Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!strath-cs!nott-cs!clan!cczdao
From: cczdao@clan.clan.nott.ac.uk (David Osborne)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: TeX,InitTeX,TFM files
Summary: you need METAFONT
Keywords: TeX,InitTeX,TFM files
Message-ID: <8001@robin.cs.nott.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Sep 89 10:52:57 GMT
References: <251D440F.1E2C@marob.masa.com> <2538@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Sender: mmdf@cs.nott.ac.uk
Reply-To: cczdao@clan.UUCP (David Osborne)
Organization: Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham, UK
Lines: 57

In article <2538@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> oplinger@crd.ge.com (B. S. Oplinger) writes:
> [...]
>this is exactly my problem (on an Atari):
>\bigtenrm=cmr10 scaled\magstep2
>
>and the error:
>
>Font \bigtenrm=cmr10 scaled 1440 not loadable: Metric (TFM) file
>not found.
> [...]
>What I would like is: the missing TFM (.tfm?) files I need.
> [...]
>I seem to guess I requires using initex and plain.tex,
>but I'm lost as what to do.

Brian says he only has the TeXbook to work from.  if he were to have
the METAFONTbook (also by Don Knuth, also publ. Addison-Wesley), all
would be revealed.
    when TeX formats a document, it needs to know the dimensions of
the characters it sets.  these dimensions for each character in a font
are held in a TFM (TeX Font Metric) file and you need one such TFM
file for each font.  TeX doesn't need the font files at all, since all
it needs are the TFM's for each font you use in your document.  this
means you can format a document on a machine without any font files,
then move the DVI file to another system with font files for printing,
since they are read by the DVI driver programs.  it also means that
TeX can't set characters from a font for which it doesn't have the TFM
file, since it doesn't know the sizes of the characters.
    however, the TFM file is generated, not by TeX, but by the
companion program, METAFONT, which is used to build the font files.
METAFONT reads a set of .mf files describing the characters in a font
and writes a GF (Generic Font) file and a TFM file for the font
(analogous to TeX reading a .tex file and writing a .dvi file).  the
GF contains the bitmaps of the characters and is usually translated
into a PK ("packed") font file by a utility program called GFtoPK.
    if you have a set of PK files, you should have been supplied with
the matching set of TFM's.  if not, you'll need to get them from some
other system, or run METAFONT to generate them.  for the latter,
you'll need the set of .mf files which describe the Computer Modern
family of fonts which are usually used with TeX.
    there is a METAFONT for the Atari which is in the public domain.
i think a copy will be held in the Atari archive on
terminator.cc.umich.edu [35.1.33.8] for anonymous ftp, or ask in one
of the Atari newsgroups.  copies might also be available in various
TeX archives worldwide, like the Aston archive here in the UK.  (you
might find a set of TFM files in the archives, which would save having
to run METAFONT yourself).

dave
(Aston TeX archive maintainers group)
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     David Osborne       |   JANET: d.osborne@uk.ac.nott.clan
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David Osborne