[texhax] Can anyone tell me what these characters are?

[Pierre MacKay]

On 03/19/2010 05:09 AM, Ulrike Fischer wrote:
> Am Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:44:12 -0400 (EDT) schrieb Micha Hofri:
>
>    
>> The following is from a log file which latex created when compiling a
>> list of mathematical symbols:
>>
>> LaTeX Font Info:    Font shape `OMS/ptm/m/n' in size<10>  not available
>> (Font)              Font shape `OMS/cmsy/m/n' tried instead on input line 135.
>> LaTeX Font Info:    Font shape `OT1/ptm/bx/n' in size<5>  not available
>> (Font)              Font shape `OT1/ptm/b/n' tried instead on input line 135.
>> LaTeX Font Info:    Try loading font information for TS1+ptm on input line 135.
>>
>>
>>      
The first instance appears to be an attempt to call out a symbol from a 
font that does not have the special repertory of math symbols available 
in TeX.  That is quite normal.  There are lots of symbols that don't 
occur in commercial fonts like Times.

The second instance has to do with the aesthetics of reducing a 
character to a too-small size.  I suspect you wouldn't want cmbx at 5 
point even if you could get it.  The thickening of the penstrokes in 
cmbx reaches a point that might easily reduce a character to a blob if 
there were any degree of ink flow at the time of printing.  DEK quite 
deliberately left cmbx out of the available font shapes available for a 
point-size that small.

It doesn't sound as if the callout has been triggered by a general 
reduction of some real text, but rather by an attempt to produce a 
simple list of glyphs at various sizes.  I suggest you look at the Adobe 
Standard character set for the Times font and you will probably notice 
that some of the symbols you have asked for just aren't there.  As for 
cmbx at 5pt, best to leave it out altogether.

The font selection and replacement mechanism looks to be working 
perfectly---doing just what you would need done..

(Contrast that with what happens to PDFs in certain environments, where 
interword spaces are substituted for f-ligatures, small-caps, and 
everything else from the Adobe Expert Character set.  That is, Adobe 
won't even recognize its own character set.)

Pierre MacKay
www.angiolello.net