5 ms·

I don't think "horrible" is a general opinion, although it is in the end a matter of taste. But you do often hear people who think that the vector derivatives

I don't think "horrible" is a general opinion, although it is in the end a matter of taste. But you do often hear people who think that the vector derivatives initially made (Knuth's originals were raster) are too light for comfortable reading on a monitor. There have been some recent uploads to CTAN with heavier versions of CM. I remember them as https://www.ctan.org/pkg/newcomputermodern https://www.ctan.org/pkg/newcomputermodern (book weight) and https://www.ctan.org/pkg/mlmodern https://www.ctan.org/pkg/mlmodern.

zauguin 5y ago
Knuth's original are not really raster fonts, they are vectors but in a format which is not supported in other systems so they have to be mapped to raster fonts before being include e.g. in PDF files. The important difference is that you can customize for which resolution they should be rasterized, so you can get good looking fonts by setting sufficiently high values for your screen and zoom requirements. (Of course this doesn't help if you only get a finished PDF from someone else and for the Type 1 variants it's no longer important anyway.)
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  Has no one bothered to remake probably the most used font in academic publishing in another vector format? If it's already in a vector format?
  - zauguin 5y ago
    People did. I was only talking about the original created by Knuth, the fonts used by default in modern TeX installations are normal Type 1 vector font versions of the font. Most other current variants (like Latin Modern, New Computer Modern, etc. which also include OpenType versions) are derived from these Type 1 fonts.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
leephillips 5y ago
These are great, thank you. EDIT: Do you have any insight into why people still work on packages for type-1 fonts? Who still wants to use these, and why?
- jimhefferon 5y ago
  As contrasted with OpenType? I can't speak for the developers of the fonts but when I compile, Type1 is what I happen to use. I note that the documentation for the MLModern fonts say: OpenType support is planned for a future version.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Yes, as contrasted with otf/ttf. I think of Type-1 as obsolete technology, not often used for new fonts and only supporting 256 glyphs per font. But I guess there must be some upside that I don’t know about.
JorgeGT 5y ago
They are too thin because they were designed to be printed, accounting for the spread of the ink on the paper (gain): https://www.levien.com/type/cmr/gain.html https://www.levien.com/type/cmr/gain.html

zauguin 5y ago

Knuth's original are not really raster fonts, they are vectors but in a format which is not supported in other systems so they have to be mapped to raster fonts before being include e.g. in PDF files. The important difference is that you can customize for which resolution they should be rasterized, so you can get good looking fonts by setting sufficiently high values for your screen and zoom requirements. (Of course this doesn't help if you only get a finished PDF from someone else and for the Type 1 variants it's no longer important anyway.)

TchoBeer 5y ago
Has no one bothered to remake probably the most used font in academic publishing in another vector format? If it's already in a vector format?
- zauguin 5y ago
  People did. I was only talking about the original created by Knuth, the fonts used by default in modern TeX installations are normal Type 1 vector font versions of the font. Most other current variants (like Latin Modern, New Computer Modern, etc. which also include OpenType versions) are derived from these Type 1 fonts.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

leephillips 5y ago

These are great, thank you. EDIT: Do you have any insight into why people still work on packages for type-1 fonts? Who still wants to use these, and why?

jimhefferon 5y ago
As contrasted with OpenType? I can't speak for the developers of the fonts but when I compile, Type1 is what I happen to use. I note that the documentation for the MLModern fonts say: OpenType support is planned for a future version.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Yes, as contrasted with otf/ttf. I think of Type-1 as obsolete technology, not often used for new fonts and only supporting 256 glyphs per font. But I guess there must be some upside that I don’t know about.

JorgeGT 5y ago

They are too thin because they were designed to be printed, accounting for the spread of the ink on the paper (gain): https://www.levien.com/type/cmr/gain.html https://www.levien.com/type/cmr/gain.html