Re: Add sans-serif and monospace fonts (issue 224800043 by address@hidden)

[dak]

On 2015/04/01 10:35:03, trueroad wrote:
> On 2015/04/01 05:33:59, dak wrote:
> > On 2015/03/31 22:18:11, c_sorensen wrote:
> > > On 2015/03/31 15:57:54, dak wrote:
> > > > Shouldn't we rather be selecting the Courier and Helvetica fonts
(standard
> > > > PostScript) and rely on GhostScript and/or font installation to
cater for
> > the
> > > > font substitution to Nimbus when required?
> > > >
> > > > That's not a rhetorical question: I don't know the answer
myself.
> > >
> > > IIUC, the problem that we had was that the font installations for
some
> systems
> > > did not include ligatures, so we proposed to make a selection,
rather than
> > > allowing the system default to apply.
> >
> > The PostScript default fonts have well-defined metrics including
ligatures.
> > That's different from a non-specific "system default font" according
to Pango.

> > At least it _should_ be different.  I was not talking about asking
Pango for
> > "Sans" or "Fixed", but for "Helvetica" and "Courier".
> >
> > PostScript is required to do something with that request that at
least results
> > in well-known font metrics.  I don't know whether Pango is similarly
> > well-defined for that request, however.

> In my perception, pango requires actual font file (.otf, .pfb etc.).
> If there is no font files, pango can't render anything.
> Even if there is only font metric files (.afm, .pfm, .tfm etc.),
> pango can't handle it.

> Moreover, in my experiment,
> pango can't handle the ligature of PostScript Type1 font (.pfb with
.afm or
> .pfm).
> It can handle the ligature of OpenType font (.otf).

What a mess.  Well, since we do the font handling with Pango, we have to
make do with its limitations.  I'd have thought that a sensible Pango
design would have gotten by with at most a .afm file for producing
PostScript files without embedded fonts but using PostScript standard
fonts.

If that's not the case, and if we even need to provide a .otf font, I
don't see much of an option around using a free font like Nimbus.

https://codereview.appspot.com/224800043/