Is it possible to write a cm-super package?

Question

Almost all pre-configured fonts for PDFTeX are enabled with a \usepackage{...} statement, except cm-super. This package works like this: if you install it, it replaces all the T1 encoded (bitmap) Computer Modern fonts by default, and you can only use the originals if you create a map file without the cm-super entries, and use \pdfmapfile{nosuper.map} in your document.

Now the average LaTeX end user (like me) doesn't have a clue about what a map file is and doesn't care either. Is it possible to write a cm-super.sty package that enables these fonts when it is loaded, and the default fonts stay the same?

Note: I know that this is not very important because there is lmodern, but... whatever.

Answer 1

When you install the CM-Super font in a TeX distribution, the mapping for Type1 fonts is updated to use them. So, without manually disabling the loading of the map files done by updmap (usually in the variant updmap-sys) on TeX Live or the equivalent method in MiKTeX, you'll have the fonts automatically mapped to their Type1 correspondent.

Therefore, writing a package that loads the CM-Super fonts on demand is not possible, without doing (nasty) things with one's own TeX distribution.

On the other hand, you can easily make a package nocmsuper.sty that avoids using the CM-Super fonts, but I don't see why you would.

\ProvidesPackage{nocmsuper}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-t1.map}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-t2a.map}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-t2b.map}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-t2c.map}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-ts1.map}
\pdfmapfile{-cm-super-x2.map}
\endinput

to be loaded as soon as possible, before any box is typeset.