Re: Setting fonts in texinfo

On 7/4/22 04:20, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 11:38:41AM -0700, Michael Eager wrote:
>> I'm using the GNU texinfo package to generate both PDF and .info files from
>> a .texi file.
>>
>> I'm trying to update an old .texi file (not changed since 2001) and generate
>> the same PDF output. I've resolved a number of issues, but there are a
>> couple outstanding. In the old PDF, the title was in Helvetica and body text
>> is Liberation Serif. In the new PDF, both are Computer Modern.
>>
>> I've read everything that I can find about fonts, but I'm not able to change
>> the fonts. Nothing that I do seems to work. Everything I have tried
>> generates errors.
>>
>> In my .texi file, before any \setfont directives, I hxave \def\fontprefix{uh}
>> which, if I read the pdftex.map file correctly, should select the NimbusSanL
>> font set (e.g. uhvr8a.pfb). I get the following errors:
>>
>> mktexnam: Could not map source abbreviation for uhss10.
>> kpathsea: Running mktexmf uhss10
>> ! I can't find file uhss10'.
>> <*> ...ljfour; mag:=1; ; nonstopmode; input uhss10`
>>
>> Does anyone have a example .texi file which sets the font family to use?
> 
> As you can tell, there is no officially supported way of setting the fonts
> with texinfo.tex.  You have to look at the internal details of implementation
> to get anything to work.
> 
> There was a patch to use Palatino fonts.  This page (from 2009)
> 
> https://blog.sandipb.net/2009/02/12/getting-more-printable-pdfs-from-texinfo-manuals/
> 
> discusses it, although unfortunately most of the links on that page don't work.
> I don't know where you would get palatino.tex from (I think I have it saved
> on an old hard drive somewhere but it would be time-consuming for me to find
> it).
> 
> I found the following file which was based on palatino.tex
> 
> https://github.com/dalizard/sicp-pdf/blob/master/src/utopia.tex
> 
> - however, I don't know if it works.
> 
> There was another page (from 2010) here
> 
> http://blog.damn.org.za/2010/06/25/sans-serif-fonts-in-texinfo/
> 
> however, that link appears dead, and it's not on the Wayback Machine either.
> 
> Perhaps you can patch texinfo.tex to avoid the missing fonts.  E.g., the
> the name of the missing font uhss10 comes from
> 
> \def\sfshape{ss}
> \def\sfbshape{ss}
> 
> in texinfo.tex.  This is supposed to be for sans-serif, but it's very likely
> that your Texinfo document doesn't rely on sans-serif fonts.

Thanks.  I'll take a look at the links you mentioned.

I was aware that the uhss10 came from the define for SS fonts, but I, 
perhaps naively, thought that there should be a way to change fonts 
without modifying texinfo.tex.