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 XƎLATEX
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
/home/peter/texmf/fonts/truetype/windows/comici.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=Italic
/home/peter/texmf/fonts/truetype/windows/comic.ttf: Comic Sans MS:style=Regular
/home/peter/texmf/fonts/truetype/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}
B.2.1 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
Figure B.1 below: the font names shown are just
suggestions: numbering them lets you group them together.
Figure B.1: Configurations for TrueType and OpenType fonts on UNIX & GNU/Linux systems
eg file 07-personal.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<dir>/home/peter/texmf/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/home/peter/texmf/fonts/truetype</dir>
</fontconfig>
Fonts installed in the system’s shared folder
eg file 08-system.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<dir>/usr/local/share/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/share/fonts/truetype</dir>
</fontconfig>
Fonts installed in the shared folders of a TEX distribution
eg file 09-texlive.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<dir>/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/truetype</dir>
<dir>/usr/share/texmf/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/usr/share/texmf/fonts/truetype</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-dist/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-dist/fonts/truetype</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/opentype</dir>
<dir>/usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/truetype</dir>
</fontconfig>
Running fc-cache again will
now index all the extra directories you have given.
