====== Finding "8-bit" Type 1 fonts ======


Elsewhere, answers to these FAQs recommend that you use an
"8-bit" font to permit [[3_composition:langues:cesure:coupures_de_mots_accentues|accentuation of inflected languages]],
and also recommend the use of Type 1 fonts to ensure that
you get [[5_fichiers:fontes:mon_document_est_flou_a_cause_des_fontes_t3|good quality PDF]].
These recommendations used to be contradictory: one could not just
"switch" from the free CM fonts to free Cork- (or similarly)
encoded Type 1 fonts.  The first approach that started to alleviate
these problems, was the development of virtual fonts that make
a good approach to the Cork encoding (see below).  Now, however, we
have "true" Type 1 fonts available: as always, we have an
embarrassment of riches with three free alternatives, and one
commercial and one shareware version.

$\Reponse$  [[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]] is an
auto-traced set which encompasses all of the T1 and TS1
encodings as well as the T2* series (the family of encodings
that cover languages based on Cyrillic alphabets).  These fonts are
pretty easy to install (the installation instructions are clear), but
they are huge: don't try to install them if you're short of disc
space.

$\Reponse$  [[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]] is a similar "super-font" set, but of much more
modest size; it covers T1, TS1 and T2A encodings (as does [[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]],
and also covers the LGR encoding (for typesetting Greek, based on
Claudio Beccari's MetaFont sources).  [[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]] manages
to be small by going to the opposite extreme from [[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]],
which includes fonts at all the sizes supported by the original EC (a huge range);
[[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]] has one font per font shape, getting other sizes by
scaling.  There is an inevitable loss of quality inherent in this
approach, but for the disc-space-challenged machine, [[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]]
is an obvious choice.

$\Reponse$  [[ctanpkg>Tt2001|Tt2001]] is a simple scan of the EC and TC
fonts, and has some virtues --- it's noticeably smaller than
[[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]] while being less stark than [[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]].

$\Reponse$  [[ctanpkg>lm|Latin Modern]] is produced using the program
''[[5_fichiers:fontes:tracer_les_contours_d_une_police_metafont|MetaType1]]''.
The [[ctanpkg>lm|Latin Modern]] set comes with T1, TS1 LY1 encoded variants
(as well as a variant using the Polish QX encoding); for the glyph set it covers,
its outlines seem rather cleaner than those of [[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]]. 
[[ctanpkg>lm|Latin Modern]] is more modest in its disc space demands than is
[[ctanpkg>CM-super|CM-super]], while not being nearly as stark in its range of
design sizes as is [[ctanpkg>CM-LGC|CM-LGC]] ---
[[ctanpkg>lm|Latin Modern]]'s fonts are offered in the same set of sizes as the
original [[ctanpkg>CM|CM]] fonts.  It's hard to argue with the choice:
Knuth's range of sizes has stood the test of time, and is one of the
bases on which the excellence of the TeX system rests.

$\Reponse$  [[5_fichiers:fontes:que_sont_les_fontes_virtuelles|Virtual fonts]] help us
deal with the problem, since they allow us to map "bits of DVI file" to single
characters in the virtual font; so we can create an "é" character
by recreating the DVI commands that would result from the code
''\'e''.  However, since this involves two characters being
selected from a font, the arrangement is sufficient to fool
//Acrobat Reader//: you can't use the program's
facilities for searching for text that contains inflected characters,
and if you //cut// text from a window that contains such a
character, you'll find something unexpected (typically the accent and
the "base" characters separated by a space) when you "paste"
the result.  However, if you can live with this difficulty, virtual
fonts are a useful and straightforward solution to the problem.

$\Reponse$  There are two virtual-font offerings of CM-based 8-bit fonts ---
the [[ctanpkg>ae]] ("almost EC") and [[ctanpkg>zefonts]] sets;
the [[ctanpkg>zefonts]] set has wider coverage (though the [[ctanpkg>ae]]
set may be extended to offer guillemets by use of the
[[ctanpkg>aeguill]] package).  Neither offers characters such
as ''eth'' and ''thorn'' (used in, for example, in Icelandic),
but the [[ctanpkg>ae|aecompl]] package works with the [[ctanpkg>ae]]
fonts to provide the missing characters from the EC fonts (i.e., as bitmaps).

The sole remaining commercial CM-like 8-bit font comes from
Micropress, who offer the complete EC set in Type 1 format,
as part of their range of outline versions of fonts that were
originally distributed in MetaFont format.  See
"[[6_distributions:implementations_commerciales|commercial distributions]]".

The shareware [[6_distributions:trouver_les_sources_pour_les_differents_systemes_d_exploitation2|BaKoMa TeX distribution]] offers a
set of Type 1 EC fonts, as an extra shareware option.  (As far
as the present author can tell, these fonts are //only// available
to users of BaKoMa TeX: they are stored in an archive format that
seems not to be publicly available.)

$\Reponse$  Finally, you can use one of the myriad text fonts available in Type 1
format (with appropriate PSNFSS metrics for T1 encoding,
or metrics for some other 8-bit encoding such as LY1).  However,
if you use someone else's text font (even something as simple as
Adobe's Times family) you have to find a matching family of
mathematical fonts, which is a non-trivial undertaking ---
see "[[5_fichiers:fontes:fontes_t1_pour_les_mathematiques|choice of scalable fonts]]".


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//Source:// [[faquk>FAQ-type1T1|Finding "8-bit" Type 1 fonts]]

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