1AFM2PL(1) afm2pl AFM2PL(1)
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6 afm2pl - convert AFM font metrics to TeX pl font metrics
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9 afm2pl [-p encoding_file] [-o] [-e extension_factor] [-s slant_factor]
10 [-f font_dimensions] [-k] [-m letter_spacing] [-l ligkern_spec]
11 [-L ligkern_spec] [-n] input_file[.afm] [output_file[.pl]]
12 afm2pl [--help] | [--version]
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16 afm2pl converts an afm (Adobe Font Metric) file into a pl (Property
17 List) file, which in its turn can be converted to a tfm (TeX Font
18 Metric) file. It normally preserves kerns and ligatures, but also
19 offers additional control over them.
20 afm2pl is meant to be a partial replacement for afm2tfm, on which it is
22 based. With afm2tfm, preserving kerns and ligatures is possible only in
23 a roundabout way, and handling of them is hard-wired.
24 For text fonts, Y&Y´s texnansi is a good encoding to be used with
26 afm2pl. Its character set includes all the accented characters likely
27 to be needed for Western languages, plus many typographic symbols,
28 without a need for either virtual fonts or a separate text companion
29 font.
30 Full LaTeX support for this encoding is available in the form of the
32 texnansi package, which is already part of TeX Live and teTeX. These
33 distributions also contain the encoding file texnansi.enc.
34 The distribution contains uppercased and lowercased versions of
36 texnansi, viz. texnanuc and texnanlc, to allow font-based rather than
37 macro-based uppercasing and lowercasing, and the familiar old ot1
38 encoding plus some variations in PostScript .enc format (I included
39 these because they seem to be absent from teTeX/TeX Live). However,
40 check your mapfiles if you have old afm2pl-generated fonts using these.
41 Return value: 0 if no error; a negative number indicating the number of
43 missing glyphs if conversion was otherwise successfull but glyphs are
44 missing, and 1 in case of error.
45
47 -p encoding_file
48 The default is the encoding specified in the afm file, which had
49 better match the encoding in the fontfile (pfa or pfb). If
50 afm2pl-name.enc exists, afm2pl will use this file instead of
51 name.enc, unless an option -n is given. The generated mapfile entry
52 (see below) instructs pdftex or the dvi driver to reencode the font
53 on the fly. On-the-fly reencoding does not require virtual fonts.
54 -o
56 Use octal for all character codes in the pl file.
57 -e extend_factor
59 Widen or narrow characters by extend_factor. Default is 1.0
60 (natural width). Not recommended[1].
61 -s slant_factor
63 Oblique (slant) characters by slant_factor. Not recommended either.
64 -f font_dimensions
66 The value is either the keyword afm2tfm or a comma-separated list
67 of up to five integers. The parameters are listed below, with their
68 defaults and their value when the afm2tfm keyword is specified.
69 ‘Space’ means the width of a space in the target font, except of
70 course in the last row. Keep in mind that the design size is 1000,
71 and that all numbers must be nonnegative integers.
72 ┌───────────────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
74 │Font dimension │ Default value │ Afm2tfm value │
75 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
76 │stretch │ space div 2 │ 300 × extend_factor │
77 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
78 │shrink │ space div 3 │ 100 × extend_factor │
79 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
80 │extra space │ space div 3 │ missing │
81 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
82 │quad │ 2 × width of ‘0’ │ 1000 × │
83 │ │ │ extend_factor │
84 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
85 │space │ (space source font) │ (space source font) │
86 │ │ × extend_factor │ × extend_factor │
87 └───────────────┴─────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘
88 For fixed-pitch fonts, different values apply:
89 ┌───────────────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────┐
91 │Font dimension │ Default value │ Afm2tfm value │
92 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
93 │stretch │ 0 │ 0 │
94 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
95 │shrink │ 0 │ 0 │
96 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
97 │extra space │ space │ missing │
98 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
99 │quad │ 2 × character width │ 1000 × │
100 │ │ │ extend_factor │
101 ├───────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
102 │space │ character width │ character width │
103 └───────────────┴─────────────────────┴─────────────────┘
104 Specify just a non-default stretch and shrink with e.g. 150,70 and
105 just a non-default extra space with ,,10.
106 -k
108 Keep original ligatures. This option only has effect in combination
109 with positive letterspacing; see the section on letterspacing and
110 extra ligkern info.
111 -m letter_spacing
113 Letterspace by letter_spacing/1000 em (integer). This is useful for
114 making all-caps typesetting look better. Try a value of e.g. 50 or
115 100. But see the section on letterspacing and extra ligkern info
116 for details. A better alternative, though, is letting pdftex do the
117 letterspacing. The microtype package gives LaTeX users access to
118 this feature.
