Variants

Variants include typeface variations (e.g., italic, sans serif), and font encodings (e.g., Adobe standard, TeX text).

A fontname may require multiple variants. To resolve the worst ambiguities, we specify that any encoding variant (`7', `8', or `9', see below) come last and any other numeral variant come first (to avoid confusion with a design size). We recommend but do not require that the other variants be given in alphabetical order. (It's not required because it's too painful to implement the sorting in TeX, and many existing names already have non-alphabetized variants.)

The letterspacing possibilities introduced by fontinst and virtual fonts have not yet become sufficiently widespread to make standardization beneficial. Likewise for the many possible ways to generate small caps fonts.

Notes on specific variants, both old and new:

`1'

`4'

`6'

`b'

These variants (`semisans', `bright', `semiserif', and `fax') were used only for single typefaces, so to conserve variant abbreviations, they now have typeface abbreviations instead. Also, for `b', to avoid too-long names; and for the others, to avoid variant vs. design-size ambiguities.

`g'

`h'

Since these variants were not actually used in any font names, they are now obsolete and may be reassigned in the future.

`5'

`6'

`7'

`8'

`9'

These characters begin a two-character encoding variant. Generally, `7' is for 7-bit encodings, `8' is for 8-bit encodings, and `9' is for expertised encodings with or without oldstyle digits (see the `x' item below), but this is not an absolute rule. Also, `5' is presently used for phonetic encodings and `6' for Cyrillic encodings. The `9s' (`SuperFont') variant contain all of Adobe, Latin 1, and Expert glyphs, perhaps with slightly different metrics than the original fonts. For a font to be named with a certain encoding variant, it's not necessary that all the characters appear in precisely the same positions as in the encoding definition. It's enough that the usual TeX macros work. In practice, this means that it's ok for a font to be labelled `7t' if the only difference from Computer Modern is that the ligatures and the `lslash' and `Lslash' characters are different, since it's impossible to access or change the ligature table from TeX. Standard PostScript fonts don't have an `lslash' character the way Computer Modern does, but they do have the `Lslash' and `lslash' characters themselves, so the usual TeX \lslash and \Lslash macros can be made to work via ligatures. See the file `T1.etx' file in the fontinst distribution for details. If a name does not contain a specific encoding variant, its encoding is unspecified. For example, some of the fonts distributed with Dvips(k) have names like `ptmr' for `Times-Roman'; they use the Dvips encoding (see section `dvips.enc': Dvips encoding), which is close to (but not the same as) the TeX text encoding (as in Computer Modern Roman). Similarly, the TFM files distributed with Dvilj(k) for the builtin LaserJet 4 fonts have names like `cunm', since these fonts, while compatible with TeX text, contain many additional characters.

`9'

These items are needed only because `x' (and possibly `j') followed by a two-character regular variant makes some names too long. That is, `9t' is equivalent in meaning to `x7t', and `9d' is equivalent to `jx7t'. (This may not be true for all `9x' encodings, though.)

`k'

`z'

These variants (indicating Greek and Cyrillic fonts, respectively) are obsolete; future fonts in different scripts should be assigned an appropriate encoding abbreviation. These are not currently standardized, due to ignorance of the appropriate encodings. Please send suggestions for abbreviations to the address in section Introduction.

`m'

`v'

`y'

These math-related variants remain for the sake of typeface-specific math encodings, e.g., Lucida. Fonts that use the Computer Modern math encodings should use `7m' (see section `texmital.enc': TeX math italic encoding), `7v' (see section `texmext.enc': TeX math symbol encoding), and `7y' (see section `texmsym.enc': TeX math symbol encoding).

`n'

This is used for several different (but very rare) variants: only the Stone typeface has an "informal" variant, and only a few Monotype fonts have a "schoolbook" variant, with different `a', `g', and `y' shapes.

`r'

Included only if no other variants, including encodings, apply, and either the width (see section Widths) is not `r' or a design size is present. I.e., `r' is only used as a placeholder. When the normal version of the typeface is sans serif (e.g., Helvetica), `r' should be used when necessary, not `s'. Use `s' only when the typeface family has both serif and sans serif variants.

