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List:       lilypond-devel
Subject:    Re: urg.
From:       Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen () xs4all ! nl>
Date:       2005-02-20 18:19:22
Message-ID: 16920.54442.449035.319547 () byrd ! xs4all ! nl
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wl@gnu.org writes:
> > I'm certain we can produce the PDF backend. It's just that I thought
> > it would be a convenient way to deal with TTF fonts.
> 
> Why do you think that TTFs are easier to handle than the OTFs we
> already have?  Both flavours use the SFNT wrapper format; the
> differences are one level below.  It should be straightforward to put
> the OTFs into a PDF document.  The very problem is subsetting of the
> fonts to get smaller documents, something which is beyond lilypond
> IMHO.
> > Oh, of course I forgot another option: we can construct a Type42
> > font ourselves.
> 
> I discourage that.  You loose flexibility.  OTFs are much more
> compact.

Notwithstanding your advice, I went ahead, and put a PD ttf->t42
utility into lilypond as a library. It only took me a an hour or
two. Granted, a one-line fragment with japanese lyrics creates a 16 mb
PS file, but it is a 16 mb file which renders correctly.

If we want to go towards real PS/PDF generation, I guess it would be
better to hook up with libgnomeprint, which has the added benefit of
outsourcing all code maintenance to the GNOME hackers.

-- 

 Han-Wen Nienhuys   |   hanwen@xs4all.nl   |   http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen 




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