  Font HOWTO
  Donovan Rebbechi,       elflord@panix.com
  <mailto:elflord@panix.com>
  February 2000
  ____________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents



























































  1. Introduction

     1.1 The Location of This Document
     1.2 Rationale
     1.3 Credits and Acknowledgements

  2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts

     2.1 Types of fonts
        2.1.1 Bitmap Fonts
        2.1.2 Type1 Fonts
        2.1.3 Type3 fonts
        2.1.4 TrueType fonts
        2.1.5 Type42 Fonts
        2.1.6 Type1 vs TrueType -- a comparison
        2.1.7 Metafont
     2.2 Families of Typefaces

  3. Fonts 102 -- Typography

     3.1 Classifications of Typefaces
        3.1.1 Fixed versus variable width
        3.1.2 To serif or not to serif ?
        3.1.3 The old and the new -- different types of Serif fonts
           3.1.3.1 Old Style
           3.1.3.2 Moderns ( or didone )
           3.1.3.3 Transitional
           3.1.3.4 Slab Serifs
        3.1.4 The Sans Serif Revolution
           3.1.4.1 Grotesque
           3.1.4.2 Geometric
           3.1.4.3 Humanist
        3.1.5 Compatible Typefaces
     3.2 Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts
        3.2.1 Ligatures
        3.2.2 Small caps fonts
        3.2.3 Expert fonts
     3.3 Font Metrics and Shapes

  4. Making Fonts Available To X

     4.1 The font path
     4.2 Installing Type1 Fonts
        4.2.1 Run Type1inst
        4.2.2 If You Have the
        4.2.3 If You Don't Have The
     4.3 True Type Fonts
        4.3.1 xfstt
     4.4 xfs
        4.4.1 The
        4.4.2 Installing a Font Into

  5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript

     5.1 Type1
     5.2 True Type
     5.3 Using Ghostscript To Preview Fonts

  6. True Type to Type1 Conversion

     6.1 Why ?
     6.2 How ?

  7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts

     7.1 Introduction and Overview
     7.2 Applixware
        7.2.1 FontTastic
        7.2.2 Using System Wide Fonts With Applixware
           7.2.2.1 Make the fonts available to X
           7.2.2.2 Make the fonts available to ghostscript
           7.2.2.3 Edit the fontmap.dir
     7.3 Star Office
        7.3.1 Backup Your Configuration Before you Start !
        7.3.2 Adding Type1 Fonts to Star Office
        7.3.3 Adding TrueType Fonts to Star Office
        7.3.4 Under the Hood
     7.4 Word Perfect

  8. TeX / LaTeX

     8.1 A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts
     8.2 Adding Type1 fonts
        8.2.1 Naming the fonts
        8.2.2 Creating the virtual fonts and tex font metrics
        8.2.3 Configure dvips
        8.2.4 Test the font
        8.2.5 Create a .sty file

  9. Getting Fonts For Linux

     9.1 True Type
        9.1.1 Commercial Software
        9.1.2 Microsoft's Font Download
        9.1.3 Luc's Webpage
        9.1.4 Web sites with truetype fonts
        9.1.5 Foundries
     9.2 Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
        9.2.1 Dealing With Mac and Windows Formats
        9.2.2 Free Stuff
        9.2.3 Commercial Fonts
           9.2.3.1 Value vs Premium: Why Should I buy Premium Fonts ?
           9.2.3.2 Value
           9.2.3.3 Premium
           9.2.3.4 More Links

  10. Useful Font Software for Linux

  11. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type

  12. References

     12.1 Font Information
     12.2 Postscript and Printing Information

  13. Glossary



  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  Introduction

  1.1.  The Location of This Document

  This document is located at my webpage
  <http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto>





  1.2.  Rationale

  I'm going to make this brief (-; The purpose of this document is to
  address what was a gaping hole in font documentation. While
  previously, there were several documents about fonts for Linux, I felt
  that none of them were comprehensive, all of them had a relatively
  narrow focus. Hence the goal of this document is not to provide
  radical new insight into the issue of font handling ( though I have
  included material previously unavailable ), the main aim is to provide
  a comprehensive source to act as a starting point for any and all font
  questions about Linux.

  1.3.  Credits and Acknowledgements

  Special thanks are due to Rod Smith, who made several helpful
  suggestions, and fixed pfm2afm.  Also thanks to Doug Holland, whose
  Font Deuglification HOWTO proved to be a good reference, and the Linux
  community for their suggestions and construtive comments.

  2.  Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts

  2.1.  Types of fonts

  2.1.1.  Bitmap Fonts

  A bitmap is a matrix of dots. Bitmap fonts are represented in
  precisely this way -- as matrices of dots. Because of this, they are
  device dependent -- they are only useful at a particular resolution. A
  75 DPI screen bitmap font is still 75 DPI on your 1200 DPI printer.

  There are two types of bitmap fonts -- bitmap printer fonts, such as
  the pk fonts generated by dvips, and bitmap screen fonts, used by X
  and the console. The bitmap screen fonts typically have a bdf or pcf
  extension. Bitmap screen fonts are most useful for terminal windows,
  consoles and text editors, where the lack of scalability and the fact
  that they are unprintable is not an issue.

  2.1.2.  Type1 Fonts

  The Type1 font standard was devised by Adobe, and Type1 fonts are
  supported by Adobe's postscript standard. Because of this, they are
  also well supported under linux. They are supported by X and
  ghostscript. Postscript fonts have traditionally been the choice of
  font for anything on UNIX that involves printing.

  Typically, a UNIX Type1 font is distributed as an afm ( adobe font
  metric ) file, and an outline file, which is usually a pfb ( printer
  font binary ) or pfa ( printer font ascii ) file. The outline file
  contains all the glyphs, while the metric file contains the metrics.

  Type 1 fonts for other platforms may be distributed in different
  formats. For example, postscript fonts for windows often use a
  different format ( pfm ) for the metric file.

  2.1.3.  Type3 fonts

  These fonts are distributed in a similar manner to Type1 files -- in
  groups of afm font metrics, and pfa files.  While they are supported
  by the postscript standard, they are not supported by X, and hence
  have limited use.

  2.1.4.  TrueType fonts

  True type fonts were developed by Apple. They made the format
  available to Microsoft, and succesfully challenged Adobe's grip on the
  font market.  True type fonts store the metric and shape information
  in a single file ( usually one with a ttf extension ). Recently, font
  servers have been developed that make TrueType available to X. And
  postscript and ghostscript have supported TrueType fonts for some
  time. Because of this, TrueType fonts are becoming more popular on
  linux.

  2.1.5.  Type42 Fonts

  Type42 fonts are actually just TrueType fonts with headers that enable
  them to be rendered by a postscript interpreter. Most applications,
  such as ghostscript and SAMBA handle these fonts transparently.
  However, if you have a postscript printer, it may be necessary to
  explicitly create Type42 font files.

  2.1.6.  Type1 vs TrueType -- a comparison

  Despite the historical feuding between the proponents to Type1 and
  TrueType fonts, both have a lot in common. Both are scalable outline
  fonts.  Type1 fonts use cubic as opposed to quadratic curves for the
  glyphs.  This is in theory at least a slight advantage since they
  include all the curves available to TrueType fonts. In practice, it
  makes very little difference.

  TrueType fonts have the apparent advantage that their support for
  hinting is better ( Type1 fonts do have hinting functionality, but it
  is not as extensive as that of TrueType fonts ).  However, this is
  only an issue on low resolution devices, such as screens ( the
  improved hinting makes no discernable difference on a 600dpi printer,
  even at small point sizes. ) The other point that makes this apparent
  advantage somewhat questionable is the fact that well hinted TrueType
  fonts are rare.  This is because software packages that support
  hinting functionality are out of the budget of most small time
  designers.  Only a few major foundries, such as Monotype make well
  hinted fonts available.

  In conclusion, the main differences between TrueType and Type1 fonts
  are in availability and application support. The widespread
  availability of TrueType fonts for Windows has resolted in webpages
  designed with the assumption that certain TrueType fonts are
  available. Also, many users have large numbers of TrueType fonts
  because they ship with the users Windows applications. However, on
  Linux, most applications support Type1 fonts but do not have the same
  level of support for TrueType. Moreover, most major font foundries
  still ship most of their fonts in Type1 format.  For example, Adobe
  ship very few TrueType fonts.  My recommendation to users is to use
  whatever works for your application, and try to avoid converting from
  one format to another where possible ( because the format conversion
  is not without loss ).

  2.1.7.  Metafont

  Metafont was developed by Donald E Knuth as part of the TeX
  typesetting system. Metafont is a graphics programming language ( like
  postscript ) that has applications wider than just fonts.  Metafonts
  exhibit some very desirable qualities. One of the important features
  is that metafonts can scale very gracefully.  The metafont Computer
  Modern has different shape at 20 point and 10 point. The shape changes
  with size, because it is desirable for a smaller font to be
  proportionately wider than a larger font ( this makes the larger fonts
  more elegant and the smaller font more readable ).

  Metafonts typically have a mf extension. They are rendered to device
  dependent bitmap fonts. The rendering is slow, so they are of
  excellent quality, but are not well suited to WYSIWYG publishing.