`s'

`t'

Mittelbach in TUGboat 13(1) suggests that these variants (for `sans' and `typewriter') should be identified as part of the typeface name, because there are few typeface families with these variants. I feel that since they are logically variants, it's best to name them that way. But `LucidaSans' (see section Typefaces) and a few others are exceptions, to avoid too-long names.

`x'

`8x'

`9?'

`8x' indicates a font in the `Expert' encoding itself. `x' indicates an expertised font, i.e., a composite (virtual) font that includes characters from an `8x' font. And in fact an `xee' sequence is replaced by `9e', to save characters.

Fontname 1 assignments are shown in brackets in the following table, from the file `variant.map'. It is organized alphabetically by abbreviation. Each line consists of an abbreviation and either any parts of a PostScript `FontName' which use that abbreviation or the PostScript `Encoding' name.

obsolete [0=>8a] Adobe standard encoding
obsolete [1 SemiSans]
obsolete [2=>7c] Fraktur encoding
obsolete [3=>7f] Fraction
obsolete [4 fax; now typeface `lx', Lucida Fax]
5 escape for (presently) phonetic encodings
6 escape for Cyrillic encodings [was `SemiSerif']
7 escape for (mostly) 7-bit encodings
8 escape for (mostly) 8-bit encodings
9 escape for (presently) expert encodings [was oldstyle digits]
a Alt Arrows Alternative             [was alternate encoding]
obsolete [b bright; now typeface lh, Lucida Bright]
c SmallCaps
d Display Titling Caption Headline TallCaps SwashCaps LombardicCaps
e Engraved Copperplate Elite
f Fraktur Gothic OldEnglish Handtooled (`gothic' can also be sans)
g SmallText      designed for small sizes [was grooved, as in the IBM logo]
h Shadow
i Italic Kursiv Ital                 text italic
j                                    old-style digits [was invisible]
k Greek                              obsolete
l Outline OpenFace Blanks
m math italic
n Informal Fashion Schlbk            for Stone
o Oblique Obl                        slanted
p Ornaments
obsolete [q=>8t Cork (TeX extended) encoding]
r                                    roman or sans; often omitted, see text
s Gothic                             sans serif
t Monospace                          fixed-width typewriter
u                                    unslanted italic
v MathExtension
w Script Handwritten Swash Calligraphy Cursive Tango
x built with Adobe expert encoding [was expert-encoded]
y MathSymbol
z Cyrillic                           font-dependent Cyrillic
5a PhoneticAlternate
5i PhoneticIPA
5s sil-IPA
6b Cyrillic part of ISO 8859-5, seven bits
6d Cyrillic CP866 encoding
6i ISO 8859-5
6k Cyrillic KOI-8 encoding
6m Cyrillic Macintosh encoding
6w Cyrillic CP1251 encoding
7a A                                 alternate characters only
7c Dfr                               Fraktur
7d OsF OSF                           oldstyle digit encoding
7f Fraction
7k OT2Cyrillic
7m TeXMathItalicEncoding             see section `texmital.enc: TeX math italic encoding'
7t                       TeX text encoding (as in Computer Modern Roman)
7v TeXMathExtensionEncoding          see section `texmext.enc: TeX math symbol encoding'
7y TeXMathSymbolEncoding             see section `texmsym.enc: TeX math symbol encoding'
82 GreekKeys
83 Ibycus1
84 Ibycus2
8a StandardEncoding                  Adobe standard encoding, see section `8a.enc: Adobe standard encoding'
8c TeXTextCompanion                  LaTeX's TS1
8m Macintosh standard encoding
8r TeXBase1Encoding                  see section `8r.enc: TeX base encoding'
8t CorkEncoding                      see section `cork.enc: Cork encoding'
8u XT2Encoding                       cmtt + Latin 2, see `xl2.enc'
8w Windows 3.1 ANSI encoding
8x Expert                            expert encoding
8z XL2Encoding                       cmr + Latin 2, see `xl2.enc'
9c expert + Text companion
9d expert + oldstyle digits + Cork
9e expert + Cork
9o expert + oldstyle digits + TeX text
9s SF                                SuperFont
9t expert + TeX text

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