[mpeg-OTspec] Re: AHG conference call reminder

[John Hudson]

Ken wrote:

> What I was describing is the extremely conservative nature of the
> Japanese printing industry, and that changes made to fonts, even if
> they are considered to be corrections, are often unwanted or
> undesired, because they represent changes. For this reason, some
> Composite Font creators may wish to encapsulate or record the specific
> version of the font that was used, to ensure that the resulting
> Composite Font is the same when it is consumed. Of course, this field
> is not required, and we're taking steps to ensure that very few things
> are required, but the format needs to have facility to specify this
> level of detail, in case it is needed by a Composite Font creator.

A more general case:

It is possible that multiple versions of a component font may be 
installed on the user's system, in different locations but under the 
same name. Since different versions may have different levels of both 
character and glyph support, being able to identify the desirable 
version is important for correct display of documents using the 
composite font.

I can imagine a few fallback options for a client that can't find the 
correct version or encounters a composite font in which this information 
is not provided, but having a field for the correct font version within 
the composite font header will be useful. I often work with user 
communities who require quite frequent updates to fonts, sometimes 
involving only a handful of new characters to support some particular 
language or even an individual document. Accurate version identification 
is very important in such situations.

I can imagine a composite font tool grabbing version strings direct from 
the composite fonts, so even if the version string is not correctly 
formatted according to e.g. the OT font spec it will still be a valid 
reference in the composite font to that particular font.

Regards, John


-- 

Tiro Typeworks        www.tiro.com
Gulf Islands, BC      tiro at tiro.com

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