Follow-up Comment #5, bug #44235 (group groff): Deri posted this in bug #64004. I'm not completely sure whether he's asking for the same thing Branden is in comment #2, or something subtly different.
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The fallback characters in ps.tmac using schar defeat finding the precise
glyph in a font pre-loaded in the DESC file. I am now using the Symbola font
as one of the fonts in the DESC fonts line. I also run with DESC family set
Tinos. Now groff_char.7 runs with no missing glyphs except \[bs]. However, if
I look at what fonts are installed in the pdf I was surprised to see one
character from the TR font included, it was the "/"! The reason is because
ps.tmac has an schar fallback for \[ne] which perversely uses the "/" from TR.
The Symbola font has a perfectly good glyph for \[ne] but the only way to
defeat the fallback is with "\f[Symbola]\[ne]\fP". In this screenshot
file #57617
the fallback glyph is on the left and the Symbola glyph is on the right.
When groff was first developed type 1 fonts had a few hundred glyphs but these
days glyph coverage is much larger and fallbacks get in the way. A fallback
which approximates a glyph is never as good as a custom designed glyph in a
font, so fallbacks should be the glyph of last resort. Maybe we need a new
zchar which is used after the DESC fonts have been checked.
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