Notes on the "Postscript sampler" package for EMTEXGI

If you would like to set up support for selected Postscript fonts (Times, Helvetica and Courier, as used in the LaTeX package times.sty) then get the following files in addition to the ones marked "essential" in getit.htm.

FileUSAUKGermany Comment
timestex.zip Get it Get it Get it sty and fd files
psfonts.zip Get it Get it Get it PK font files for dviwin

...as well as times.bat.

Procedure for the postscript sampler package: Get the files just indicated and place them in the same temporary directory from which you are installing the rest of the system. Then, after running emtex.bat as described in install.txt, run (again at the DOS prompt) the batch files times.bat. It may not be a bad idea to first read the explanatory notes below.

Testing: If the installation goes OK, now try the following: Start up emtexgi and press the Edit button. You should now find, in \emtex\mytex\ a file named times.tex. Open it in your editor. It shows you how to call the Times package, and demonstrates some of your options. Minimize your editor and push the LaTeX button. Once that's done push the View dvi button. If the installation has really worked you will now see some text in Times in dviwin. Now shrink dviwin and try the ps (300) button. Hopefully, a postscript file will be made correctly, with no missing fonts.

Explanatory notes

After following the directions you should be able to Please be aware, though, that times.sty will not put mathematics into Times: it will still be in Computer Modern. For math, it is hard to get results as good as those obtained with TeX's default fonts. To get good results you will probably have to buy a commercial math font package such as Mathtime from Y&Y. What times.sty does offer you is (a) Times instead of Computer Modern for roman, italic and bold, (b) Helvetica instead of TeX's sans serif font and (c) Courier instead of TeX's typewriter font.

The files: short version

Timestex.zip is a very small zipfile containing times.sty and the font definition files needed by LaTeX. Psfonts.zip is a huge zipfile (about 3MB) containing PK fonts (that is, the sort of fonts needed for previewing documents with dviwin) corresponding to the entire set of "standard" Adobe postscript fonts. Times.bat, however, installs only a small subset of these, and you can delete psfonts.zip once times.bat has been run. Personally, I see no point in installing all of the standard postscript fonts with TeX. Most of them are markedly inferior to Donald Knuth's Computer Modern fonts, quite apart from the fact that they don't support mathematical typesetting. Some of the non-standard ones are quite attractive -- e.g. Caslon, Bembo -- but you have to pay good money for these, and you still don't get math, without a lot of work. End of diatribe.

What's going on?

Enquiring minds may wish to know what's going on with timestex.zip and times.bat. (This note is really intended for those who are fairly knowledgeable about TeX.) Well, timestex.zip contains: times.sty as obtained by processing psfonts.dtx; OML*.fd, OMS*.fd and OT1*.fd for Times, Helvetica and Courier, from the .../adobe directories on CTAN; and a little sampler, times.tex, that shows the use of times.sty. The OT1*.fd files have been edited: the string "7t" has been removed from all, for consistency with the emTeX/dvips distribution which does not use that designation.

I packaged the stuff up in this way because (a) it's a fiddle assembling all these bits and pieces, (b) it's a chore to have to edit the fd files to make them work, and (c) if you do it yourself you're liable to get a lot of overkill -- e.g. not just times.sty, but a lot of monstrosities such as helvetic.sty, avantgar.sty.

Times.bat, besides unpacking the stuff mentioned above and distributing it to the right locations in the emTeX tree, also operates on psfonts.zip. The problem with this (CTAN) file is that although it contains all the PKs you need (plus a lot more!) they are in a form that is incompatible with 16-bit Windows and the dviwin default font setup. That is, the font filenames look like, e.g., ptmr.300pk. And all the files are sitting there in just one directory. What we need for DOS is to move ptmr.300pk to 300\ptmr.pk. And so on for all the other font families and resolutions. Quite a chore. Times.bat does it for the Times fonts, plus those files from Helvetica and Courier that are actually likely to be some use.

Note: If you want to go any further with postscript fonts in TeX, I recommend that you consult The LaTeX Companion (by Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin, Addison-Wesley).

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