TrueType Fonts
For Web, text editors in modern operating systems such Microsoft Word, Windows Wordpad, even Notepad, a TrueType font is a great solution.
A number of quite good TrueType fonts are now available including APL385 Unicode (apl385.ttf), SImPL (SImPL.ttf) and APLX Upright (aplx_unicode.ttf). All are available from Vector Magazine's font page.
Click to download the recommended all-purpose font: APL385 Unicode
Here are examples of documents from this Wiki typeset using SImPL:
APL_SimPL.pdf from Wordpad (using Typesetting/APL Characters article)
- Windows Procedure
- Download and install
SImPL.ttf, e.g. on Windows by copying to %SystemRoot%\Fonts
Adobe PostScript Printer Driver
- Ghostscript
Configure your browser or specify a custom CSS to use SImPL.ttf, or select the font in an editor
Print (with Preview) selecting the Generic PostScript Printer, saving to a file with .ps extension
use ps2pdf file.ps command from Ghostscript to convert to PDF
Type 1 Fonts and LaTeX
For PostScript enabled operating system or LaTeX, it is possible to use Type 1 scalable fonts, which provide best viewing experience for various media output.
One such font SAXPSA originally developed by JoeyTuttle and exended by others, compiled by RobertBernecky and available at http://www.snakeisland.com/ (elaborate system install) or http://olegykj.sourceforge.net/ (simplified local install).
Here are examples of documents from this Wiki typeset using this font:
apltest.pdf generated by pdftex
saxpsa.png magnified version rendered by Acrobat Reader
- LaTeX Procedure (Simple)
download and extract SAXPSA Type 1 APL font package, and follow readme.txt
place the contents of the "texmf" folder in a user or local texmf folder according to your texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf configuration
see the fonts/map folder *.map files for additional configuration, esp. dvips. Consult dvips and pdftex docs as needed
See Also
Fonts developed for APL, Vector
An APL Unicode Font, Vector Magazine
http://www.snakeisland.com/ - SAXPSA "aplfont" package by Rober Bernecky
http://olegykj.sourceforge.net/ - SAXPSA package with simple install
The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbols List, has custom symbols tutorial
Making outline fonts from Metafont, TeX FAQ