  2.2.  Families of Typefaces

  Typically typically come in groups of a few variants. For example,
  most fonts come with a bold, italic, and bold-italic variant.  Some
  fonts may also have small caps, and demibold variants.  A group of
  fonts consisting of a font and its variants is called a family of
  typefaces.  For example, the Garamond family consists of Garamond,
  Garamond-italic, Garamond-bold, Garamond bold-italic, Garamond demi-
  bold, and Garamond demi-bold-italic. The Adobe expert Garamond font
  also makes available Garamond small caps, and Garamond titling
  capitals.

  3.  Fonts 102 -- Typography

  Here, we discuss some typography basics. While this information is not
  essential, many font lovers will find it interesting.

  3.1.  Classifications of Typefaces

  3.1.1.  Fixed versus variable width

  There are several classifications of typefaces. Firstly, there are
  fixed width fonts, and variable width fonts.  The fixed width fonts
  look like typewriter text, because each character is the same width.
  This quality is desirable for something like a text editor or a
  computer console, but not desirable for the body text of a long
  document. The other class is variable width. Most of the fonts you
  will use are variable width, though fixed with can be useful also (
  for example, all the example shell commands in this document are
  illustrated with a fixed with font ). The most well known fixed width
  font is courier.

  3.1.2.  To serif or not to serif ?

  Serifs are little hooks on the ends of characters. For example, the
  letter i in a font such as Times Roman has serifs protruding from the
  base of the i and the head of the i.  Serif fonts are usually
  considered more readable than fonts without serifs. There are many
  different types of serif fonts.

  Sans serif fonts do not have these little hooks, so they have a
  starker appearance. One usually does not write a long book using a
  sans serif font for the body text. There are sans serif fonts that are
  readable enough to be well suited to documents that are supposed to be
  browsed / skimmed ( web pages, catalogues, marketting brochures ).
  Another application that sans serif fonts have is as display fonts on
  computer screens, especially at small sizes. The lack of detail in the
  font can provide it with more clarity. For example, Microsoft touts
  Verdana as being readable at very small sizes on screen.

  Notable sans serif fonts include Lucida sans, MS Comic Sans, Verdana,
  Myriad, Avant Garde, Arial, Century Gothic and Helvetica.  By the way,
  Helvetica is considered harmful by typographers.  It is somewhat
  overused, and many books by typographers plead users to stay away from
  it.

  3.1.3.  The old and the new -- different types of Serif fonts

  3.1.3.1.  Old Style

  Old style fonts are based on very traditional styles dating as far
  back as the late 15th century. Old style fonts tend to be conservative
  in design, and very readable. They are well suited to writing long
  documents. The name ``old style'' refers to the style of the font, as
  opposed to the date of its design.  There are classic old style fonts,
  such as Goudy Old Style, which wre designed in the 20th century.  The
  old style class of fonts has the following distinguishing features:

  o  Well defined, shapely serifs.

  o  Diagonal emphasis. Imagine drawing a font with a fountain pen,
     where lines 45 degrees anticlockwise from vertical are heavy and
     lines 45 degrees clockwise from verticle are light. Old style fonts
     often have this appearance.

  o  Readability. Old style fonts are almost always very readable.

  o  Subtlety and lack of contrast. The old style fonts have heavy lines
     and light lines but the contrast in weight is subtle, not stark.

     Notable Old Style fonts include Garamond, Goudy Old Style, Jenson,
     and Caslon ( the latter is contentious -- some consider it
     transitional )

  3.1.3.2.  Moderns ( or didone )

  The moderns are the opposite of old style fonts. These fonts typically
  have more character, and more attitude than their old style
  counterparts, and can be used to add character to a document rather
  than to typeset a long piece. However, nothing is black and white --
  and there are some modern fonts such as computer modern and Monotype
  modern, and New Century Schoolbook are very readable ( the contrast
  between heavy and light is softened to add readability ).  They are
  based on the designs popular in the 19th century and later. Their
  distinguishing features include:

  o  Lighter serifs, often just thin horizontal lines.

  o  Vertical emphasis. Vertical lines are heavy, horizontal lines are
     light.

  o  Many moderns have a stark contrast between light and heavy strokes.

  o  Modern typefaces with high contrast between light and heavy strokes
     are not as readable as the old style fonts.

     Bodoni is the most notable modern. Other moderns include computer
     modern, and Monotype modern ( on which computer modern is based ).

  3.1.3.3.  Transitional

  Transitional fonts fit somewhere in between moderns and old style
  fonts.  Many of the transitionals have the same kind of readability as
  the old styles. However, they are based on slightly later design.
  While a move in the direction of the moderns may be visible in these
  fonts, they are still much more subtle than the the moderns.  Examples
  of transitionals include Times Roman, Utopia, Bulmer, and Baskerville.
  Of these, Times leans towards old style, while Bulmer looks very
  modern.


  3.1.3.4.  Slab Serifs

  The slab serif fonts are so named because they have thick, block like
  serifs, as opposed to the smooth hooks of the old styles or the thin
  lines of some of the moderns.  Slab serif fonts tend to be sturdy
  looking and are generally quite readable. Many of the slab serifs have
  Egyptian names -- such as Nile, and Egyptienne ( though they are not
  really in any way Egyptian ).  These fonts are great for producing
  readable text that may suffer some dilution in quality ( such as
  photocpied documents, and documents printed on newspaper ). These
  fonts tend to look fairly sturdy.  The most notable slab serif fonts
  are Clarendon, Memphis and Egyptienne, as well as several typewriter
  fonts.  Many of the slab serif fonts are fixed width. Conversely, most
  ( almost all ) fixed width fonts are slab serif.

  3.1.4.  The Sans Serif Revolution

  Surprisingly, the rise of sans serif fonts is a fairly recent
  phenomenon. The first well known sans serif fonts were designed in the
  19th early 20th century. The earlier designs include Futura, Grotesque
  and Gill Sans. These fonts represent respectively the ``geometric'',
  ``grotesque'' and ``humanist'' classes of sans serif fonts.

  3.1.4.1.  Grotesque

  The grotesques where so named because the public were initially
  somewhat shocked by their relatively stark design. Groteques are very
  bare in appearance due to the absence of serifs, and the simpler,
  cleaner designs. Because of their ``in your face'' appearance,
  grotesques are good for headlines. The more readable variations also
  work quite well for comic books, and marketting brochures, where the
  body text comes in small doses. Grotesques don't look as artsy as
  their geometric counterparts.  Compared to the geometrics, they have
  more variation in weight, more strokes, they are squarer ( because
  they don't use such circular arcs ). They use a different upper case G
  and lower case a to the geometrics.  While they are minimalistic but
  don't go to the same extreme as the brutally avant-garde geometrics.

  Notable grotesques include the overused Helvetica,  Grotesque, Arial,
  Franklin Gothic, and Univers.

  3.1.4.2.  Geometric

  The Futura font came with the manifesto: form follows function.  The
  geometric class of fonts has a stark minimalistic appearance.
  Distinguishing features include a constant line thickness ( no weight
  ).  This is particularly conspicuous in the bold variants of a font.
  Bold groteques and humanist fonts often show some notable variation in
  weight while this rarely happens with the geometric fonts. Also
  notable is the precise minimalism of these designs.  The characters
  almost always are made up from straight horizontal and vertical lines,
  and arcs that are very circular ( to the point where they often look
  as though they were drawn with a compass ).  The characters have a
  minimal number of strokes. This gives them a contemporary look in that
  they embrace the minimalistic philosophy that would later take the
  world of modern art by storm.  A tell tale sign that a font is a
  geometric type is the upper case ``G'', which consists of a
  minimalistic combination of two strokes -- a long circular arc and a
  horizontal line.  The other character that stands out is the lower
  case ``a'' -- which is again two simple strokes, a straight vertical
  line and a circle ( the other ``a'' character is more complex which is
  why it is not used ).  Notable geometrics include Avant Garde, Futura,
  and Century Gothic.

  3.1.4.3.  Humanist

  As the name might suggest, humanist fonts were designed with a goal of
  being less mechanical in appearance. In many ways, they are more
  similar to the serif fonts than the geometrics and the grotesques.
  They are said to have a ``pen drawn'' look about them.  They tend to
  have subtle variation in weight, especially observable in bold
  variants. The curve shapes are considerably less rigid than those of
  the geometrics. Many of them are distinguishable by the ``double
  story'' lower case g, which is the same shape as the g used in the old
  style serif fonts.  The humanist typefaces are the easiest to use
  without producing an ugly document as they are relatively compatible
  with the old style fonts.
  3.1.5.  Compatible Typefaces

  Grouping typefaces is not easy, so it pays to avoid using too many on
  the one page. A logical choice of two typefaces consists of a serif
  and a sans serif.  Monotype's Typography 101 page
  <http://www.monotype.com/newmedia/type101_ex.htm> provides a category-
  matchup. They conclude that the moderns and geometrics form good
  pairs, while the old styles and humanists also go together well.  The
  transitionals are also paired with the humanists.  The slab serifs are
  paired with the grotesques, and some variants of the slab serifs are
  also said to match the geometrics or humanists.

  From reading this, one gets the impression that their philosophy is
  essentially to match the more conservative serifs with the more
  moderate sans serifs, and pair the wilder modern serifs with the avant
  garde looking ( pun unavoidable ) geometrics.

