Re: Font path issue

[Peter Schaffter]

Deri --

Talk about diving down a rabbit hole and taking a wrong turn at
Albuquerque!

> If you look at gropdf around line 55, you should see something
> like:-

> $cfg{GROFF_VERSION}='1.22.4';
> $cfg{GROFF_FONT_PATH}='/usr/share/groff/site-font:/usr/share/groff/1.22.4/
> font:/usr/lib/font';

I looked at my gropdf and discovered I was using the wrong version
(1.22.3)!  Re-Instating 1.22.4 restored gropdf to its correct
behaviour.  No idea what 1.22.3 was doing in /usr/local/bin.  The
less said, the better.  Thanks for setting me on the right path (pun
not intended).

As for "solving" the missing slanted symbols in postscript output,
setting an explicit

  GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/local/share/groff/current/font

seemed to fix the problem because it caused groff to read the system
'download' first and register Symbol-Slanted.  Robert G was right:
the only fix is to copy the contents of the system 'download' into
the local 'download'.

My leporine burrowing now behind me, I'm wondering at the wisdom
of grops reading only the first 'download' it encounters.  The
behaviour of gropdf--taking all 'download' files into account,
as Deri informally describes it--makes more sense and is almost
certainly what users expect (witness Robert's original, and my
subsequent, perplexity).

Since groff checks site-font/devps first, and the unsuspecting
user is not going to know that its 'download' must contain the
fonts listed in the system devps, the issue could be resolved by
groff installing a 'download' file with the entries from the system
'download' in site-font/devps when it is built/installed.  It's
either that or make grops behave like gropdf when it comes to
reading 'download' files (decidedly preferable).

install-font.sh can take care of planting a 'download' file in
site-font/devps that contains the necessary entries, but I think
it's a poor idea to rely on third-party software for this.

-- 
Peter Schaffter
https://www.schaffter.ca