[mpeg-OTspec] Toward a Composite Font format specification

[Ken Lunde]

All,

Slight topic deviation ahead...

I was in a meeting this morning, and its discussions led to an idea  
for another <ComponentFont> attribute that we have not yet considered.  
Under some circumstances, especially when dealing with embedded fonts,  
it may be useful to specify whether the font is embedded (in a file  
that references the Composite Font or the Component Font) or available  
on the device (a "device" font). This, of course, would be optional,  
but I guarantee that some producers will want to specify this.

I am not sure about the best way to characterize this, in terms of an  
attribute name, but perhaps we can state that all <ComponentFont>  
instances are "device fonts" unless an "IsEmbedded" boolean flag is  
specified.

I would welcome any thoughts about this.

-- Ken

On 2009/08/26, at 12:20, Thomas Phinney wrote:

> My first assumption would be that all scaling should include scaling
> metrics, though I am mindful of the issues Karsten brings up.
>
> T
>
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 9:27 AM, Daniel Strebe<dstrebe at adobe.com>  
> wrote:
>>
>> Thomas,
>>
>> Thanks for chiming in. To clarify, do you mean to advocate scaling
>> horizontally within the same design space when you mention faux  
>> small caps?
>> (Meaning, without increasing the glyph advance width, escapement, and
>> kerning values?)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> ― daan Strebe
>> Senior Computer Scientist
>> Adobe Systems Incorporated
>>
>>
>> On 09/08/25 21:51, "Thomas Phinney" <tphinney at cal.berkeley.edu>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd advocate keeping the three different scaling factors (overall, X
>> and Y). I can honestly imagine plenty of use cases for them, both in
>> traditional and non-traditional cases.
>>
>> One use for asymmetric X/Y scaling is in manufacturing small caps.  
>> One
>> could use a composite font mechanism to build faux small caps,
>> possibly scaled slightly so as to be slightly wider than strictly
>> proportional scaling. Ditto for creating numeric (or alphabetic)
>> inferiors or superiors. Using the composite font mechanism would  
>> allow
>> for taking the base glyphs from a heavier weight of the "same"
>> typeface....
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> T
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick  
> themselves up
> and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
> - Sir Winston Churchill
>
>
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