Fonts & Encodings

9.3. Customizing T_EX Fonts for the User's Needs

In this section, we shall learn how we can reconfigure fontinst to obtain fonts customized for our typographic needs: with accented letters, slanted letters, colored letters, special ligatures, letterspacing, special behavior, etc. First, however, we must study the mechanism by which fontinst describes a virtual font and then apply it to a number of interesting examples.

9.3.1. How to Configure a Virtual Font

Here is the philosophy of fontinst:

• To produce a virtual font, we need a font encoding and a set of glyphs. The encoding is describen in an ETX file (extension .etx); the glyphs are described in a set of MTX files (extension .mtx).

• Each \setslot entry in an encoding file is associated with a number (the position of the glyph in the encoding) and contains a glyph's name. In an entry in an encoding file, we can also provide other information:

  • Any ligatures (\ligature) whose sequences begin with the glyph in question

  • The fact that the glyph is part of a sequence of substitutions, as in mathematical fonts, or a set of large mathematical delimiters (see Appendix B.1.4, where we describe these gadgets)

• A glyph must be defined by a \setglyph instruction. It may later be redefined (\resetglyph).

• The behavior of a glyph with respect to kerning may be similar to that of another glyph; for instance, 'é' kerns in the same way as 'e'. This fact is established through the instructions \setleftrightkerning, \setleftkerning, and \setrightkerning ...