[OS X TeX] Newbie TeTex font installation

[Thomas A. Schmitz]

On Nov 17, 2005, at 2:00 AM, "Paul Vickers" wrote:

> I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to take one of my
> TrueType font families (say, GillSans.ttf, GillSansItalic.ttf,
> GillSansBold.ttf, and GillSansBoldItalic.ttf) and converting it so  
> I can
> use it with LaTeX (pdfLaTeX to be precise).
>
> Background:
> I'm running Gerben Wierda's TeX installation on an Apple PowerBook
> running OS X 10.4.3.
>
> I tried using ttf2tex but that generates an internal error as soon  
> as it
> gets to the ttf2afm stage.
>
> I have tried various web sites with different recipes, but to no  
> avail.
> The most recent one I tried was
> http://www.tug.org/mactex/fonts/fonttutorial-current.html#sec2 but  
> all I
> end up with is a blank document when I select the new font with:
>
> \RequirePackage[T1]{fontenc}
> \RequirePackage{textcomp}
> \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{pgs}
>
> where pgs is the font family name I have to GillSans (from the  
> Fontname
> document).
>
> I have tried XeTeX, but as I also work with MikTeX on a PC, I don't  
> want
>   my TEX files to be platform-dependent.
>
> Can anyone please point a frustrated newbie to a simple set of
> instructions for adding new fonts to LaTeX from a .ttf source?
>
> Thanks
>
> Paul Vickers
>
I don't want to push my own stuff, but: IMHO, the tool texfont (which  
comes with ConTeXt and is probably part of your TeX installation) is  
way easier to use than fontinst. I have written something for PracTeX  
that shows how to convert truetype fonts for use in TeX with texfont:  
http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/schmitz/ The title of the article  
mentions ConTeXt, but there's a section about LaTeX as well.

If you stick to the standard characters within the EC or texnansi- 
range, you should be fine with most (not all) fonts. But if the  
characters have non-standard names, it's not a good idea to modify  
the fonts or the afms, as Pete suggested. Rather, use a custom  
encoding file. It's explained in the article; you can ask me again if  
you run into trouble here.

I'm really a bit surprised that using truetype fonts is still  
considered so difficult. After doing it several times, I now find it  
really trivial, and it takes about 15 minutes to produce and copy the  
tfm and vf files, include the relevant information into the map files  
and write a typescript (ConTeXt) or font definition + package  
(LaTeX). It really isn't hard at all, so don't be frustrated.

Good luck

Thomas
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