[texhax] Defining a new font in Plain Tex

Philip TAYLOR P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Tue Jan 12 13:01:34 CET 2010



Paul Isambert wrote:

> \font\bankgothic="Bank Gothic" at 10pt % If you want 10pt of course

> If there are italic or bold variants, say:

> \font\bankgothicit="Bank Gothic /I" at 10pt
> \font\bankgothicbf="Bank Gothic /B" at 10pt
> \font\bankgothicitbf="Bank Gothic /IB" at 10pt

This appeared to be the most user-friendly introduction to XeTeX
that I have yet seen, and for the first time I was tempted to
try it.  Sadly my first attempt fell at the first fence :

      \font \defaultfont = Optima at 20pt

> kpathsea: Running mktextfm Optima
>
> The command name is H:\TeX\Live\2009\bin\win32\mktextfm
>
> kpathsea: Running mktexmf Optima.mf
>
> The command name is H:\TeX\Live\2009\bin\win32\mktexmf
> name = Optima, rootname = Optima, pointsize =
> mktexmf: empty or non-existent rootfile!
> Cannot find Optima.mf.

Fortunately my second attempt was more successful :

     \font \defaultfont = "Palatino Linotype" at 20pt

and I am now motivated to continue.  The obvious difference
between Optima and Palatino Linotype is that the former
is in Type-1 format whilst the latter is in Truetype; are
there problems (surmountable or otherwise) associated with
the use of Type-1 fonts with XeTeX ?

Philip Taylor


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