119 -l ligkern_spec, -L ligkern_spec
121 See the section on extra ligkern info for details.
122 -n
124 No prefix. For .enc- and .lig files, the program normally first
125 prefixes the name with `afm2pl-´. Only if the prefixed filename is
126 not found, will it search for the original filename. This option
127 prevents searching for the prefixed filename.
128 -V
130 Verbose. If turned on, it reports the number of missing glyphs to
131 stderr and their names to stdout.
132 --help
134 Display a short usage message.
135 --version
137 Display the version number of afm2pl.
138
140 afm2pl writes a mapfile entry to a file with the same basename as the
141 pl output file, but with extension .map. It can be used for the dvips
142 mapfile and for the pdftex mapfile. It is assumed that the pfb file has
143 the same basename as the afm file and must be downloaded. You may have
144 to hand-edit this entry.
145 You can configure dvips and pdftex to read this additional mapfile or
147 otherwise add the entry to an existing mapfile.
148 Check your mapfiles! To reduce the likelihood of name conflicts, the
150 .enc- files which are part of afm2pl (ot1, ot1csc, ot1ital, ot1tt,
151 texnanlc and texnanuc) have now been prepended with afm2pl-. The .enc
152 files are referenced in mapfiles. If you have old afm2pl-generated .tfm
153 files using these, then you should update their mapfile fragments and
154 rerun updmap or updmap-sys. Or you can copy the relevant enc files to
155 your personal or local texmf tree under their previous non-prefixed
156 names.
157
159 Most users are well-advised to leave this mess alone and to accept the
160 default behavior.
161 The ligatures and kerns present in the afm file can be modified in
163 various ways. Default, the encoding file is scanned for extra ligkern
164 specifications, whose format will be described below. If there are no
165 ligkern specifications in the encoding file, then extra ligkern
166 specifications will be read from a file [afm2pl-]default.lig. A value
167 of 0 for ligkern_spec means that the ligatures and kerns from the afm
168 file won´t be tampered with and a value of 1 specifies default
169 behavior. One can also specify a comma-separated list of files with
170 extra ligkerns specs.
171 If afm2pl is compiled with the kpathsea library, then these files will
173 be searched for under $TEXMF/fonts/lig.
174 Note that ligatures and kerns are hints for the typesetting
176 application; there is no need to download this information to the
177 printer or to make it available to a dvi driver.
178 The parser for ligkern info has been inherited from afm2tfm virtually
180 without change. A ligkern specification can have one of the following
181 forms:
182 glyph_name1 glyph_name2 lig_op glyph_name3 ;
184 This specifies a ligature. Possible values for lig_op are =:, |=:,
186 |=:>, =:|, =:|>, |=:|, |=:|> and |=:|>>. These correspond to LIG, /LIG,
187 /LIG>, LIG/, LIG/>, /LIG/, /LIG/>, /LIG/>> in .pl syntax; see the
188 pltotf documentation and the .lig files in the distribution.
189 glyph_name1 <> glyph_name2 ;
191 Kern glyph_name1 as glyph_name2.
193 glyph_name1 {} glyph_name2 ;
195 Remove the kern between glyph_name1 and glyph_name2. A value of * for
197 either glyph name is interpreted as a wildcard.
198 || = glyph ;
200 Set the (right) boundary character to glyph. glyph may be either a
202 glyphname or a slot in the encoding vector. Choosing a glyph which
203 doesn´t occur in the output encoding is equivalent to not specifying a
204 boundarychar at all. It is ok to pick an encoded glyphname which does
205 not occur in the afm. In fact, this is what default.lig does: || = cwm
206 ;.
207 You can copy the kerns of an unencoded character to the boundarychar.
209 Below, space is the unencoded character:
210 || <> space ;
212 This ligkern specification should occur before the one that deletes
214 space kerns.
215 A ligkern specification should be contained within one line. One line
217 may contain several ligkern specifications, separated by spaces. Note
218 that ; (space followed by semicolon) is considered part of the ligkern
219 specification. See the lig files included in this distribution.
220 Example:
221 one {} * ; * {} one ; two {} * ; * {} two ;
223 Lines with ligkern specifications inside an encoding file should start
225 with % LIGKERN. Ligkern specifications in a lig file may optionally
226 start this way.
227
229 Letterspacing has various side-effects for ligkern info. Instead of
230 simply applying the extra ligkern info (see previous section), the
231 following is done:
232 1. In case of positive letterspacing, native ligatures are removed,
235 unless the -k option is specified.
236 2. Extra ligkern info is applied as usual, except that in case of
239 positive letterspacing different defaults apply: -l 0 is quietly
240 ignored, ligkern comments in the encoding file are ignored, and
241 defpre.lig is read instead of default.lig.
