Re: Wrapping TTF files ?

[Werner LEMBERG]

> What's the best course of action?

Good question.  The very problem is the size of the created Type42
fonts...

> Isn't there support in Freetype for writing font files?

No, and it won't be added.  FreeType just renders glyphs, nothing
else.

> Come to think of it: why isn't there a separate library for reading
> and writing font files?  Freetype and Fontforge could share that
> library.

On the fontforge discussion list George has already been asked to
provide such libraries, but this doesn't have top priority, AFAIK.
You might push him again.

What I imagine is a kind of `PS document builder': You provide
resource files, fonts in various formats, and the document data, and
the builder glues everything together.  I think this should be
possible if we use ghostscript as an output filter: We then no longer
need to embed the cff resources directly; instead, ghostscript loads
the font and does the proper subsetting.

Unfortunately, the `pswrite' output device of ghostscript outputs
bitmaps instead of outline fonts (improving pswrite is on the
`projects' list of the gs team).  According to the documentation of gs
8.50, `pdfwrite' seems to be the right choice.  Converting pdf to ps
should be rather easy then.

This creates a strong dependency between LilyPond and GhostScript, but
honestly I don't see a simple alternative which takes away the burden
to handle those nasty font issues within lilypond itself.


    Werner