  3.2.  Ligatures, Small caps fonts and expert fonts

  3.2.1.  Ligatures

  Properly spacing fonts brings with it all sorts of issues.  For
  example, to properly typeset the letters ``fi'', the i should be very
  close to the f. The problem is that this causes the dot on the i to
  collide with the f, and the serif on the head of the i to collide with
  the horizontal stroke of the f.  To deal with this problem, font
  collections include ligatures.  For example, the ``fi'' ligature
  character is a single character that one can substitute for the the
  two character string ``fi''.  Most fonts contain fi and fl ligatures.
  Expert fonts discussed later often include extra ligatures, such as
  ffl, ffi, and a dotless i character.

  3.2.2.  Small caps fonts

  Small caps fonts are fonts that have reduced size upper case letters
  in place of the lower case letters. These are useful for writing
  headings that require emphasis ( and they are often used in LaTeX ).
  Typically, when one writes a heading in small caps, they use a large
  cap for the beginning of each word, and small capitals for the rest of
  the word ( ``title case'' ). The advantage of this over using all caps
  is that you get something that is much more readable ( using all caps
  is a big typographic sin ).

  3.2.3.  Expert fonts

  Expert fonts consist of several extras designed to supplement a
  typeface.  These include things like ligatures, ornaments ( much like
  a mini-dingbats collection designed to go with the typeface ), small
  caps fonts, and swash capitals ( fancy, calligraphic letters ).

  3.3.  Font Metrics and Shapes

  Font metrics define the spacing between variable width fonts.  The
  metrics include information about the size of the font, and kerning
  information, which assigns kerning pairs -- pairs of characters that
  should be given different spacing. For example, the letters ``To''
  would usually belong in a kerning pair, because correctly spaced ( or
  kerned ), the o should partly sit under the T. Typesetting programs
  such as LaTeX need to know information about kerning so that they can
  make decisions about where to break lines and pages. The same applies
  to WYWIWYG publishing programs.

  In addition to the metrics, is the font outline, or shape.  The
  components of the fonts shape ( a stroke, an accent, etc ) are called
  ``glyphs''.

  4.  Making Fonts Available To X

  There are a number of ways fonts can be added to X. Firstly, XFree86
  has a font path which is just a list of several directories or font
  servers where it searches for fonts. A font server is just a
  background process that makes fonts available to XFree86.  An
  advantage of font servers is that they can send fonts to remote
  displays.

  Recently, xfs ( the ``X font server'' ) has been patched to support
  TrueType fonts, and run as a stand-alone program.  The patched version
  ships with Redhat and Redhat-based distributions, and is included in
  XFree86 3.9.17 ( the latest version at the time of writing. It will
  also be a part of XFree86 4.0 ) xfs is actually just the standard font
  server that comes with XFree86. It's source code is part of the
  XFree86 source tree.  However, distributions have recently been
  shipping a version that runs in stand alone mode.  The standalone X
  font server, with the TrueType support patch ( the TrueType support
  takes place via a font server called xfsft ) is probably the nicest
  font management solution currently available. Its advantages include:

  o  Support for different types of fonts, including Type1, TrueType and
     bitmap.

  o  Makes fonts available to remote displays.

  o  Greatly simplifies editing the fontpath -- you can do it via the
     command line utility chkfontpath, as opposed to having to edit
     configuration files. This not only makes life easier for users, it
     makes packaging more safer and more scriptable for packagers.

  Because different distributions ship with different configurations, it
  is not true that one size fits all. We can split users up into three
  groups:

  o  Your distribution ships with a standalone xfs and it has been
     patched to support TrueType. This group includes Redhat users and
     users of derivatives of Redhat such as Mandrake, TurboLinux, and
     Independence.  For this group, the wisest strategy is to install
     both TrueType and Type1 fonts through xfs

  o  Some distributions ship with a stand alone xfs package, but no
     TrueType support (at the time of writing.  Note that XFree86
     supports TrueType as of version 3.9.17 ).  This includes Debian.
     For these users, the best thing to do is use xfs to install Type1
     fonts, and install TrueType fonts via xfstt. Debian users can seek
     out the TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
     <http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/debian-tt.html> for information
     about installing TrueType fonts in Debian.

  o  If you don't have xfs then you will need to install Type1 fonts by
     adding to their XFree86 font path and using xset. You should
     install TrueType via xfstt.

  4.1.  The font path

  XFree86 finds your fonts by searching a font path, a list of
  directories ( or servers -- we'll explain this further later. )
  containing fonts.  When an application requests a font, it searches
  through the directories in your font path one at a time until the font
  is found.  To make fonts available requires you to set your font path.
  You can add a directory to your font path with the command




          xset fp+ directory



  Once you have done this, you need to ask the X server to re-scan for
  available fonts with the command

          xset fp rehash



  Since you will want these commands to run automatically, you should
  put them in your .xinitrc file ( or possibly your .Xclients or .xses-
  sion file -- this depends on how you start X. It's convenient to make
  two of these files symlinks to the other to avoid confusion ).
  Another way to have the commands  set automatically is edit XF86Con-
  fig.  For example, to add /usr/share/fonts/myfonts to the fontpath
  when X is started, edit XF86Config like this:

                  ...
                  Section "Files"
                  ...

                  FontPath /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
                  ...
                  EndSection
                  ...


  The advantage of editing XF86Config is that the resulting changes are
  system wide.

  4.2.  Installing Type1 Fonts

  4.2.1.  Run Type1inst

  The easiest way to make Type1 fonts available to X is with the help of
  the Type1inst utility. This is a perlscript that automatically creates
  the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files that you need for X to use the
  fonts. Simply CD to the directory, and run type1inst.

          cd directory
          type1inst




  4.2.2.  If You Have the xfs  Package

  Now you need to add the fonts to your fontpath. If you already have
  the standalone ``xfs'' running, you do this by editing your xfs
  configuration file.

  Redhat users can just use ``chkfontpath''.  the format is chkfontpath
  --add directory

  Your fonts should now be available to X. Now you just run

          xset fp rehash



  and X will be able to find the new fonts.



  4.2.3.  If You Don't Have The xfs  Package

  In this case, you need to add the directory containing your new fonts
  to the font path, as described previously.

  4.3.  True Type Fonts

  Adding TrueType fonts is a little more difficult, because you need to
  have a font server that is capable of serving TrueType fonts.  Two
  font servers that do this are xfstt and xfs.

  xfstt is a TrueType font server. While it's easy to configure, and
  quite useful, it appear that xfs is becoming more popular.  The main
  advantage of xfs over xfstt is that it supports both Type1 and
  TrueType fonts.

  4.3.1.  xfstt

  To set up xfstt, just download it and install it. If you have an rpm
  based distribution, there is a well packaged version of xfstt at
  http://independence.seul.org/.  Once you install it, you need to do
  the following:

  1.  install fonts into the appropriate directory ( read the
     documentation that comes with the package ).

  2. cd to that directory and run xfstt --sync. This causes it to look
     for the fonts and create the fonts.dir file.

  3. Now add unix/:7100 to your font path.

     Your TrueType fonts should now display and be available to
     applications such as GIMP and Netscape.  You may want to configure
     it to start every time your system starts up.  Check to see if
     there's a startup file included ( if you are using RPM, you can use
     rpm -ql xfstt |grep init and look for the file with a name
     something like this: /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfstt ) If you don't have an
     init script, just put two  lines in /etc/rc.local like this:

             /usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt --sync
             /usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt &




  4.4.  xfs

  Some of the newer Linux distributions ship with the X font server xfs
  configured to run as a stand alone program.  Notably, Redhat and all
  the redhat based distributions use this modularised xfs with TrueType
  compiled in.  Debian also ship xfs, but the version they ship doesn't
  have built in true type support.

  Running xfs as a stand alone server has several benefits, especially
  if it is compiled with TrueType support. The main advantage is that
  since the font server is no longer attached to the X server, it is
  possible to serve fonts to remote displays. Also, it makes it much
  easier to modify the font path.

  4.4.1.  The xfs  Path

  As a font server, xfs has it's own font path.  One might wonder where
  this fits into the picture. It works like this: you can place the xfs
  font server in XFree86's font path, by adding unix/:port to the
  XFree86 font path.  Once you do this, any font in the xfs font path
  automatically becomes available to XFree86.
  The xfs font path is determined by the xfs configuration file, which
  is /etc/X11/fs/config on Redhat, and /etc/X11/xfs/config on Debian.
  Redhat users do not need to explicitly edit this file, they can use
  the chkfontpath utility.  The syntax is simple:


          chkfontpath --add directory



  Users of other distributions can edit the configuration file as fol-
  lows:

          catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
          ...
          /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/,
          ...
          /usr/share/fonts/some_other_directory
          # in 12 points, decipoints
          default-point-size = 120
          ...



  The above would add /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/ to the xfs font
  path. Note that the last line of the list of directories doesn't have
  a comma at the end.  For these modifications to the font path to
  become effective, xfs must be restarted. It's also a good idea to
  restart your X session after restarting xfs.