242 3. Letterspacing is applied. This adds a lot of kerns, and modifies
245 existing kerns.
246 4. The extra ligkern info specified with -L is applied. The only
249 ligkern specs which are allowed here, are removals of kerning
250 pairs (with the {} operator). Values 0 and 1 have a similar
251 meaning as for the -l parameter. The tfm format has room for
252 only about 180x180 ligatures and kerning pairs. This is enough
253 for OT1 encoding, but for texnansi encoding quite a few ligkern
254 specifications have to be removed. The pltotf program will
255 remove all ligkern info if too many ligatures and kerns remain.
256 The default lig file is defpost.lig. This file throws out
257 kerning pairs which are unlikely to be involved in
258 letterspacing, such as kerns involving accents or kerns with a
259 punctuation character or right bracket at the left. It does not
260 add letterspacing kerns involving boundarychars. Instead,
261 fontspace is increased by twice the letterspacing. defpost.lig
262 throws out enough kerns in case of texnansi encoding. With other
263 encodings, you may have to throw out additional kerning pairs.
264
267 The distribution includes encoding vectors texnanuc.enc and
268 texnanlc.enc which produce all-uppercase and all-lowercase fonts
269 The principal uses for an all-uppercase font are page headers and
271 section heads. If these contain math, then macro-based uppercasing
272 would create unpleasant complications. Example:
273 afm2pl -p texnanuc ptmr8a ptmup8y
275 pltotf ptmup8y
276 For best results, you should add some letterspacing. In LaTeX, this is
278 best done with the microtype package; see the documentation of that
279 package. But it can also be done with afm2pl:
280 afm2pl -p texnanuc -m 100 ptmr8a ptmup8y
282 This requires caution; see above.
284 You can use this new font within the context of LaTeX font selection as
286 follows:
287 <preamble commands>
290 \makeatletter
291 {\nfss@catcodes
292 \DeclareFontShape{LY1}{ptm}{m}{upp}{<-> ptmup8y}{}}
293 \makeatother
294 ...
295 \begin{document}
296 ...
297 {\fontshape{upp}\selectfont uppercase text}
298 Note that upp is simply a newly made-up shape name.
301 The sz ligature ß
303 Note that the texnanuc encoding provides no glyph for the sz ligature
304 ß; you´ll either have to substitute ss or provide a macro-based
305 solution. The following code uses either the usual glyph or substitutes
306 the letters ss, depending on whether the glyph exists in the current
307 font:
308 \def\ss{%
311 \setbox0\hbox{\char25}%
312 \ifnum\wd0=0 ss\else\box0\fi
313 }
314 In LaTeX, this code appears to work well enough, although on occasion
317 you may need to insert \protect. A better solution might involve the
318 sixth parameter of the \DeclareFontShape macro, but I failed to get
319 that to work.
320
322 Afm2pl doesn´t do virtual fonts. That means that for things such as
323 artificial smallcaps you have to turn elsewhere, e.g. to the fontinst
324 package, which is part of any mainstream TeX distribution.
325 Look under texmf/tex/fontinst for fontinst support files, which allow
327 you to generate a smallcaps font (tfm and vf files) from an
328 afm2pl-generated tfm file. This package only supports texnansi
329 encoding.
330 There should be no real problem in doing the same for OT1 encoding.
332 However, there are several variations of the OT1 encoding to take care
333 of. Also, there are as far as I know no officially sanctioned
334 PostScript names for all the variations of the OT1 encoding; the
335 fontinst names contain spaces and are therefore not useable as
336 PostScript names.
337
339 In order to avoid name conflicts, the .enc- and .lig files distributed
340 with afm2pl got afm2pl- prepended to their name. The program itself now
341 first searches for the thus prepended name. If the .enc- or .lig file
342 is not found it will look for the original filename. The renaming of
343 the afm2pl .enc files may require modification of some mapfiles.
344
346 The afm2pl homepage is http://tex.aanhet.net/afm2pl/.
347 The paper Font installation the shallow way[2] (EuroTeX 2006
349 Proceedings, published as TUGboat[3] issue 27.1) illustrates the use of
350 afm2pl.
351
353 1. Except that arguably a narrowed Courier is less jarring than a
354 full-width Courier, when used in combination with a normal
355 proportional font. For Courier, choose .833 to match the width of
356 cmtt. Better yet, don't use Courier at all; most TeX distributions
357 offer various good replacements.
358 2. Font installation the shallow way
360 http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb27-1/tb86kroonenberg-fonts.pdf
361 3. TUGboat
363 http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/
364 May 2009 AFM2PL(1)