Filenames for fonts
We must limit ourselves to eight character names, for compatibility with
DOS filesystems and the ISO 9660 standard used for CD-ROM distribution.
Names may consist of only the letters (monocase a-z), numerals (0-9),
and underscore.
Here is the basic division of the eight characters (the spaces here are
merely for readability):
S TT W [V...] [N] [E] [DD]
where
- S
- represents the supplier of the font.
- TT
- represents the typeface name.
- W
- represents the weight.
- V...
- represents the variant(s), and is omitted if both it and the width are
normal. Many fonts have more than one variant.
- N
- represents the encoding, and is omitted if the encoding is nonstandard.
Encodings are subsumed in the section on variants (see Variants).
- E
- represents the width ("expansion"), and is omitted if
it is normal.
- DD
- represents the design size (in decimal), and is omitted if the font is
linearly scaled. Mittelbach in TUGboat 13(1) proposes using
hexadecimal or base-36 notation. I don't think the increased range
makes up for the unreadability of the common sizes (e.g., 10pt
fonts would have a suffix
a (in hex), or j (in base 36)).
The weight, variants, and width are probably all best taken from the
original name of the font, instead of trying to relate them to some
external standard.