[OS X TeX] Installing mbboard

[Michael Sharpe]

On Dec 5, 2013, at 10:10 AM, Don Green Dragon <fergdc at Shaw.ca> wrote:

> Hello and Thanks Michael,
> 
> On 04Dec2013, at 7:43 PM, Michael Sharpe <msharpe at ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Dec 4, 2013, at 6:24 PM, Don Green Dragon <fergdc at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> 
>> <<snip>>
> 
>> If you want Blackboard Bold upper and lower case as well as digits, the STIX symbols are very well done and will give much better on-screen results than metafont based fonts. The easiest way to use the STIX I know of to use the STIX BB in an arbitrary choice of math fonts is to say
>> 
>> \usepackage[bb=boondox]{mathalfa}
>> 
>> after loading your math package.
>> 
>> Michael
> 
> I do not understand you line "after loading your math package.» What package? Nonetheless, before reading your Email I had downloaded "STIXv.1.1.0-latex.zip» which when unzipped produced the directory 
> 
> ~/Downloads/STIXv.1.1.0-latex
> 
> Many levels down in the above directory there exists a subdirectory stix which contains a whole mess of .pfb files including 
> 
> stix-mathbb.pfb, stix-mathbb-bold.pfb, stix-mathbbit-bold.pfb,  stix-mathbbit.pfb
> 
> which I guess are amongst the font files I need. Next I went into "Font Book.app» and choose
> 
> File -> Add Fonts…
> 
> then wandered down to that stix directory and chose `OPEN’. Something happened but I’m not sure what! But when «All Fonts» was selected under `Collection’ I could find NO stix entries.  None! Where did they go?
> 
> Then I tried your suggestion 
> 
> \usepackage[bb=boondox]{mathalfa}
> 
> and the simple source code
> 
> \mathbb{ABC \; abc \; 012}
> 
> miraculously produced the desired glyphs. I tested the above in the plain jane template LaTeXtemplate as well as the one I normally use. I both cases the glyphs were very nice.
> 
> What I don’t understand is «How is TeXShop finding those fonts files?» Does it actually use the ones that are situated deep in the ~/Downloads directory? I vaguely recall persons on this list advising where `new’ fonts should be placed.
> 
> Is there some further step that should be undertaken, or did your magic line take care of everything? If it did, then I should be able to dump the entire directory "~/Downloads/STIXv.1.1.0-latex» — I guess.
> 
> Thanks for your continuing help.
> 

Assuming you have TeXLive from either 2012 or 2013, everything needed is already installed and enabled unless you specifically disabled some of the fonts that come wih TeXLive. So, in the preamble of your .tex file you'll have one or more lines that load fonts. For example,

\usepackage{mathpazo} % load palatino clone with pazo math fonts
\usepackage[bb=boondox,scr=rsfso]{mathalfa} % replace its Blackboard bold and use rsfso for \mathscr.

Effectively, TeXShop defers to TeXLive for all TeX processing, and that uses the entire elaborate TeXLive "kpathsea" (Karl's path search, cut to 8 characters) library for finding files, but only in the texmf trees. It certainly doesn't search Downloads. You may use kpsewhich to find file locations. Eg, in a Terminal window, type

/usr/texbin/kpsewhich stix-mathbb.pfb

gives you its path.

Michael