font installation

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Peter, hi Zdenek,

On Thu, 20 Jun 2024, Peter Flynn wrote:
> > fc-cache is not called from cron, fontconfig does it itself via triggers
> > as Norbert wrote.
> 
> Ah, right, thanks. On this system, installing a TT/OT font by right-clicking

Hmm, actually, I don't know how that works with fontconfig triggers. I
am rather surprised, honestly.

> and picking Open With > Fonts installs the font into ~/.local/share/fonts.
> The font works in LibreOffice and in XeLaTeX.

I assume that the file browser you used called fc-cache in the
background.

Honestly, I don't see fc-cache running automatically.

You can test it easily by simply **copying** on the command line fonts
to ~/.local/share/fonts and see whether they are available after a few
min. I would be surprised (will try it out later myself, but need to
tend to other issues now)

> > XeTeX is somewhat special, it can use all system fonts without any Map
> > file.
> 
> Ideal, that's what I had concluded.

It uses the fontconfig system to get fonts, so everything that is
registered with fontconfig will be available to xetex

> But if users get non-TL Type 1 fonts from elsewhere, they will still need to
> use fontinst and go through the afm2tfm and vp2vf route and create the Map
> file; or can XeLaTeX also use .pfb files without it?

No.

> What do people on Windows do without these utilities? I assume they exist on
> Macs.

No idea. I think we ship libfontconfig on Windows and there are some
tooling, but I don't know the specifics.
Mac - don't ask me, I have used it for years and still don't understand
how this ....load of OS is actually working. Good Hardware, horrible
Software.

Best regards

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                              https://www.preining.info
arXiv / Cornell University   +   IFMGA Guide   +   TU Wien  +  TeX Live
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