  4.4.2.  Installing a Font Into xfs

  To prepare a font for xfs, you need to follow the following steps:

  o  If you don't have xfs installed, you need to install it.

  o  Put the new fonts in a directory.

  o  If you are installing Type1 fonts, prepare the new directory for
     the server by running type1inst in the directory.

  o  If you are installing TrueType fonts, ( remember, not all
     distributions can do TrueType via xfs !  ), prepare the new
     directory for the server by running

             ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
             mkfontdir



  in the directory containing your new fonts.  ttmkfdir is part of the
  freetype package.

  o  Now you can add the new directory to your xfs search path.  Users
     of Redhat-like distributions can do this with the chkfontpath
     utility: Other users can do this by editing their xfs configuration
     file.

  o  if xfs is already installed on your system, you should see which
     port it is running on. You can do this as follows:

             ps ax|grep xfs




  o  Then check your XFree86 font path.

                     xset -q




  o  If your font path includes something like unix:/port_number were
     port_number is the port which the server is running on, then you
     already have xfs set up properly. Otherwise, you should add it to
     your XFree86 font path.

                     xset fp+ unix/:port_number
                     xset fp rehash



  You can add it permanently by editing your .xinitrc as explained pre-
  viously.  To add it system wide, edit your XF86Config file ( probably
  either /etc/X11/XF86Config, /etc/XF86Config or
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config ), by adding a line FontPath
  "unix:/port_number" in the Files section.  Here's an example:

                  ...
                  Section "Files"
                  ...

                  FontPath "unix/:-1"
                  ...
                  EndSection
                  ...




  o  If xfs is already properly installed, then you can restart it like
     this:

                     /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart




  o  After restarting xfs, it's a good idea to restart your X-session.

  5.  Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript

  To make fonts available to ghostscript, it suffices to tell
  ghostscript where the files corresponding to a given font are located.
  The file that needs to be edited is
  /usr/share/ghostscript/version/Fontmap.  The format is very simple,
  almost immediately self evident on perusing it.

  5.1.


  Type1

  Adding Type1 fonts is straightforward. Run type1inst on the directory
  containing the font. type1inst will output a file called Fontmap.
  Append this file to the ghostscript Fontmap file.

  5.2.

  True Type

  Adding truetype fonts is a little trickier, because we have to get the
  name of the TrueType font. One way (brute force, alas) to do this is
  using the ttf2pt1 TrueType to Type1 converter, and grabbing the font
  name from the afm ( there's got to be a more efficient way !  but this
  works, ugly as it is ). You do it like this:

                  ttf2pt1 -A fontname - 2 > /dev/null  |grep FontName



  Then you add an entry to the ghostscript Fontmap file in the correct
  format, eg

          some-font       (/usr/share/fonts/subdirectory/somefont.pbf);



  Well, that works fine, but try doing it with 500 or so fonts.  This is
  the kind of thing that calls for a short perlscript:

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  # ttfontmap -- generate fontmap file for TrueType fonts
  my $directory=shift || print STDERR "Usage: ttfontmap {directory}\n";

  $directory=~s/\/$//;

  for my $fontname ( glob ( "$directory/*.ttf" ) )
  {
      open ( R, "sh -c \"ttf2pt1 -A $fontname - 2>/dev/null\" |" );
      while ( <R> )
      {
          if ( $_ =~ /^FontName/ )
          {
              s/^FontName\s*//;
              chomp;
              print "/" .  $_ . "    ($fontname);\n" ;
          }
      }
      close R;
  }



  You can download this script <http://pegasus.rut-
  gers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/ttfontmap>

  To set this script up, all you need to do is cut and paste it into a
  file called ttfontmap, and place the file somewhere in your PATH (
  such as /usr/bin ).  You run this script like this:

          ttfontmap directory > output_file



  where directory is the directory containing the fonts. You are left
  with the file output_file which you can append to your ghostscript
  fontmap. Note: some will observe that you could just use

          ttfontmap directory >> /usr/share/ghostscript/version/Fontmap



  However, I advise against this ( what would happen if you typed ``>''
  instead of ``>>'' ? )


  5.3.  Using Ghostscript To Preview Fonts

  Once you've made fonts available to ghostscript, you can preview them.
  Do this by running the ghostscript interpreter on the file prfont.ps
  in your ghostscript installation, and after you start it, type:

          /Fontname DoFont



  at the ghostscript font ( where FontName is the ghostscript name of
  the font you wish to preview ).  There are several other ways you can
  invoke gs. For example, if you want to create a postscript file that
  you can look at in a nicer postscript viewer such as gv, you can use

          gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -sOutputFile=somefile.ps  prfont.ps



  Having done this, you can also print your output file.


  6.  True Type to Type1 Conversion

  6.1.  Why ?

  or perhaps the right question to ask is ``why not ?'' The typical
  Linux user has experienced a migration from Windows, and probably has
  an enormous collection of TrueType fonts. Many of these fonts ( eg
  those that ship with MS Word and Corel's products ) are of fairly good
  quality. However, some Linux applications, such as Star Office and
  LaTeX do not support TrueType fonts, but do support Type1 fonts.
  update: it looks like Star Office can handle TrueType fonts, but I'm
  still trying to work out the details. At best, it involves some fairly
  gruesome hacks.  This is a pity, because with ghostscript support for
  TrueType, and TrueType font servers, Linux has the infrastructure it
  needs to handle TrueType.

  6.2.  How ?

  To convert your TrueType fonts into Type1 fonts, go to
  http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/
  <http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/> and get ttf2pt1.  To
  convert a TrueType to a Type1 font, use the following syntax:

          ttf2pt1 -b file.ttf name



  Where name is the name of the file corresponding to the new Type1 font
  ( ie it's arbitrary. It's a good idea to make it the same as the ttf
  file.  eg ttf2pt1 -b foo.ttf foo.

  Well, that worked fine for one font. If we have a lot, we need a
  smarter way to do it. One can just just use a loop:

          for X in *.ttf; do ttf2pt1 -b $X ${X%%.ttf}; done



  Alternatively, you can download the ttfutils
  <http://www.moisty.org/~brion/linux/ttf.html> package and use
  ttf2type1 for the conversions.



          ttf2type1 *.ttf




  7.  WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts

  7.1.  Introduction and Overview

  Installing fonts for WYSIWYG publishing on Linux is a relatively
  complex task. It typically involves three steps:

  o  Make the font available to the X server

  o  Make the font available to ghostscript

  o  Make the font available to the application

     The main reason for the complexity is that the font printing system
     ( ghostscript ) is unrelated to the screen font system. In a way,
     Linux's left hand does not know what it's right hand is doing.
     This problem is nontrivial to solve, because it is possible that
     printer fonts and display fonts reside on different machines, so
     there is no guarantee that all fonts the XClient uses are
     printable.

  The good news is that most WYSIWYG applications use what is a
  reasonable solution to this problem. The solution involves
  constructing some kind of mechanism that maps screen fonts to printer
  fonts ( this is the main issue.  There are also other issues, such as
  grouping bold, italic and roman variants into ``families'' of fonts ).
  Unfortunately, there is no standard way to do this. It seems that font
  management standards which address this issue would greatly simplify
  the installation of fonts into WYSIWYG publishing systems, because all
  applications could use a system-wide ( as opposed to application-
  specific ) configuration.

  7.2.  Applixware

  There are two ways to install fonts into Applixware. One method
  involves using FontTastic, which is Applixware's ``private'' font
  server. The other method involves editing Applixware's fontmap, to use
  a font already installed on the system. Installing into the font
  server is more convenient, but fonts installed in this manner may only
  be printed at 300 dpi.

  7.2.1.  FontTastic

  Using FontTastic is the easy way to do it. To install new fonts like
  this, simply do the following:

  1. Run Applixware as root

  2. Click on the tools menu.

  3. Choose ``Font Installer''

  4. Check ``OK'' in the popup dialog

  5. Click the ``Catalogs'' menu and choose ``create''

  6. Fill in the catalog name box. It doesn't matter what you put there.
     For the rest of this example, we'll assume it's called ``foobar''

  7. Select your foobar catalog from the catalog manipulations list.

  8. From the ``Services'' menu, select ``install fonts into ->
     FontTastic font server''

  9. Make sure catalog foobar is selected in the catalogs list, then
     press the ``select files'' button.

  10.
     Use the select files dialog to select the fonts you want to
     install. Press ``OK'' when you've selected the files.  For example,
     if you want to select arial.ttf in the directory
     /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts/, you would type /usr/share/fonts/ttfonts
     in the ``Current Directory'' dialog, then select arial.ttf from the
     files dialog box, then click ``OK''. Note that you can select
     multiple files, but they all must come from the same directory.

  11.
     You can edit your list by checking on the different fonts in the
     list box and possibly removing or renaming them.

  12.
     When you're ready, click the ``install fonts'' button. Then click
     ``OK''.

  13.
     Go to the ``services'' menu and choose ``update''. Check ``OK'' on
     the annoying modal dialog, then choose exit from the services menu.
     Exit applix.

  14.
     Congrats, you're done ! The new fonts will be available when you
     restart Applix.

  7.2.2.  Using System Wide Fonts With Applixware

  This method is more involved,  but produces better results. I
  recommend that this method is used for fonts that are really
  important, and that you use a lot. There are a few steps to this:

  7.2.2.1.  Make the fonts available to X

  This is explained ``in the previous section''

  7.2.2.2.  Make the fonts available to ghostscript

  This is explained in ``in the previous section''

  7.2.2.3.  Edit the fontmap.dir

  This is the final step in making your fonts available to Applix, and
  also the most time consuming step. The file fontmap.dir is in under
  the axdata/fontmetrics of your applix installation.  The purpose of
  this step is basically to tell applix which screen fonts go with which
  outline fonts. This is in general a very nontrivial problem, because
  the screen fonts are not always on the same computer that the
  application is installed.

