.\" Title: afm2pl
.\" Author:
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.73.2
.\" Date: May 2009
.\" Manual: afm2pl
.\" Source:
.\"
.TH "AFM2PL" "1" "30 August 2022" "" "afm2pl"
.\" disable hyphenation
.nh
.\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only)
.ad l
.SH "NAME"
afm2pl \- convert AFM font metrics to TeX pl font metrics
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP 7
\fBafm2pl\fR [\fB\-p\fR\ \fIencoding_file\fR] [\fB\-o\fR] [\fB\-e\fR\ \fIextension_factor\fR] [\fB\-s\fR\ \fIslant_factor\fR] [\fB\-f\fR\ \fIfont_dimensions\fR] [\fB\-k\fR] [\fB\-m\fR\ \fIletter_spacing\fR] [\fB\-l\fR\ \fIligkern_spec\fR] [\fB\-L\fR\ \fIligkern_spec\fR] [\fB\-n\fR] \fIinput_file[\&.afm]\fR [\fIoutput_file[\&.pl]\fR]
.HP 7
\fBafm2pl\fR [\-\-help] | [\-\-version]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
afm2pl converts an afm (Adobe Font Metric) file into a pl (Property List) file, which in its turn can be converted to a tfm (TeX Font Metric) file\&. It normally preserves kerns and ligatures, but also offers additional control over them\&.
.PP
afm2pl is meant to be a partial replacement for afm2tfm, on which it is based\&. With afm2tfm, preserving kerns and ligatures is possible only in a roundabout way, and handling of them is hard\-wired\&.
.PP
For text fonts, Y&Y\'s texnansi is a good encoding to be used with afm2pl\&. Its character set includes all the accented characters likely to be needed for Western languages, plus many typographic symbols, without a need for either virtual fonts or a separate text companion font\&.
.PP
Full LaTeX support for this encoding is available in the form of the texnansi package, which is already part of TeX Live and teTeX\&. These distributions also contain the encoding file texnansi\&.enc\&.
.PP
The distribution contains uppercased and lowercased versions of texnansi, viz\&. texnanuc and texnanlc, to allow font\-based rather than macro\-based uppercasing and lowercasing, and the familiar old ot1 encoding plus some variations in PostScript \&.enc format (I included these because they seem to be absent from teTeX/TeX Live)\&. However,
check your mapfiles
if you have old afm2pl\-generated fonts using these\&.
.PP
Return value: 0 if no error; a negative number indicating the number of missing glyphs if conversion was otherwise successful but glyphs are missing, and 1 in case of error\&.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
\fB\-p\fR \fIencoding_file\fR
.RS 4
The default is the encoding specified in the afm file, which had better match the encoding in the fontfile (pfa or pfb)\&. If
afm2pl\-name\&.enc
exists, afm2pl will use this file instead of
name\&.enc, unless an option
\-n
is given\&. The generated mapfile entry (see below) instructs pdftex or the dvi driver to re-encode the font on the fly\&. On\-the\-fly reencoding does not require virtual fonts\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-o\fR
.RS 4
Use octal for all character codes in the pl file\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-e\fR \fIextend_factor\fR
.RS 4
Widen or narrow characters by
\fIextend_factor\fR\&. Default is 1\&.0 (natural width)\&. Not recommended\&[1]\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-s\fR \fIslant_factor\fR
.RS 4
Oblique (slant) characters by
\fIslant_factor\fR\&. Not recommended either\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-f\fR \fIfont_dimensions\fR
.RS 4
The value is either the keyword
afm2tfm
or a comma\-separated list of up to five integers\&. The parameters are listed below, with their defaults and their value when the afm2tfm keyword is specified\&. \(oqSpace\(cq means the width of a space in the target font, except of course in the last row\&. Keep in mind that the design size is 1000, and that all numbers must be nonnegative integers\&.
.TS
allbox tab(:);
lB lB lB.
T{
Font dimension
T}:T{
Default value
T}:T{
Afm2tfm value
T}
.T&
l l l
l l l
l l l
l l l
l l l.
