Which font is this? Is there an equivalnet for use in plain TeX?

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2020-12-29 at 17:16:28 +0000, Philip Taylor wrote:

 > Heiko Oberdiek via texhax wrote:
 > 
 > > Font setup in plain TeX is no fun, one of the reasons not to use
 > > it.
 > 
 > Heiko, with the greatest respect, that is pure FUD ("Fear,
 > uncertainty and doubt").Ê I have been setting up fonts in plain TeX
 > (and more recently, in plain PdfTeX and then plain XeTeX) since the
 > late mid 80's.Ê I even wrote my own font-handling library, based on
 > the Kellerman & Smith naming conventions, long before NFSS existed
 > for LaTeX.Ê Font setup in plain TeX is simple and straightforward,
 > and even more so in plain XeTeX.Ê By all means sing the praises of
 > LaTeX, but please do not try to convince others that plain TeX is
 > anything to be feared or avoided Ñ it is anything but.

Hello Phil,
what Heiko means is that it's quite inconvenient to setup many fonts
at different sizes without a font-handling library.  You wrote your
own library, Heiko prefers NFSS2.

I never used XeTeX but I suppose that OTF handling is similar to
LuaTeX.  In LuaTeX you have to load luaotfload in advance.  Fonts are
loaded as described in The TeXbook but the application of OTF features
might be different.

For pdfTeX there is already a font-handling library in TeX Live,
plnfss, which requires that the fonts are already installed for use
with LaTeX.  In this case it's necessary to install URW Arial via
getnonfreefonts.  Installation for LaTeX is necessary because plnfss
[ab]uses NFSS2 .fd files.

I strongly recommend to use either XeTeX or LuaTeX though.

Heiko, how do you distinguish between Arial and Helvetica?  It's easy
if the text contains an "R".  I must admit that I don't like the "R"
in Helvetica at all and thus I don't think that TeX Gyre Heros is a
good replacement for Arial.  

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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