  We describe how to add  fonts to fontmap.dir. In this example, we add
  the font Baskerville Italic.


  1. First, we add a line that says FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-
     Italic In fact, the name we use in FontRecord is completely
     arbitrary.  However, the font record must be unique to the font.
     Because of this, it's good practice to use the name that
     ghostscript uses for the font.

  2. Next, we a line that says Family = Baskerville The family name for
     a font is the name that appears in Applix's font selection menu.
     Typically, it is non-unique, since bold, italic, roman and bold-
     italic variants of a font will typically go under the same family.

  3. If the font is either a bold, or italic variant, or both, we need
     to add the following lines:

             Slant = 1



  if the font is italic, and

          Weight = 1



  if the font is bold.  If the font is bold and italic, we add both
  lines.  In this example, we need only add the line

          Slant = 1




  4. We add a line that looks like this:

             ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"



  The screen name is the name that the X-server uses for the font.  We
  can list font names containing the string ``bask'' by typing

          xlsfonts|grep -i bask




  5. Now we add a line that gives the name of the printer font:
     PostScriptPrinterName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic

  6. Next, we need to specify the location of the font metric file and
     the outline file

             MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
             Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb




  If you are adding a TrueType file, you can use ttf2pt1 to generate an
  afm file :

                  ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - > foo.afm



  ( or get the ttfutils package and use ttf2afm ) Then you use something
  like this:

          MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/foo.afm



  Do not include a Type1FontFileName directive -- let ghostscript take
  care of this.

  That's it. Now after adding the whole family of fonts, you should have
  something like this:

          FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal
          Family = Baskerville
          ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
          PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal
          MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.afm
          Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.pfb

          FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
          Family = Baskerville
          Slant = 1
          ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
          PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
          MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
          Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb

          FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold
          Family = Baskerville
          Weight = 1
          ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
          PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold
          MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.afm
          Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.pfb

          FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
          Family = Baskerville
          Weight = 1
          Slant = 1
          ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
          PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
          MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.afm
          Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.pfb




  It is possible to do more with this configuration file. The file
  itself has a glossary which explains the format of the configuration
  file.

  7.3.  Star Office

  Here, we cover Star Office 5.0. The procedure with Star Office 5.1 is
  similar, but the utility is called spadmin, not psetup.  It's worth
  mentioning up front that John McLaughlin's page
  <http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html> is an
  excellent source on this issue, and it inspired most of what follows.

  Having tried both Star Office 5.0, and 5.1, I have found that Star
  Office 5.1 seems to give me less grief when adding new fonts. I was
  not succesful adding true type fonts to Star Office 5.0, but it proved
  somewhat easier with Star Office 5.1.

  7.3.1.  Backup Your Configuration Before you Start !

  It's good to make a backup in case you inadvertantly hose your
  configuration. Modifying fonts will impact several files in the xp3.
  You should definitely backup the file xp3/psstd.fonts.  I recommend
  going further and backing up the whole xp3 directory. You can do this
  by cd-ing to your Star Office directory, then using

          tar cvzf xp3.tgz xp3



  to create a backup. To restore a backup, delete the xp3 directory and
  unpack the archive

          rm -rf xp3
          tar xvzf xp3.tgz




  7.3.2.  Adding Type1 Fonts to Star Office

  Adding Type1 fonts to Star Office is relatively simple.  If you want
  to use your TrueType fonts with Star Office 5.0, the best thing to do
  is convert them to Type1 fonts, and then follow the procedure outlined
  here. If you have Star Office 5.1, you might wish to use the
  proceedure for installing TrueType fonts instead ( though it is
  somewhat more difficult ).  Firstly, do the usual thing -- make the
  font available to both X and ghostscript. Once this is done, the font
  can be installed into Star Office using the psetup tool. The procedure
  is as follows:

  1. As root, run psetup ( or spadmin if you have Star Office 5.1 )

  2. Press the ``add fonts'' button.

  3. The easiest thing to do after this is press the ``initialize font
     paths'' button. This puts a list of all fonts in your X font path
     in the list box.

  4. Choose the directory containing the font you wish to install ( it
     should be in the box ), and then press ``OK''.

  5. Click the ``convert all font metrics button''.

     That's it. You're done. You can exit ( or click ``OK'' until it
     exits ).  When you restart Star Office, you will have the new
     fonts.

  7.3.3.  Adding TrueType Fonts to Star Office

  Adding TrueType fonts to Star Office is nontrivial, but possible.
  After some hard work, and long hours stareing at John McLaughlin's
  page <http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html> page, I
  finally got them working in Star Office 5.1.  Note that this does not
  work with version 5.0.  The following steps are appropriate it you are
  printing through ghostscript:

  o  Make the fonts available to X.

  o  Make the fonts available to ghostscript.

  o  You need to have afm files for the fonts you wish to add. Use

             ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - > foo.afm



  to create the afm files.  Alternatively, you can get the

  o  ttfutils <http://www.moisty.org/~brion/linux/ttf.html> package and
     use ttf2afm The advantage of this is you can handle several at a
     time, eg
             ttf2afm *.ttf




  o  Star Office needs pfb files corresponding to each ttf file. You can
     create them with the command

             touch foo.pfb



  Actually, Star Office only uses these files for printing purposes.
  And by enterring the font in the PPD, thus duping Star Office into
  thinking the fonts are inside your printer ( when they're actually
  inside ghostscript's rendering system ), you get around needing to use
  these files. Star Office just seems to require that the pfb file
  exists to install the font.


  o  Now you can run spadmin and install the font(s).

  o   Now add the fonts to the PPD file corresponding to your printer
     configuration. The name you use for the font should be the same
     name Star Office uses for it, not the ghostscript font name. For
     example, if the font is foobar.ttf and the corresponding afm file
     is foobar.afm, you use the name ``foobar'' for the font in the PPD
     file. The entry should look something like this:

     *Font cloistrk: Standard "(001.002)" Standard ROM





  On the other hand, if you are not printing from ghostscript, you have
  different issues to deal with. In this case, tricking Star Office into
  thinking that your printer has the fonts is a bad idea, because your
  printer does not have the fonts in the ROM, so while gv will display
  the postscript files nicely, your printer will not be able to print
  them.  If you have a postscript printer, the main differences are as
  follows:

  o  Do not edit the PPD file.

  o  Instead of using touch foo.pfb to create empty pfb files, you need
     the pfb files to be Type42 postscript fonts. A Type42 font is
     really a ``printer TrueType font''.  You don't really notice Type42
     fonts even when you use them, because most applications handle them
     transparently.  To create Type42 fonts, you use ttfps
     <ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/jek/programs/ttfps.tar.gz> to create
     the files.

             ttfps foo.ttf foo.pfb





  There are some gotchas. Sometimes, Star Office might not choose the
  screen font you like. It is sometimes worth checking xp3/psstd.fonts
  and possibly editing it to make sure that Star Office is really using
  the font you had in mind for screen display.  Also, Star Office
  doesn't handle configuration problems gracefully.  If there's
  something wrong with your configuration, it's possible that the word
  processor will not even start. This is why you should back up your xp3
  directory.

  7.3.4.  Under the Hood

  If you wish to install TrueType fonts in Star Office, you may need to
  learn how Star Office handles things. When you run spadmin or psetup,
  the following happens:

  o  Star Office makes symbolic links to the pfb outline files in your
     xp3/pssoftfonts directory.

  o  The afm file is copied into the directory xp3/fontmetrics/afm/

  o  An entry is added to the xp3/psstd.fonts file.  This file stores
     the names of all the screen fonts used by Star Office ( in
     particular, it maps the screen fonts to the outline filenames ).

  This is why it's good to simply backup the whole xp3 directory -- it
  is the only convenient way to restore Star Office to a clean
  configuration.

  7.4.  Word Perfect

  Nothing yet.  Rod Smith's webpage <http://www.rodsbooks.com/wpfonts/>
  is the definitive resource regarding installing fonts on Word Perfect.

  8.  TeX / LaTeX

  8.1.  A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts

  Adding fonts to TeX and LaTeX is a somewhat complex procedure.
  However, like a lot of things, it's easy if you know how to do it.
  Some fonts are distributed in metafont format, and some in Type1
  format.  Usually, the Type1 formats are more easily available.
  However, metafont fonts have the distinct advantage that they can
  adjust their shape at different sizes, while Type1 and TrueType fonts
  at different point sizes are simply magnified or reduced versions of
  precisely the same shape. The main reason why this feature is
  desirable is that ideally, fonts should be ( relatively ) wider at
  smaller sizes and narrower at larger sizes.

  For this discussion, we focus on Type1 fonts, since they are more
  widely available, and more problematic to install.