T{
\fIstretch\fR
T}:T{
space div 2
T}:T{
300 \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}
T{
\fIshrink\fR
T}:T{
space div 3
T}:T{
100 \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}
T{
\fIextra space\fR
T}:T{
space div 3
T}:T{
missing
T}
T{
\fIquad\fR
T}:T{
2 \(mu width of \(oq0\(cq
T}:T{
1000 \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}
T{
\fIspace\fR
T}:T{
(space source font) \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}:T{
(space source font) \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}
.TE
.sp
For fixed\-pitch fonts, different values apply:
.TS
allbox tab(:);
lB lB lB.
T{
Font dimension
T}:T{
Default value
T}:T{
Afm2tfm value
T}
.T&
l l l
l l l
l l l
l l l
l l l.
T{
\fIstretch\fR
T}:T{
0
T}:T{
0
T}
T{
\fIshrink\fR
T}:T{
0
T}:T{
0
T}
T{
\fIextra space\fR
T}:T{
space
T}:T{
missing
T}
T{
\fIquad\fR
T}:T{
2 \(mu character width
T}:T{
1000 \(mu \fIextend_factor\fR
T}
T{
\fIspace\fR
T}:T{
character width
T}:T{
character width
T}
.TE
.sp
Specify just a non\-default stretch and shrink with e\&.g\&.
150,70
and just a non\-default extra space with
,,10\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-k\fR
.RS 4
Keep original ligatures\&. This option only has effect in combination with positive letterspacing; see the section on
letterspacing and extra ligkern info\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-m\fR \fIletter_spacing\fR
.RS 4
Letterspace by
\fIletter_spacing\fR/1000 em (integer)\&. This is useful for making all\-caps typesetting look better\&. Try a value of e\&.g\&. 50 or 100\&. But see the section on
letterspacing and extra ligkern info
for details\&. A better alternative, though, is letting pdftex do the letterspacing\&. The
microtype
package gives LaTeX users access to this feature\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-l\fR \fIligkern_spec\fR, \fB\-L\fR \fIligkern_spec\fR
.RS 4
See the section on
extra ligkern info
for details\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-n\fR
.RS 4
No prefix\&. For \&.enc\- and \&.lig files, the program normally first prefixes the name with `afm2pl\-\'\&. Only if the prefixed filename is not found, will it search for the original filename\&. This option prevents searching for the prefixed filename\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-V\fR
.RS 4
Verbose\&. If turned on, it reports the number of missing glyphs to stderr and their names to stdout\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-help\fR
.RS 4
Display a short usage message\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-version\fR
.RS 4
Display the version number of afm2pl\&.
.RE
.SH "MAPFILE ENTRIES"
.PP
afm2pl writes a mapfile entry to a file with the same basename as the pl output file, but with extension \&.map\&. It can be used for the dvips mapfile and for the pdftex mapfile\&. It is assumed that the pfb file has the same basename as the afm file and must be downloaded\&.
\fIYou may have to hand\-edit this entry\&.\fR
.PP
You can configure dvips and pdftex to read this additional mapfile or otherwise add the entry to an existing mapfile\&.
.PP
\fBCheck your mapfiles!\fR
To reduce the likelihood of name conflicts, the \&.enc\- files which are part of afm2pl (ot1, ot1csc, ot1ital, ot1tt, texnanlc and texnanuc) have now been prepended with
afm2pl\-\&. The \&.enc files are referenced in mapfiles\&. If you have old afm2pl\-generated \&.tfm files using these, then you should update their mapfile fragments and rerun updmap or updmap\-sys\&. Or you can copy the relevant enc files to your personal or local texmf tree under their previous non\-prefixed names\&.
.SH "EXTRA LIGKERN INFO"
.PP
\fIMost users are well\-advised to leave this mess alone and to accept the default behavior\&.\fR
.PP
The ligatures and kerns present in the afm file can be modified in various ways\&. Default, the encoding file is scanned for extra ligkern specifications, whose format will be described below\&. If there are no ligkern specifications in the encoding file, then extra ligkern specifications will be read from a file [afm2pl\-]default\&.lig\&. A value of 0 for
\fIligkern_spec\fR
means that the ligatures and kerns from the afm file won\'t be tampered with and a value of 1 specifies default behavior\&. One can also specify a comma\-separated list of files with extra ligkerns specs\&.
