some weird format for which
Jonathan hasn't written support in xdvipdfmx (yet). With xdv2pdf they
work OK.

>  Isn't it possible to use traditional TeX-installed fonts with XeTeX?

Yes, it is. But the font that Roland has bought and is trying to use
in XeTeX comes in two flavors: one for mac (that's the one he has) and
one for Windows.

The "traditional TeX-installed" fonts are in the format that Windows
uses (another font, actually) and would not work in other Mac
applications. He would actually need either:
- the windows version of that font (which he doesn't have)
- or a patch for XeTeX (xdvipdfmx actually) that would allow him to
use the font he has (the patch *might* come one day, but there are
more important things in XeTeX waiting to be implemented)
- or to patch ConTeXt to use xdv2pdf instead of xdvipdfmx + rewrite a
bunch of definitions that load Latin Modern (they should not be loaded
since xdv2pdf doesn't support "traditional TeX-installed fonts")
- or to convert the font to some other format (officially forbidden, I guess)

The second problem is also that the syntax to call that font might
need to be changed, but that's a minor problem.

A story learned: it is possible, but any of the described ways is
extremely clumsy to use, so one should better use another font to
avoid problems.

Mojca