  Here's a quick primer on LaTeX fonts.    LaTeX uses the following
  types of font files for handling Type1 fonts:

  o  .pl -- property list. This is a human readable version of a tex
     font metric file.

  o  .vpl -- virtual property list. Human readable version of a virtual
     font file.

  o  .fd -- font definition. Used to define a family of fonts.

  o  .tfm  -- tex font metric. This is a metric file, as explained in
     the glossary. It is completely analogous to the .afm files used by
     Type1 fonts. TeX needs the font metrics to properly layout the
     page.

  o  .vf -- virtual font. These files contain encoding details, and act
     as interpreters. TeX treats them as fonts. For example, Imagine
     that there's some wacky font foobar-exp.pfb which consists of a few
     ( say 20 ) alternate characters, and there's a virtual font which
     uses a few of these alternate characters ( and it gets the rest of
     the characters from font foobar.pfb ).  Dvips might say ``I want
     character 65 of virtual font foo.vf''. Dvips knows that 65 is
     always an ``a'' in TeX's scheme. Then the virtual font maps TeX's
     request to a request for character 14 of the Type1 font foobar.pfb
     ( which might be the alternate ``a'' in the Type1 font foobar.pfb
     ). The virtual font mechanism is very flexible and allows fonts to
     be constructed from many different font files. This is useful when
     using fonts such as adobe's ``expert'' fonts.

  o  .pk -- a device dependent bitmap font. These are usually
     constructed on an as-needed basis ( they are renderings of Type1
     and metafont fonts ).  They are typically high resolution ( about
     300-1200dpi ), and are intended to be rendered on a printer.
     Because of their high resolution, and the fact that each point size
     of each font requires a .pk file, they require a lot of disk space,
     so they are cached, but not stored.

  o  .mf -- metafont files. Metafont is a graphics programming language
     widely used for font design ( though it can also be used for
     graphics ).  It has many advantages over TrueType and Type1
     schemes. However, it's main weakness is that it is not as
     ubiquitous as TrueType or Type1 ( and it is also not terribly well
     suited to WYSIWYG publishing. Of course, this isn't a major
     disadvantage when TeX is your typesetting system. )


  It's good to know your way around the TeX directory structure. Here
  are the main directories you'll need to know about:

  o  $TEXMF/fonts     -- the main font directory

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/type1 -- the type1 font directory

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry -- the directory for the shape files in
     a given foundry

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry/fontname -- contains the font called
     name.  The name is usually plain English, and needn't follow TeX's
     cryptic naming scheme for fonts.

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/afm/foundry/fontname -- the directory containing the
     afm files corresponding to the font name belonging to foundry
     foundry.

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/tfm/foundry/fontname -- analogous to the afm
     directory, but contains tfm files instead.

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/vf/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but
     contains the virtual fonts.

  o  $TEXMF/fonts/source/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but
     contains metafont files.

  o  $TEXMF/dvips/config/psfonts.map -- fontmap file for dvips. This
     file is similar in both function and format to ghostscript's
     Fontmap file.

  o  $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss -- this is where all the font definition
     files go.


  8.2.  Adding Type1 fonts

  8.2.1.  Naming the fonts

  First, you need to appropriately name your fonts.  See the fontinst
  documentation on your system for instructions on how to name fonts (
  it should be fontinst subdirectory of the directory containing your
  tetex documentation ).  To make a long story very short, the naming
  scheme is FNW{V}E{n} where:

  o  F is a one-letter abbreviation for the foundry ( m = monotype, p =
     adobe, b = bitstream, f = free )

  o  N is a two letter abbreviation for the font name ( for example, ag
     = ``avant garde'' )

  o  W is the font weight ( r = regular, b = bold, l = light d =
     demibold )

  o  V is an optional slope variant ( i = italic , o = oblique )

  o  E is an abbreviation for the encoding ( almost always 8a which is
     adobe standard encoding ).

  o  N is an optional width variant ( n = narrow )

     For example, the font Adobe Garamond demibold is pgad8a.

  8.2.2.  Creating the virtual fonts and tex font metrics

  Now you can run fontinst as follows:

          latex `kpsewhich fontinst.sty`



  then you type at the prompt:

          \latinfamily{font_name}{}\bye



  where font_name is the first three letters of your font file name (
  for example, pad for adobe garamond ).  Now fontinst will generate a
  number of files -- font description files, property list files and
  virtual property list files. It also generates a lot of .mtx files.
  These are created by fontinst, but you don't need to use them.  You
  need to convert the property lists and virtual property lists to met-
  rics and virtual fonts. This is done using the utilities vptovf and
  pltotf.

          for X in *.pl; do pltotf $X; done
          for X in *.vpl; do vptovf $X; done



  Then remove the old vpl, pl and mtx files.

  8.2.3.  Configure dvips

  You will need to edit your dvips config file, psfonts.map.  The best
  way to explain the format of the file is to give an example.


       marr8r          ArialMT <8r.enc <farr8a.pfa
       marbi8r         Arial_BoldItalicMT <8r.enc <farbi8a.pfa
       marb8r          Arial_BoldMT <8r.enc <farb8a.pfa
       marri8r         Arial_ItalicMT <8r.enc <farri8a.pfa
       marr8rn         Arial_Narrow <8r.enc <farr8an.pfa



  The 8r.enc is simply there to inform dvips of the encoding scheme used
  ( in all our examples, it's 8r, because of the way fontinst constructs
  the virtual fonts ). The leftmost column is the font name TeX uses.
  The second column is the real name of the font, which is hardcoded
  into the font file ( this name can be deduced by opening the afm file
  in a text editor, and looking for the FontName directive ). The last
  column is the filename of the shape file corresponding with the font.
  It is not necessary to provide a directory path -- tex knows where to
  look.

  8.2.4.  Test the font

  Try running latex on a document like this:

  \documentclass{article}
  \begin{document}
          \usefont{T1}{pga}{m}{n}\selectfont
          \huge
          Testing a new font \dots the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dogs
  \end{document}



  where you replace pga with the outline of your font.  If this works,
  you are almost done. All you have to do now is put all the files in
  the right directories ( as explained in the primer ), then run

           texconfig rehash



  so that tex can update the directory lists.

  8.2.5.  Create a .sty file

  You may want to create a .sty file so that you can more easily use
  fonts. Use the files in $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss as a template.

  9.  Getting Fonts For Linux

  9.1.  True Type

  9.1.1.

  Commercial Software

  True type fonts are very easy to come by, and large amounts of them
  are typically included in packages like Microsoft Word and Word
  Perfect. Getting Word Perfect is an easy way to get an enormous amount
  of fonts ( and if you're really cheap, you could buy a legacy version
  of Word Perfect for windows. The fonts on the CD are readable. )

  9.1.2.

  Microsoft's Font Download

  Microsoft have also made several TrueType fonts available. The .exe
  file is simply an archive, you can extract it using unzip.  You can
  get them from the download site
  <http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/fontpack/win.htm>

  9.1.3.

  Luc's Webpage


  Luc Devroye's webpage
  <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/originalfonts.html> has links to several
  sites with free fonts available.  What's unique about these fonts is
  that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.

  9.1.4.

  Web sites with truetype fonts

  There are several web sites offering freely available downloadable
  fonts. For example, the freeware connection
  <http://www.freewareconnection.com/fonts.html> has links to a number
  of archives.

  9.1.5.

  Foundries

  Several foundries sell TrueType fonts. However, most of them are quite
  expensive, and for the same money, you'd be better of with Type1
  fonts. I'll discuss these more in the Type1 fonts section. The one
  place that does do sell true type fonts at low prices is buyfonts
  <http://www.buyfonts.com>.  Please read the section on ethics before
  you buy cheap fonts.

  9.2.  Type 1 Fonts and Metafont

  9.2.1.  Dealing With Mac and Windows Formats

  Many foundries ship fonts with Windows and Mac users in mind.  This
  can sometimes pose a problem. Typically, the ``Windows fonts'' are
  fairly easy to handle, because they are packed in a zip file. The only
  work to be done is converting the pfm file to and afm file ( using
  pfm2afm ).

  Macintosh fonts are more problematic, because they are typically made
  available in .sit.bin format -- stuffit archives.  Unfortunately,
  there is no tool for Linux that can unpack stuffit archives created
  with the newer version of stuffit.  The only way to do it is run
  Executor ( Mac emulator ), or try running stuffit in dosemu or Wine.
  Once the sit.bin file is unpacked, the Macintosh files can be
  converted using t1unmac which comes with the t1utils package.

  Unfortunately, some vendors only ship Type1 fonts in Macintosh format
  ( stuffit archives ). However, according to font expert Luc Devroye
  <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/>, all major foundries make Type1 fonts
  available for Mac and Windows.

  9.2.2.

  Free Stuff

  ctan <http://www.ctan.org> have a number of good fonts, many of which
  are free.  Most of these are in Metafont format, though some are also
  Type1 fonts.  Also, see Bluesky <http://www.bluesky.com> who have made
  available Type1 versions of the computer modern fonts. ( The computer
  modern fonts are of excellent quality -- to purchase anything of
  comparable quality and completeness will cost you around $500-. They
  are comparable to the premium fonts. )

  Luc Devroye's webpage
  <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/originalfonts.html> has links to several
  sites with free fonts available.  What's unique about these fonts is
  that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.


  URW have released the standard postscript fonts resident in most
  printers to the public domain. These fonts are quite good.

