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(dvips.info)Font concepts

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Font concepts
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  The information needed to typeset using a particular font is contained
in two files: a "metric file" that contains shape-independent
information and a "glyph file" that contains the actual shapes of the
font's characters.  A "virtual font" is an optional additional file
that can specify special ways to construct the characters.  TeX itself
(or LaTeX) look only at the metric file, but DVI drivers such as Dvips
look at all three of these files.

  An "encoding file" defines the correspondence between the code
numbers of the characters in a font and their descriptive names.  Two
encoding files used together can describe a reencoding that rearranges,
i.e., renumbers, the characters of a font.

Metric files

Shape-independent font information.

Glyph files

Character shapes.

Virtual fonts

Constructing one font from others.

Encodings

Character codes and character names.

PostScript typesetting

How PostScript typesets a character.