Fonts come in a variety of formats. The earlier
PostScript Type 3 (METAFONT) and
Type 1 (PS) fonts are now being superseded
by fonts in TrueType (.ttf) and OpenType
(.otf) formats. How you install them and
where they go depends on how and where you installed LATEX:
all I can deal with here are the standard locations within the
TEX Directory
Structure (TDS).
- TrueType and OpenType typefaces
These are a single .ttf or
.otf file per font (so there may be
many for a whole typeface or font family).
- METAFONT typefaces
These are normally used only with older
distributions of LATEX but there are still some fonts
which are not yet available in OpenType or TrueType
format.
They have a number of .mf
source (outline) files and possibly also some
.fd (font definition) files. There
may be .tfm (TEX Font Metric)
files but these are not needed at installation, as they
get generated from the outlines automatically the first
time you use the font.
- PostScript typefaces
They are normally used only with
pdflatex and are no longer
covered in this book.
They come as a pair of files per font (so there may
be many for a whole typeface): a
.pfb (PostScript font
binary) outline, and an
.afm (Adobe Font Metric)
file.
A .sty file (if present)
SHOULD be used in a
\usepackage command to tell LATEX what
font features are available, and there is often a
PDF showing examples and describing how to
use the font or family.
The use of Type 1 and METAFONT typefaces assumes
the use of the New Font Selection
Scheme (NFSS) used in LATEX2ε. If you are running the
obsolete LATEX 2.09, you MUST
upgrade it now, because none of this will work.
A.4.1 TrueType and OpenType fonts
These types of font are already recognised by your
computer, so you just install them in the normal way for
your computer system (usually double-click or right-click on
the font file and select from the
menu).
On Windows and Apple Macintosh OS Xsystems, the
fonts are then available immediately.
On Unix & GNU/Linux systems
you must run the FontConfig
utility fc-cache to give
LATEX fast-loading access to all the fonts you have
installed. Run the program like this:
fc-cache -fv
It can take several minutes, especially if you have a lot
of fonts. Once it has finished, you can search the font
database with the fc-list
utility and then use the grep command to refine the search
for the font name or part, eg:
$ fc-list|grep -i comic|sort
/home/peter/texmf/fonts/truetype/
windows/comicbd.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=Bold
windows/comici.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=Italic
windows/comic.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=Regular
windows/comicz.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=BoldItalic
You can then see the exact font name to use in your
documents, eg
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setsansfont{Comic Sans MS}A.4.1.1 Font management
If you want to keep your additional fonts in several
different locations, you will need to tell
FontConfig where to look. You may
install fonts a ) in your Personal TEX
Directory; b ) in the system’s shared folder; or c ) in your TEX distribution’s shared tree. You should never
install fonts in your TEX distribution’s master tree, as
this will get overwritten when you upgrade, whereas the
shared tree is not touched.
On Unix & GNU/Linux systems
there are already .conf font
configuration files in
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/ for the fonts
that come with the installation. You can create one or more
configuration files for the installation locations you have
used. Some examples are shown in
§ 6.2.1.1 above.
A.4.2 Installing METAFONT fonts
This is the simplest installation. When you download
METAFONT fonts from CTAN, you’ll usually
find a number of outline files (.mf
files) and maybe some other types as well (see below).
Installation of METAFONT fonts
In your Personal TEX
directory, create a new subdirectory called
fonts/source/public/name
named after the typeface you’re installing
Copy all the .mf files to this
directory
Copy any .fd file[s] to your
tex/latex/mfnfss subdirectory (create
it if it doesn’t already exist)
Copy any .sty (style) files to a
subdirectory (create it too), named after the typeface, eg
tex/latex/name
If you are using MiKTEX, run your TEX indexer
program (see step 4 above).
Unix & GNU/Linux systems,
including Apple Macintosh OS X, don’t need this
last step
That’s it. Unlike PostScript
fonts, METAFONT fonts generate their own font metric files
(.tfm files) automatically on-the-fly the
first time the font is used, so there is normally nothing else
to install.
Now you can put a \usepackage command in
your Preamble with whatever name the .sty
file was called, and read the documentation to see what
commands it gives to use the font (refer to item 1 in the list above and step 2 above).
If the font came without
.fd or .sty files,
you’ll need to find someone who can make them for you.
