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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label getbitmap</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Acquiring bitmap fonts</h3>
<p>When CTAN was young, most people would start using TeX
with a 300 dots-per-inch (dpi) laser printer, and sets of Computer
Modern bitmap fonts for this resolution are available on CTAN.
(There are separate sets for write-black and write-white printers, as
well as sets at 120 dpi and 240 dpi.)
<p>Over the years, there have been regular requests that CTAN should hold
a wider range of resolutions, but they were resisted for two reasons:
<ul>
<li> The need to decide which printers to generate fonts for. The
broad-brush approach taken for 300 dpi printers was (more or less)
justified back then, given the dominance of certain printer
'engines', but nowadays one could not make any such assumption.
<li> Given the above, justifying the space taken up by a huge array
of bitmap fonts.
</ul>
Fortunately, (La)TeX distribution technology has put a stop to these
arguments: most (if not all) current distributions generate bitmap
fonts as needed, and cache them for later re-use. The impatient
user, who is determined that all bitmap fonts should be created once
and for all, may be supported by scripts such as <i>allcm</i>
(distributed with teTeX, at least; otherwise such a person should
consult <a href="FAQ-useMF.html">"the use of Metafont"</a>).
<p>If your output is to a PostScript-capable device, you advised to switch to
using Type 1 versions of the CM fonts. Two free
sets are currently available; the older (<i>bakoma</i>) is
somewhat less well produced than the <i>bluesky</i> fonts, which were
originally professionally produced and sold, but were then donated to
the public domain by their originators Y&Y and Bluesky Research,
in association with the AMS. Unfortunately, the coverage of
the sets is slightly different, but you are advised to use the
<i>bluesky</i> set except when <i>bakoma</i> is for some reason
absolutely unavoidable. In recent years, several other 'Metafont' fonts
have been converted to Type 1 format; it's common never to need to
generate bitmap fonts for any purpose other than previewing (see
<a href="FAQ-PSpreview.html">"previewing documents with Type 1 fonts"</a>).
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>bakoma</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma.zip">fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma</a> (<a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma.tar.gz">gzipped tar</a>, <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma/">browse</a>)
<dt><tt><i>bluesky</i></tt><dd>Browse <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bluesky/">fonts/cm/ps-type1/bluesky/</a>
<dt><tt><i>cm fonts (write-black printers)</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/pk/pk300.zip">fonts/cm/pk/pk300.zip</a>
<dt><tt><i>cm fonts (write-white printers)</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/pk/pk300w.zip">fonts/cm/pk/pk300w.zip</a>
</dl>
<p><p><p><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=getbitmap">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=getbitmap</a>
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