  The Walnut Creek Archive <ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/fonts/> has
  several freely available fonts, and shareware fonts.  Some of these
  are obvious ripoffs ( and not very good ones ).  If a font doesn't
  come with some kind of license, chances are it's a ripoff.  Also
  Winsite <http://www.winsite.com/win3/fonts/atm/> have several Type1
  fonts ( in the fonts/atm subsection of their windows 3.x software ).
  Unfortunately, several of these have afm files which have mistakes and
  are missing all kerning pairs ( you can fix the afms by editing the
  "FontName" section of the afm files. It should match the fontname
  given in the font shape file. Of course, adding kerning pairs is a
  topic beyond the scope of this document. )

  Luc Devroye's webpage <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/> includes several
  free fonts he designed, as well as a lot of links, and fascinating
  discussion on the topic of typography.  This site is a ``must-visit''.
  There are also several links to many foundries.

  9.2.3.  Commercial Fonts

  9.2.3.1.  Value vs Premium: Why Should I buy Premium Fonts ?

  So you're wondering -- why do some fonts cost a lot and others are
  cheap ?  These fonts are the ``standard postscript fonts'' resident in
  most postscript printers. Also the famous Why should I buy the more
  expensive ones ?  My take on it is that for a casual user, the value
  fonts ( such as those on the Bitstream CD ) are just fine. However, if
  you're using the fonts for ``real work'', or you're just a hard core
  font junkie, then the better quality fonts are a must-have -- and most
  of the quality fonts are either free ( for example, Computer Modern ),
  or they are upmarket commercial fonts.

  The advantage of the cheaper fonts is self evident -- they are
  cheaper.  The quality fonts also have their advantages though.

  o  Ethical issues: The cheaper fonts are almost always ripoffs. Type
     design takes a long time and and experienced designer. Fonts that
     are sold for less than $1- per font were almost certainly not
     designed by the vendor.  CDs with insane quantities of fonts on the
     are almost always ripoffs  ( the possible exceptions being
     collections from major foundries that cost thousands of dollars ).
     Usually, the ripoffs lack the quality of fonts from respectable
     founries.

  o  Completeness: The higher quality fonts ( notably from Adobe ) come
     in several variants, with some nice supplements to provide the user
     with a more complete font family.  There are often bold, italic,
     and demibold variants, swash capitals, small caps, old style
     figures, and extra ligatures to supplement the font. More recently,
     Adobe have a multiple master technology which gives the user (
     almost ) infinite variation within one font family.

  o  Quality: A lot of the freely available fonts or the cheap ripoffs
     lack fairly essential features such as kerning pairs and decent
     ligatures. They are basically cheap copies. In contrast, reputable
     designers take a lot of trouble to study the original design, and
     rework it to the best of their ability.

  o  Authenticity: The person who designed Adobe Garamond ( Robert
     Slimbach ) actually studied the original designs of Claude
     Garamond. In fact reputable foundries always carefully research
     their designs, rather than just swiping something off the net, and
     modifying it with Fontographer.

  9.2.3.2.  Value


  o  An excellent place to go for a CD packed with several Type1 fonts
     of reasonable quality is Bitstream <http://www.bitstream.com>.
     Bitstreams more noted products include their 250 font CD
     <http://www.bitstream.com/products/world/font_cd/bits_collection.html>
     and their 500 font CD
     <http://www.bitstream.com/products/world/font_cd/500_cd.html> ( the
     latter goes for $50- at the time of writing ).  These are fairly
     good quality fonts, and are a fairly good starting point for the
     casual user.  The fonts used in Corel's products are (mostly)
     licensed from bitstream.

  o   Matchfonts <http://www.matchfonts.com/> offer more modestly priced
     fonts -- they are distributed in ``packs'' of about 8 fonts for
     $30. This includes some nice calligraphic fonts.  All fonts seem to
     be offered in a usable format ( the windows ATM fonts come in a
     .exe file.  Don't let the extension fool you -- it's just a zip
     archive ).  These are not ripoffs as far as I can tell.

  o   EFF <http://www.buyfonts.com> sell TrueType fonts for $2- per hit.
     They also have ``professional range'' postscript and TrueType fonts
     for $16- per typeface.

  9.2.3.3.

  Premium


  o  Adobe have several high quality,  fonts available at Adobe's type
     website <http://www.adobe.com/type/>.  Some of these are expensive,
     but they have several more affordable bundles -- see Adobe Type
     Collections <http://www.adobe.com/type/collections.html>.  Adobe
     have some of the most complete font families on the market, for
     example, Garamond <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_912.html>,
     Caslon <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_180.html>, and their
     multiple masters <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/C_4e.htm> (
     Myriad and Minion, used on their website are among the nicer of
     their multiple masters. )

  o  Berthold Types Limited <http://www.bertholdtypes.com> is a major
     foundry, who offer several quality fonts. Some of them are resold
     through Adobe, all are directly available from Berthold. Same price
     ballpark as Adobe.

  o  ITC develop several quality fonts ( including some of the ones
     Corel ships with their products ) at http://www.itcfonts.com
     <http://www.itcfonts.com> They offer family packages for about
     $100-180 US.  Their fonts, come in both Type1 and TrueType format.
     It's better to choose the ``Windows'' package, because Mac formats
     are difficult to handle on Linux.

  o  Linotype <http://www.linotypelibrary.com> are a well known foundry
     who offer fonts by legendary designers including Herman Zapf. (
     yep, the guy ``Zapf Chancery'' is named after.  He also designed
     Palatino. )

  o  Monotype <http://www.monotype.com> develop most of the fonts
     shipped with Microsoft products. One of the older and well
     respected foundries.

  o   Tiro Typeworks <http://www.portal.ca/~tiro/> sell good quality, if
     somewhat expensive typefaces.  Their typefaces are very complete,
     for example, they include complete sets of ligatures, and
     smallcaps, titling fonts, etc.  UNIX is listed as one of the OS
     options -- which is a welcome surprise after seeing the words
     ``Windows or Mac'' too many times..

  9.2.3.4.

  More Links

  For links to a bunch of other foundries, see Luc Devroye's page
  <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/>


  10.  Useful Font Software for Linux

  There are several font packages for Linux. Many of them are essential.

  o  chkfontpath is a utility for manipulating the xfs configuration
     file.

  o  DTM -- the Definitive Type Manager
     <http://www.debian.org/~fog/dtm/> is a global font management tool.
     This is a developer's release.

  o  fontinst <http://www.tug.org/applications/fontinst/index.html> is a
     LaTeX package designed to simplify the installation of Type1 fonts
     into LaTeX.

  o  Freetype <http://www.freetype.org> is a TrueType library that comes
     with most Linux distributions

  o  Ghostscript <http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/> is the software that
     is used for printing on Linux. The version of ghostscript that
     ships with Linux is GNU ghostscript. This is one version behind the
     latest release of Aladdin ghostscript ( who release their old
     versions under the GPL )

  o  pfm2afm
     <http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/pfm2afm.tgz> is a
     utility for converting windows pfm font metric files into afm
     metrics that can be used for Linux. This is based on the original
     version available at CTAN, and includes modifications from Rod
     Smith to make it compile under Linux.

  o  mminstance and t1utils <http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/type/> are
     two packages for handling Type1 fonts.  mminstance is for handling
     Adobe's multiple master
     <http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/C/C_4e.html> Type1 fonts.
     t1utils is a suite of utilities for converting between the
     different Type1 formats.

  o  ttf2pt1 <http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/> is a TrueType to
     Type1 font converter. It is useful if you have applications that
     require Type1 fonts.

  o  ttfps <ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/jek/programs/ttfps.tar.gz>
     converts .ttf TrueType font files into Type42 files.

  o  ttfutils <http://www.moisty.org/~brion/linux/ttf.html> A package of
     utilities for handling TrueType fonts. This package requires
     ttf2pt1. Useful if not essential.

  o  type1inst <ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/> is an
     essential package for installing Type1 fonts. It greatly simplifies
     the installation.

  o  xfstt <ftp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/> is a
     TrueType font server for Linux. It's useful, but xfs is probably a
     better choice.

  o  xfsft <http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/programs/xfsft/> The xfsft
     font server. Note that this is included in xfs.

  o  x-tt <http://hawk.ise.chuo-u.ac.jp/student/person/tshiozak/x-tt/>
     is a font server designed to handle Korean and Japanese fonts.


  11.  Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type

  Font licensing is a very contentious issue. While it is true that
  there is a wealth of freely available fonts, the chances are that the
  fonts are ``ripoffs'' in some sense, unless they come with a license
  indicating otherwise.  The issue is made more confusing by
  intellectual property laws regarding typefaces. Basically, in the USA,
  font files  are protected by copyright, but font renderings are not.
  In other words, it's illegal to redistribute fonts, but it's perfectly
  legal to ``reverse-engineer'' them by printing them out on graph paper
  and designing the curves to match the printout. Reverse engineered
  fonts are typically cheap and freely available, but of poor quality.
  These fonts, as well as pirated fonts are often distributed on very
  cheap CDs containing huge amounts of fonts.  So it's not always easy
  to tell if a font is reverse engineered, or simply pirated. This
  situation creates an enormous headache for anyone hoping to package
  free fonts for Linux.

  Perhaps one of the most offensive things about the nature of font
  piracy is that it artificially debases the value of the work that type
  designers do. Pirated fonts invariably are bundled en masse onto these
  one zillion font CDs, with no due credit given to the original
  designers. In contrast, what is commendable about several legitimate
  font foundries is that they credit their designers.

