[4261] in SIPB bug reports
Re: tex fonts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Thu Nov 18 12:06:04 1993
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 12:05:20 -0500
From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@security.ov.com>
To: jh@MIT.EDU, ckclark@MIT.EDU, bug-sipb@MIT.EDU, jtkohl@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <9311172140.AA04652@binkley.MIT.EDU> (message from Calvin Clark on Wed, 17 Nov 93 16:40:20 -0500)
I am amused that so many people who don't seem to be aware of what's
state-of-the-art with respect to xdvi and PostScript fonts are acting
as if they know what they're talking about :-).
I have had a version of xdvi installed here for probably at least a
year that (a) understands VF files and (b) automatically builds
missing PostScript or TeX fonts as needed. The PostScript fonts are
built with gsrenderfont, and the TeX fonts are built with metafont.
We have been successfully previewing with xdvi documents using
PostScript fonts for a long time now.
If you install the most recent version of xdvi, and make it use the
script /afs/gza.com/software/xdvi/src/xdvimakepk to build fonts as
needed (with whatever Athena-specific changes are needed, obviously),
then xdvi will preview DVI files using PostScript fonts with no
problem (assuming that the correct VF files are installed and
accessible to it).
Incidentally, we have our dvips and xdvi set up to build fonts into a
world-insertable AFS volume, so that they stay around. It does not
seem unreasonble to me for the SIPB to set up a similar volume, with a
relatively small quota so that it can't be abused, and with a script
running daily somewhere to check for new files in the volume and, if
there are any, to send mail to someone saying that they should be
copied somewhere more permanent (so that new files can be checked to
make sure the volume isn't being abused, and so that it doesn't fill
up).
jik
