Re: [Groff] Re: Adding styles to DESC

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I mean, how often does one, working in, say, Helvetica Medium
> Italic, want to switch completely to Garamond and preserve the font
> weight/style at Medium Italic?

All LaTeX users expect this. :-)  Its a natural consequence if you
handle all font selection parameters independently.

> Other than the obvious fact that one has to take care that the style
> extension doesn't conflict with a family name (e.g. Condensed can't
> be C, or it conflicts with Courier Roman), can anyone foresee any
> problems with this scheme?

The LaTeX people have found a very sophisticated solution for font
selection by separating the font name components with `/'.  For
example, Adobe Times Roman Bold Italic is `ptm/m/it' (`ptm' is the
family name, `m' for medium series , `it' for italic shape).
Basically, something similar should be used for groff styles, say,

  TR -> T-R
  HNBI -> HN-BI


      Werner