tcpdf fonts

Oron Peled oron at actcom.co.il
Sun Nov 15 00:14:30 UTC 2009


Hi,

I packaged TCEXAM (tcexam.org) for review:
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=465159

One of the issues I (and the reviewer) have is that the
included TCPDF (tcpdf.org) application is using embedded fonts for
rendering the PDF.

As a result, I have several questions for the members of this list:
1. From a brief look, it seems the bundled fonts are free and included
   in Fedora. How about the almohanad and ZarBold, anybody knows?
   (here is the full list of font-names):
    almohanad               dejavusansmonoi         freemonobi
    dejavusans              dejavuserif             freemonoi
    dejavusansb             dejavuserifb            freesans
    dejavusansbi            dejavuserifbi           freesansb
    dejavusanscondensed     dejavuserifcondensed    freesansbi
    dejavusanscondensedb    dejavuserifcondensedb   freesansi
    dejavusanscondensedbi   dejavuserifcondensedbi  freeserif
    dejavusanscondensedi    dejavuserifcondensedi   freeserifb
    dejavusansi             dejavuserifi            freeserifbi
    dejavusansmono          freemono                freeserifi
    dejavusansmonob         freemonob               ZarBold
    dejavusansmonobi

2. Better substitutes? Defaults?

3. For use by tcpdf, the fonts are converted as described in:
      http://www.tecnick.com/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=tcpdf_fonts
   a. One tools which is bundled is afm2pfm (and its inverse pfm2afm):
      * The upstream of these tools:
          - http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/pfm2afm/
          - It is GPL
          - Very old code, does not look maintained, but small.
      * Are these tools of general interest for the font people?
        Should we invest the time to clean up the code, etc?
      * If we do not want/need them, what is the alternative method for
        generating afm files from ttf fonts in Fedora. Can this method
        be scripted?

   b. Another bundled tool is ttf2ufm:
      * Looks like a modified copy of ttf2pt1 which is packaged in Fedora.
      * What are the difference? Maybe the current Fedora version includes
        the functionality of ttf2ufm?
      * If not, does anybody knows where did it come from? I only found
        copies of this in TCPDF and in some old netscape sources.
      * If packaging it is problematic, can the same task be done by other
        tools packaged in Fedora?

4. While doing a search for this mail I found that moodle (packaged in
   Fedora) bundles TCPDF (and the fonts). So it seems we have
   a common problem... I will try to contact the maintainer.

Thank you for your time,

-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron
"First they ignore you, 
then they laugh at you, 
then they fight you, 
then you win." -- Gandhi




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