.PP
If afm2pl is compiled with the kpathsea library, then these files will be searched for under $TEXMF/fonts/lig\&.
.PP
\fINote that ligatures and kerns are hints for the typesetting application; there is no need to download this information to the printer or to make it available to a dvi driver\&.\fR
.PP
The parser for ligkern info has been inherited from afm2tfm virtually without change\&. A ligkern specification can have one of the following forms:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\fIglyph_name1\fR \fIglyph_name2\fR \fIlig_op\fR \fIglyph_name3\fR ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
This specifies a ligature\&. Possible values for
\fIlig_op\fR
are
=:,
|=:,
|=:>,
=:|,
=:|>,
|=:|,
|=:|>
and
|=:|>>\&. These correspond to
LIG,
/LIG,
/LIG>,
LIG/,
LIG/>,
/LIG/,
/LIG/>,
/LIG/>>
in \&.pl syntax; see the pltotf documentation and the \&.lig files in the distribution\&.
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\fIglyph_name1\fR <> \fIglyph_name2\fR ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
Kern
\fIglyph_name1\fR
as
\fIglyph_name2\fR\&.
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\fIglyph_name1\fR {} \fIglyph_name2\fR ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
Remove the kern between
\fIglyph_name1\fR
and
\fIglyph_name2\fR\&. A value of
*
for either glyph name is interpreted as a wildcard\&.
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
|| = \fIglyph\fR ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
Set the (right) boundary character to
\fIglyph\fR\&.
\fIglyph\fR
may be either a glyphname or a slot in the encoding vector\&. Choosing a glyph which doesn\'t occur in the output encoding is equivalent to not specifying a boundarychar at all\&. It is ok to pick an encoded glyphname which does not occur in the afm\&. In fact, this is what default\&.lig does:
|| = cwm ;\&.
.PP
You can copy the kerns of an unencoded character to the boundarychar\&. Below,
space
is the unencoded character:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
|| <> space ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
This ligkern specification should occur before the one that deletes space kerns\&.
.PP
A ligkern specification should be contained within one line\&. One line may contain several ligkern specifications, separated by spaces\&. Note that
;
(space followed by semicolon) is considered part of the ligkern specification\&. See the lig files included in this distribution\&. Example:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
one {} * ; * {} one ; two {} * ; * {} two ;
.fi
.RE
.PP
Lines with ligkern specifications inside an encoding file should start with
% LIGKERN\&. Ligkern specifications in a lig file may optionally start this way\&.
.SH "LETTERSPACING AND EXTRA LIGKERN INFO"
.PP
Letterspacing has various side\-effects for ligkern info\&. Instead of simply applying the extra ligkern info (see previous section), the following is done:
.sp
.IP 1.
In case of positive letterspacing, native ligatures are removed, unless the \-k option is specified\&.
.sp
.IP 2.
Extra ligkern info is applied as usual, except that in case of positive letterspacing different defaults apply:
\-l 0
is quietly ignored, ligkern comments in the encoding file are ignored, and defpre\&.lig is read instead of default\&.lig\&.
.sp
.IP 3.
Letterspacing is applied\&. This adds a lot of kerns, and modifies existing kerns\&.
.sp
.IP 4.
The extra ligkern info specified with \-L is applied\&. The only ligkern specs which are allowed here, are removals of kerning pairs (with the
{}
operator)\&. Values 0 and 1 have a similar meaning as for the \-l parameter\&.
\fIThe tfm format has room for only about 180x180 ligatures and kerning pairs\&.\fR
This is enough for OT1 encoding, but for texnansi encoding quite a few ligkern specifications have to be removed\&. The pltotf program will remove
\fIall\fR
ligkern info if too many ligatures and kerns remain\&. The default lig
file is defpost\&.lig\&. This file throws out kerning pairs which are
unlikely to be involved in letterspacing, such as kerns involving
accents or kerns with a punctuation character or right bracket at the
left\&. It does not add letterspacing kerns involving
boundarychars\&. Instead, fontspace is increased by twice the
letterspacing\&. defpost\&.lig throws out enough kerns in case of
texnansi encoding\&. With other encodings, you may have to throw out
additional kerning pairs\&.
