The reason I write this article is because I found the
3270 font converted by otftotfm program has wrong baseline.
Tools you would need: To start with, we
assume you stick with direct
fontware: PDF output with pdfTeX or
Tools needed to edit TFM DVI output with any of the
and VF files. popular processors. The
capability to use certain
font formats are different,
Wt1utils: usually DVIPDFMx is better
Very handy package for at handling not so well
inspecting PostScript Type formed files.
1 fonts and doing minor
modification on them. First of all you would
need a encoding file, which
specifies how would you
updmap and mktexlsr: assign glyph to at most 256
After installed new fonts code points of a TeX font
you need to run these file. To handle CJK there
commands to let your TeX‐ are special hacks that would
Live distribution recog‐ not be covered here. You
nize them. don't necessarily need to
convert the font to Type 1,
but many times you would not
otftotfm: able to map some strange
Good to have, helps you get characters from TTF or OTF
to the start point. file, so it would be handy
to have a Type 1 .pfb file
that you could inspect it
A lisp interpreter. with t1disasm and modify the
So you can make quick hacks glyph IDs.
to PL and VPL files.
After that TFM is what
Tools you don't need: TeX uses to typeset docu‐
FontForge. You won't need ments. A virtual font pro‐
this messy thing to be a duces the same TFM format
professional TeXnician, if and in addition a VF file to
you would ever use it to tell how to find the con‐
edit fonts, just know that crete font.
you can get better fonts to
start with or do it the Then the outline file,
harder way. usually Type 1, but TTF or
OTF would also work.
Only quiche eaters use
LuaTeX or XeTeX to get new Finally a map file that
fonts, real TeXnichians associates the outline file,
write they own kerning encoding file, and TFM file.
tables for the fonts they
use.
