Re: Aliases in 2.2.x

[Martin Kretzschmar <m_kretzschmar gmx net>]

Keith Packard wrote: 
> Around 17 o'clock on Feb 14, Martin Kretzschmar wrote:
> 
> > For GPdf Times != Serif.
> > Times has to look like Adobe's Times. ATM I just ask unconditionally for
> > GhostScript's URW Nimbus fonts.
> 
> Times has to have the same metrics as Adobe's Times; the actual appearance 
> needn't match, but I do get your point.

Font newbie meets PDF. Your worst nightmares come true ;-).

> 
> Fontconfig deals with this by having the configuration provide aliases
> for the desired family that map preferentially to fonts with matching 
> spacing.  If you look in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf, you'll find:
> 
>         <alias>
>                 <family>Times</family>
>                 <accept><family>Times New Roman</family></accept>
>         </alias>
>         <alias>
>                 <family>Helvetica</family>
>                 <accept><family>Verdana</family></accept>
>         </alias>
>         <alias>
>                 <family>Courier</family>
>                 <accept><family>Courier New</family></accept>
>         </alias>
> 
> Obviously, the Helvetica mapping is wrong (should be Arial).  And, if the 
> URW fonts are truely metric compatible with the original PS glyphs, we 
> should add them to this list.

I'm not sure about the metrics (have to understand all this first) but
IIUC GhostScript uses the URW fonts when displaying PostScript files
which need Adobe fonts; and Artifex paid URW to have them GPLed so they
could ship the fonts with gs.

>   The essential goal is to make type standard 
> Type1 family names generic names much as 'sans-serif' and 'serif' are.

We just have to careful wrt trademarks (see Owen's mail from January
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-print-list/2003-January/msg00001.html)

> Patches to fonts.conf that solve problems for you would be greatly 
> appreciated; it's part of the fontconfig package, not a local configuration
> file.

At the moment there's no API in gnome-print to access fontconfig (except
that it provides the standard aliases `serif' etc). So changing
fonts.conf doesn't help me ATM. I'll remember to file fonts.conf
enhancement bugs when they would solve problems for me.


	Martin