I'm trying to understand exactly how LaTeX handles fonts/typefaces.
Is there a way to see which fonts are available to LaTeX? I can see
several fonts in a /usr/share/texmf/fonts directory (I'm using Debian
Linux) and trying \usepackage{fontname} works for most of them, but not
all. There's also a dropdown box in LyX but that doesn't seem to have
all of them.
Is there a difference between fonts that are available through \usefont
and those available through \usepackage{fontname}?
Also, I'm not totally clear on whether the font information is embedded
into the PDF output. For example, using pdflatex I've created some PDF
documents with different fonts and run "pdffonts" over them and get
output like this:
name type emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ------------ --- --- --- ---------
Times-Roman Type 1 no no no 43 0
[none] Type 3 yes no no 58 0
Times-Bold Type 1 no no no 64 0
Times-BoldItalic Type 1 no no no 82 0
MYDKWH+NimbusRomNo9L-Regu-Slant_167 Type 1 yes yes no 90 0
Times-Italic Type 1 no no no 317 0
and:
name type emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ------------ --- --- --- ---------
LWIFAV+CenturySchL-Roma Type 1 yes yes no 44 0
[none] Type 3 yes no no 59 0
AJYORR+CenturySchL-Bold Type 1 yes yes no 66 0
VICUAD+CenturySchL-BoldItal Type 1 yes yes no 85 0
WMHNKX+CenturySchL-Roma-Slant_167 Type 1 yes yes no 93 0
WZNAPE+CenturySchL-Ital Type 1 yes yes no 341 0
What I need to be sure is that users on different machines running
Windows or Mac, with different fonts installed, will still be able to
read the PDF document. For example, if they don't have Times or New
Century Schoolbook installed, will they still be able to view them? Does
it matter whether they have the TrueType or Type 1 version of it?
I read that Type 3 fonts are bad, so does it matter that I have a line
beginning "[none]" that says Type 3?
Why do some lines begin with what looks like 6 random letters? Is this
an internal name for an embedded font?
The "emb" column means embedded - that means it won't matter if the
recipient doesn't have that font installed, right? - because all
information about the shape, kerning, ligatures, etc. is stored inside
the PDF? Why has it embedded the New Century fonts but not most of the
Times ones? Because it's less common?
I would have thought that embedding the font information would take a
lot of space, but the files don't seem to be that much bigger - about
50K larger - does that seem about right?
The pdffonts man page suggests it's possible to embed TrueType fonts in
a PDF. I see some reference to doing this (looks a bit complex) e.g.
here: http://ipe.compgeom.org/pdftex_1.html. What are the relative
merits of using Type 1 vs. TrueType in a PDF?
thanks,
Paul.