  There are many differing opinions on this issue. See typeright
  <http://www.typeright.org> for an explanation of the case in favour of
  intellectual property rights.  Also, see Southern Software, Inc
  <http://www.ssifonts.com/> for another opinion -- but don't buy any of
  their fonts! Their Type1 fonts ( poorly reverse-engineered Adobe fonts
  ) do not have AFMs, and are thus unusable.


  The comp.fonts FAQ <http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/part2/> also
  discusses the issues of fonts and intellectual property, as does Luc
  Devroye's homepage <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/>. These references
  are somewhat less extreme in their views.



  12.  References

  12.1.  Font Information


  o  Rod Smith's homepage <http://www.rodsbooks.com/> contains a wealth
     of information about using fonts and printers with Applixware and
     Word Perfect.

  o  John McLaughlin's page
     <http://www.mindspring.com/~john_mcl/adding_fonts.html> discusses
     setting up fonts with Star Office

  o  Jim Land's homepage
     <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/postscript.html>
     contains a lot of links to sites on postscript and fonts.

  o  The comp.fonts FAQ <http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/> is the
     definitive font FAQ.

  o  Luc Devroye's homepage <http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/> Contains
     enough information about fonts and other things to sink a ship.
     This guy designed a bunch of free fonts, and his homepage has a lot
     of interesting links, information and commentary.

  o  The Font Deuglification HOWTO
     <http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU.html> discusses TrueType
     fonts under Linux. This is the clear winner of the ``TrueType''
     HOWTOs.  An excellent source of information.

  o  TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
     <http://www.dimensional.com/~bgiles/debian-tt.html> discusses
     installing TrueType in Debian.  A must-read for Debian users.  Also
     worth reading if you have any distribution that doesn't have the
     version of xfs with TrueType support.

  o  The (preliminary) True Type HOWTO
     <http://www.moisty.org/~brion/linux/TrueType-HOWTO.html> -- an
     incomplete HOWTO dated June 1998. Included in this list for
     completeness.

  o  TrueType for XFree86 Mini-HOWTO
     <http://www.sfu.ca/~yzhang/linux/truetype/> -- a slightly dated
     HOWTO. Only applicable to Redhat 5.x

  12.2.  Postscript and Printing Information


  o  Adobe's Postscript page
     <http://www.adobe.com/print/postscript/main.html> is the definitive
     site on the postscript standard.

  o  Ghostscript's home page <http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/> has a lot
     of information, and all the latest printer drivers.

  o  Jim Land's homepage
     <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5682/postscript.html>
     contains a lot of links to sites on postscript and fonts.

  o  Christopher Browne's Printing FAQ
     <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/printing.html>


  13.  Glossary


  o  afm Stands for Adobe Font Metric. These files store information
     about the width and spacing associated with the font, as opposed to
     information about the font shape.

  o  anti-aliasing also referred to as font smoothing is a technique
     used to render fonts on low resolution devices ( such as a monitor
     ).  The problem with rendering fonts is that the fonts consist of
     outlines, but the device renders in dots. The obvious way to render
     a font is to color black any pixel inside the outline, and leave
     all other dots.  The problem with this is that it doesn't
     adequately address the pixels that are on the outline. A smarter
     algorithm would be to color the boundary pixels gray. Anti-aliasing
     essentially involves doing this.

  o  bdf fonts are a variety of bit-mapped fonts that may be used with
     X.

  o  bitmap fonts These fonts are simply a collection of dots. Each
     character of the font is stored as a dot matrix. Because of this,
     bitmap fonts are device dependent, so you can't use the same bitmap
     fonts on a screen and a printer. Examples of bitmap screen fonts
     include .pcf and .bdf fonts used by X. Examples of printer bitmap
     fonts include TeX's PK fonts.

  o  didone see modern.

  o  DPI Dots Per Inch. Monitors typically display at 75-100 DPI, while
     modern printers vary from 300-1200 DPI

  o  expert fonts are collections of additional characters that
     supplement a font. They include small caps fonts, ornaments, extra
     ligatures, and variable width digits. Many of Adobe's fonts have
     expert fonts available.

  o  font server a background program that makes fonts available to
     XFree86.

  o  glyph A glyph is a fancy word for a shape. It is a component that
     makes up an outline font. For example, the dot on the letter ``i''
     is a glyph, as is the vertical line, as are the serifs. Glyphs
     determine the shape of the font.

  o  kerning In variable width fonts, different pairs of characters are
     spaced differently. The font metric files store information
     regarding spacing between pairs of characters, called kerning
     pairs.

  o  ligature A ligature is a special character that is used to
     represent a sequence of characters. This is best explained by
     example -- when the letter fi are rendered, the dot on the ``i''
     collides with the ``f'', and the serif on the top left of the i can
     also collide with the horizontal stroke of the f. The fi ligature
     is a single character that can be used in the place of a single f
     followed by a single i. There are also ligatures for fl, ffi, and
     ffl.  Most fonts only include the fi and fl ligatures. The other
     ligatures may be made available in an expert font.


  o  metafont A graphics language used for creating fonts. Metafont has
     a lot of nice features, the main one being that fonts created with
     metafont need not just scale linearly. That is, a 17 point computer
     modern font generated by metafont is not the same as a magnified 10
     point computer modern font. Prior to Adobe's multiple master
     technology, metafont was unique with respect to having this
     feature.  Metafonts main advantage is that it produces high quality
     fonts.  The disadvantage is that generating bitmaps from the
     outline fonts is slow, so they aren't feasible for WYSIWYG
     publishing.

  o  metric this stores information about how much space a font takes
     up. A font metric is like a box that one can embed the font in.
     Font metrics are essential for the purpose of laying out fonts on a
     page, while the font shape itself is not. So typically, variable
     width fonts have metric information as well as shape information.
     The metric also includes kerning information.

  o  modern fonts are fonts based on designs developed in the 19th
     century or later. The moderns have a solid appearance due to their
     vertical stress. They tend to have more ``character'' or
     ``attitude'' than the old styles and transitionals, but still carry
     a certain amount of dignity and formality.  They are not suited for
     writing long passages, but they are useful for adding character to
     a piece of writing.  Bodoni is a notable modern typeface.
  o  old style fonts are a traditional class of typeface.  The old style
     fonts are based on designs from as far back as the late 15th
     century. Old style fonts are great for writing long documents (
     such as books ). While the old style fonts are designed in the
     tradition of the earlier designers, some of them were designed
     quite recently. Notably, the face Goudy Old Style was designed by
     Goudy in the early 20th century. Notable old style faces include
     Goudy Old Style, Garamond, and Caslon.

  o  pcf fonts are bit-mapped fonts used by X.

  o  postscript is a programming language designed for page description.
     Postscript was a trademark of it's inventor, adobe. However, it is
     also an ISO standard. Postscript needs an interpreter to render it.
     This can be done via a program on the computer, such as
     ghostscript, or it can be interpreted by some printers.

  o  serif fonts are fonts with little hooks ( called serifs ) on the
     ends of the font.  the serifs usually help make the font more
     readable.  However, serifs are quite difficult to render on low
     resolution devices, especially at small font sizes ( because they
     are a fine detail ), so it is often true that at small sizes on low
     resolution devices, sans serif fonts ( such as Microsoft's Verdana
     ) prove more readable. Another issue is that there are sans serif
     fonts ( like the moderns ) that are not designed for writing long
     documents.

  o  sans serif fonts are fonts without serifs ( sans is French for
     ``without'' ). These fonts have a stark appearance, and are well
     suited for writing headlines. While textbook typography mandates
     that serif fonts be used just for headlines, they can have other
     uses.  There are sans serif fonts designed for readability as
     opposed to impact.  Short punchy documents that are skimmed ( such
     as catalogues and marketting brochures ) may use them, and
     recently, Microsoft have made available the Verdana font which is
     designed for readability at small sizes on low resolution devices.
     Well known sans serif fonts include Lucida Sans, MS Comic Sans,
     Avant Garde, Arial, Verdana, Century Gothic.

  o  slab serif fonts are a certain class of font whose serifs look like
     slabs ( eg flat lines or blocks ) and not hooks.  Slab serif fonts
     are often, but not always very readable.  Because the serifs are
     simple and strong, they give one the feeling that they have been
     punched into the page.  Well known examples of slab serifs are
     Clarendon, New Century Schoolbook, and Memphis.

  o  transitional fonts are fonts that are based on more recent designs
     than the old style fonts. many of the transitional fonts have good
     readability. Notable transitionals include Baskerville, and Times
     Roman.

  o  Type1 is a type of font designed by Adobe. These fonts are well
     supported by almost all linux applications, because they have been
     supported by the X server architecture and the postscript standard
     for a long time. Postscript fonts are distributed in many different
     formats. Typically, a UNIX postscript font is distributed as an afm
     ( adobe font metric ) file, and an outline file, which is usually a
     .pfb ( printer font binary ) or .pfa ( printer font ascii ) file.
     The outline file contains all the glyphs, while the metric file
     contains the metrics.

  o  type3 fonts are similar to Type1. The file extensions are similar
     to Type1 fonts ( they are distributed as pfa and afm files ), but
     they are not supported by X, and because of this, there are not
     very many linux applications which support them.

