Using fonts from the LaTeX Font Catalogue.

[Philip Taylor]

Rolf Turner wrote:

> In respect of the subject line of this email, basically my question is:
>
>     How the <expletive deleted> does one do it?
>
> /* rant on */
>
> I have done considerable web searching, and so far have found zero
> (and possibly a negative amount of) enlightenment.  Everything that I
> have seen seems to start off in the middle --- or at the upper end ---
> and is filled with jargon, acronyms and references to concepts that
> have no meaning to me.  No examples ever seem to be given.  People
> assert that there are clear instructions provided, but as far as I
> can tell there are none. I'd like a simple recipe, with one or two
> minimal examples, that I could follow and adapt.
>
> /* rant off */

"Physician, heal thyself" — if you could give examples of the "jargon, 
acronyms and references to concepts that
have no meaning to [you]", others might be better placed to explain them.

> Let me give an explicit example.  I'd like to make use of a cursive
> script font.  Looking through the LaTeX font catalogue, I found a font
> that seems to be essentially what I want: BrushScriptX-Italic
>
> Now here's some LaTeX code:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> % ???
> % ???
> \begin{document}
> The quick brown hippopotamus jumped over the lazy elephant.
> \end{document}
>
> What can/should I put in the preamble [...] ?

An interesting question.  As one who never willing uses LaTeX, I started 
by trying the obvious —

> % !TeX Program=XeLaTeX
>
>
> \documentclass {article}
>
> \font \myfont = "BrushScriptX-Italic"
>
> \begin {document}
>
> \myfont
>
> The quick brown hippopotamus jumped over the lazy elephant.
>
> \end {document}
>

That did not work, because TeX Live has not provided TTF or OTF files 
for BrushScriptX-Italic.  So I used Voidtools "everything" to find all 
instances of files named BrushScriptX-Italic, and found 
BrushScriptX-Italic.pfa and BrushScriptX-Italic.afm.  Thinking that a 
pure PdfLaTeX solution might work, I then tried —

> % !TeX Program=PdfLaTeX
>
>
> \documentclass {article}
>
> \font \myfont = BrushScriptX-Italic
>
> \begin {document}
>
> \myfont
>
> The quick brown hippopotamus jumped over the lazy elephant.
>
> \end {document}
>

but that did not work either, reporting —

> This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592653-2.6-0.999993 (TeX Live 2021/W32TeX) 
> (preloaded format=xelatex)
>
> restricted \write18 enabled.
>
> entering extended mode
>
> (./untitled-3.tex
>
> LaTeX2e <2020-10-01> patch level 4
>
> L3 programming layer <2021-02-18>
>
> (c:/TeX/Live/2021/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
>
> Document Class: article 2020/04/10 v1.4m Standard LaTeX document class
>
> (c:/TeX/Live/2021/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))name = 
> BrushScriptX-Italic, rootname = BrushScriptX-Italic, pointsize =
>
> mktexmf: empty or non-existent rootfile!
>
>
> kpathsea: Running mktexmf BrushScriptX-Italic.mf
>
>
> The command name is C:\TeX\Live\2021\bin\win32\mktexmf
>
> Cannot find BrushScriptX-Italic.mf.
>
>
> ! Font \myfont=BrushScriptX-Italic not loadable: Metric (TFM) file or 
> installed
>
> font not found.
>
> <to be read again>
>
> \protect
>
> l.5 \begin
>
> {document}
>
> ?
>

Therefore I cannot help, but others undoubtedly will be able to do so.  
I would imagine that some intermediate steps might be required to make 
the Adobe Type-1 font "BrushScriptX-Italic.pfa" usable by LaTeX,but 
since it is well over 20 years since I last felt the need to use a 
Type-1 font with TeX, I no longer have the slightest idea of what those 
steps might be.
-- 
/Philip Taylor/




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