[OS X TeX] How install & use genuine Adobe Times-Roman small caps fonts?

Michael Sharpe msharpe at ucsd.edu
Sun Aug 10 00:57:21 CEST 2014


On Aug 9, 2014, at 2:31 PM, Murray Eisenberg <murrayeisenberg at gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to install, and use in LaTeX documents, genuine Adobe Times-Roman Small Caps (and Bold Small Caps) fonts. That is, when small caps or bold small caps are called for in a LaTeX source where Times-Roman is the text font, the Adobe fonts should be used.
> 
> I have the appropriate .pfb, .afm, .pfa, and .pfm files. And yes, I've read font installationguide.pdf, but that seems to be describing how to add a totally new font. But here, I'm just adding (or, I suppose, substituting) certain shapes/weights within existing Times-Roman font support files.
> 
> The new support files will go into my _local_ texmf tree, namely: ~/Library/texmf.
> 
> 
> Question 1: Should I actually use the "ptm" prefix and rename the distributed files tirsc___.* to ptmrc8a.* (and similarly tibsc___.* to ptmbc8a.*)?  Or will that create a conflict eventually with existing system-wide texmf files?
> 
> From now on, I'll just speak of the regular small caps files; similar questions apply to the bold small caps.
> 
> 
> Question 2: Is this the correct driver file for the next step, creating .fd, .pl, ..vpl, and .mtx files?
> 
>   % ptm-drv.tex
>   \input fontinst.sty
>   \needsfontinstversion{1.926}
>   \recordtransforms{ptm-rec.tex}
>   \latinfamily{ptm}{}
>   \endrecordtransforms
>   \bye
> 
> Question 3: Assuming the preceding answer is yes, then the next step is to compile metrics and virtual font files, via:
> 
> 
>   for file in  *.pl; do pltotf $file; done
>   for file in *.vpl; do vptovf $file; done
> 
> Aren't some of the generated *.fd files redundant given that the identically-named system /usr/local/texlive/2014/texmf-dist/texlatex/psnfss/*.fd files include what's in the newly-generated *.fd? E.g., t1ptm.fd.
> 
> Which leads to:
> 
> Question 4: What is the relationship during normal latex processing between a font-related file in the system texmf tree and the identically-named file in the local texmf tree?
> 
> Does the local version get processed instead of the system version? or are the contents of the local version in effect added to the system version?
> 
> I ask this because:
> 
> (a) most of the newly-generated local *.fd files consist of entries already in the corresponding system *.fd files -- namely, ot1ptm.fd, t1ptm.fd, and ts1ptm.fd;
> 
> (b) however, newly-generated local 8rptm.fd has an entry \DeclareFontShape{8r}{ptm}{m}{sc}{<-> ptmrc8r}{} that does NOT appear in the corresponding system file.
> 
> (Similar considerations would seem to apply to the newly-generated .vf  and .tfm files, which of course are not human readable.)
> 
> Question 5: Processing of the driver file (step 2) creates a record file ptm-rec.tex, which is then processed via a new file:
> 
>  *ptm-map.tex
>  \input finstmsc.sty
>  \resetstr{PSfontsuffix}{.pfb}
>  \adddriver{dvips}{ptm.map}
>  \input ptm-rec.tex
>  \donedrivers
>  \bye
> 
> And other drivers I should be including with \adddriver commands?
> 
> Processing ptm-map.tex produces ptm.map, which I know I should put into ~/Library/texmf/dvips/config.
> 
> Do I actually need now to manually edit the local copy of config.ps in order to add "p +ptm.map" to it?  (And similarly for pdftex and xdvi.)
> 
> Or will just editing web2c/updmap.cfg so as to add "Map ptm.map" to it, and then running updmap, take care of this?
> 
> I note that font installationguide.pdf makes no mention of updmap.
> 
> 
> 
> (Sorry if this is a bit off-topic from MacTex-specific issues. But I haven't gotten either strictly on-topic or complete answers elsewhere.)
> ---

In general, you should avoid use of the prefix ptm unless you are fully aware of the consequences, as doing this may interfere with the many other support files using this prefix. And, if you are trying to fit these two special faces into an existing package, you don't need to build everything from scratch, and the current TeXLive packages that offer Times support have in most cases already provided their own support files for their versions of small caps, which are supposed to be metrically equivalent to Adobe's. So, it would help to know which package your are trying to insert these into, as it may then be possible to modify the map file and the fd files to point to your own modifications. You may even be able to avoid fontinst in favor of afm2tfm, which is much less involved.

To answer some of your other questions, tex searches for support files in texmf branches in the following order (in TL2014).

1. Current folder.
2. ~/Library/texlive/2014/texmf-var
3. ~/Library/texmf
4. /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local
5. /usr/local/2014/texmf-dist.

So, anything you install in 3. will take priority over the system files 4. and 5.

So, it is important to know which Times package you will start with.

Michael




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