Re: [Groff] URW fonts

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> So, back to Werner's .foundry, I like the idea but would like a way
>> for gropdf to take advantage of the inbuilt Adobe versions of fonts
>> when they are available.
> 
> The URW fonts are intended to be used as a transparent fallback for
> the base fonts, so I think that groff should always use, e.g., the
> font name /Times-Italic, and only the program that actually has to
> access the font file should automatically map this to
> /NimbusRomNo9L-ReguItal if the former cannot be found.

I strongly disagree.  Compared to the Adobe standard fonts, the URW
fonts have both a different shape and a greatly extended glyph
reportoire.  `Accidentally', they have (almost) the same metrics as
the Adobe standard fonts, making it possible to use them as fall-back
fonts.  However, from a typographical point of view, URW and Adobe
fonts are definitely different.

In other words, the fallback should *not* happen within groff but at a
later stage, as it is done currently with grops.  gropdf should
support both approaches, this is, relying on the non-embedded base
fonts or using the embedded URW stuff.  Using something like the
proposed `.foundry' request it would be trivial to switch between
those different foundries.


    Werner