Re: [Devel] [ freetype-Feature Requests-514543 ] Support for TeX's .pk/.tfm fonts

[George Williams]

> It would be nice if FreeType could deal with TeX's font. The problem
> I can see about it is that they come in either 'source' version (.mf,
> to be compiled by MetaFont) or in compiled version, which is split
> in glyph (.pk) and metric (.tfm) data. Is this a problem?
I was given a fully glossed (ie. extremely well commented) version of the 
source for pktype and tftopl which document the pk and .tfm formats, and 
I'll be happy to send out copies if anyone wants to take this on (I was 
told that it was not to be posted to the web though).

The big problem I had with the format:
    * the encoding is not well specified. The .tfm file contains a string 
that names
        the encoding. Valid names given are "Ascii", "TeX text" and
        "Unspecified".

The pk file contains the basic bitmap information. The .tfm file contains 
kerning and ligature info and some of the stuff that would fit in the pcf 
parameters record.

Personally I suspect that supporting .mf files would be far too much work 
to justify the results. But if anyone does write code that converts .mf 
format into a set of postscript/truetype type outlines I would love to see 
it...