Re: [Freetype] metafont fonts for screen display

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I noticed that FreeType doesn't have any built-in support for
> metafont fonts.  I'm curious as to why this is.

There are many limitations which makes it impossible IMHO to render
MF fonts at run-time:

  . MF fonts can include arbitrary sub files which can be anywhere on
    the disk.

  . AFAIK, MF can't be described in Backus-Naur notation (similar to
    TeX).  This makes it very hard (or even impossible) to write a
    simple parser -- only MF itself can read its source files.

  . Processing MF files can be painfully slow; due to the nature of MF
    files it is quite easy to code endless loops and bad-behaving
    code.

  . For each font size, MF code must be run again since the format is
    limited to pixel output and is not based on outlines.

  ...

A nice add-on for FreeType would be a PK module, though.

> Would metafont fonts be suitable for display on a monitor? (Or are
> they only meant for very high-resolution display/print- out?)

Well-coded fonts like CM are suitable for monitor display, but most
others aren't.

> I realize that there's a set of postscript type 1 versions of
> computer modern available.  Are they regarded as being "as good as"
> the original metafont version(s)?

Well, the conversion has been done very carefully, and I think that
the results can't be improved further.  It now depends on the quality
of the Type 1 rasterizer how well glyphs are displayed at small sizes,
since the conversion MF->Type 1 looses information.


    Werner