Re: [ft-devel] Understanding Type1 fonts

[mpsuzuki]

Hi,

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 10:24:45 +0200
Donn <address@hidden> wrote:
>Essentially: Is an AFM or a PFM file needed *at all*?
>Can I simply focus on PFB and PFA files and link then
>into ~/.fonts and call that font 'installed"? 

In my understanding, AFM and PFM are not essential for
the system that can rasterize PS Type1 CharStrings by
themselves. PS Type1 CharString has the operators to
define metrics (see "Adobe Type1 Font Format", there
are "hsbw" and "sbw" operators), PFA & PFB can declare
the metrics in each glyph data.

The metrics-only files AFM & PFM were introduced for
the system that cannot (or want to skip to) rasterize
PS Type1 CharStrings but can display bitmap glyph data
(obtained from bitmap font or non-native rasterizer)
at the positions calculated by metrics-only files.

However, it is theoretically possible for AFM & PFM
to have the metrics which is different from PFA & PFB.
I don't know recent utilization is popular.

Regards,
mpsuzuki