.SH "FONT-BASED UPPER- AND LOWERCASING"
.PP
The distribution includes encoding vectors texnanuc\&.enc and texnanlc\&.enc which produce all\-uppercase and all\-lowercase fonts
.PP
The principal uses for an all\-uppercase font are page headers and section heads\&. If these contain math, then macro\-based uppercasing would create unpleasant complications\&. Example:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
afm2pl \-p texnanuc ptmr8a ptmup8y
pltotf ptmup8y
.fi
.RE
.sp
For best results, you should add some letterspacing\&. In LaTeX, this is best done with the
microtype
package; see the documentation of that package\&. But it can also be done with
afm2pl:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
afm2pl \-p texnanuc \-m 100 ptmr8a ptmup8y
.fi
.RE
.sp
This requires caution; see
above\&.
.PP
You can use this new font within the context of LaTeX font selection as follows:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\emakeatletter
{\enfss@catcodes
\eDeclareFontShape{LY1}{ptm}{m}{upp}{<\-> ptmup8y}{}}
\emakeatother
\&.\&.\&.
\ebegin{document}
\&.\&.\&.
{\efontshape{upp}\eselectfont uppercase text}
.fi
.RE
.sp
Note that
upp
is simply a newly made\-up shape name\&.
.SS "The sz ligature \(ss"
.PP
Note that the texnanuc encoding provides no glyph for the sz ligature \(ss; you\'ll either have to substitute ss or provide a macro\-based solution\&. The following code uses either the usual glyph or substitutes the letters ss, depending on whether the glyph exists in the current font:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\edef\ess{%
\esetbox0\ehbox{\echar25}%
\eifnum\ewd0=0 ss\eelse\ebox0\efi
}
.fi
.RE
.PP
In LaTeX, this code appears to work well enough, although on occasion you may need to insert
\eprotect\&. A better solution might involve the sixth parameter of the
\eDeclareFontShape
macro, but I failed to get that to work\&.
.SH "AFM2PL, FONTINST AND ARTIFICIAL SMALLCAPS"
.PP
Afm2pl doesn\'t do virtual fonts\&. That means that for things such as artificial smallcaps you have to turn elsewhere, e\&.g\&. to the fontinst package, which is part of any mainstream TeX distribution\&.
.PP
Look under texmf/tex/fontinst for fontinst support files, which allow you to generate a smallcaps font (tfm and vf files) from an afm2pl\-generated tfm file\&. This package only supports texnansi encoding\&.
.PP
There should be no real problem in doing the same for OT1 encoding\&. However, there are several variations of the OT1 encoding to take care of\&. Also, there are as far as I know no officially sanctioned PostScript names for all the variations of the OT1 encoding; the fontinst names contain spaces and are therefore not useable as PostScript names\&.
.SH "CHANGED IN VERSION 0.7.1"
.PP
In order to avoid name conflicts, the \&.enc\- and \&.lig files distributed with afm2pl got
afm2pl\-
prepended to their name\&. The program itself now first searches for the thus prepended name\&. If the \&.enc\- or \&.lig file is not found it will look for the original filename\&. The renaming of the afm2pl \&.enc files may require modification of some mapfiles\&.
.SH "URLS"
.PP
The afm2pl homepage is
\fIhttp://tex\&.aanhet\&.net/afm2pl/\fR\&.
.PP
The paper
\fIFont installation the shallow way\fR\&[2]
(EuroTeX 2006 Proceedings, published as
\fITUGboat\fR\&[3]
issue 27\&.1) illustrates the use of afm2pl\&.
.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
Except that arguably a narrowed Courier is less jarring than a full-width Courier, when used in combination with a normal proportional font. For Courier, choose .833 to match the width of cmtt. Better yet, don't use Courier at all; most TeX distributions offer various good replacements.
.IP " 2." 4
Font installation the shallow way
.RS 4
\%https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb27-1/tb86kroonenberg-fonts.pdf
.RE
afm2pl is maintained as part of TeX Live.