[OS X TeX] Newbie TeTex font installation

[Paul Vickers]

Thanks Thomas

First time through it took  while, but it worked with my LaTeX 
installation! Alas, I used GillSans as a test which doesn't seem to 
support either old style numbers or small caps, but the basic charset 
worked fine! Thanks ever so much.

Not ready to move to ConTeXt yet as I don't want to learn another macro 
package, especially as most journals still want LaTeX files. However, 
now I can get my favourite fonts working (as far as they allow) I am a 
happy bunny!

Cheers

Paul

Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:
> 
> 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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Dr P. Vickers BSc PhD CEng MIEE ILTM
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