[XeTeX] OpenType fonts in Linux?

[lyx-devel at oak-tree.us]

Hi Kārlis, 

I can't comment on the advanced use of the fonts, as most things I do are rather pedestrian.  However, Zapfino and the other commercial fonts shown on the cited webpage are licensed with Mac OS X.  If you own and use a Mac, you might be able to export them from fontbook for use on your other computers.  However, many of them are also included in the Adobe Font Folio.  A number of years ago, I was able to purchase a copy of the font folio from my University Book Store for about a hundred dollars.  The CD contains *thousands* of fonts, and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.  If you work for a University or you're a student, it might be worth seeing if you can qualify for the same discount.

Re: Linux and fonts.  Linux has full support for OpenType and TrueType fonts. What it lacks by default, however, is a default font manager (like FontBook on the Mac or the built-in fonts pane of the Control Panel for Windows).  Luckily, however, there are several good font managers available from the repositories.

On Ubuntu, I like FontMatrix (http://fontmatrix.net/).  However, you can also install Fonty Python, which seems to work just as well.

Using XeTeX from Linux is the same as using it from Mac (be sure to install the texlive-xetex package).  I use both operating systems and I've never had any cross-platform problems whatsoever.

Cheers,

Rob Oakes


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kārlis Repsons" <karlis.repsons at gmail.com>
To: xetex at tug.org
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 7:33:00 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: [XeTeX] OpenType fonts in Linux?

And here I am again:

I became tempted to set up some really good and appropriate fonts for each 
part of my works (think normal text, footnotes, sections etc). In [1] you can 
see someone demonstrating things like kerning, ligatures and various styles of 
the same font (Zapfino - is that one supposed to be "for free" for mac users? 
Some people, as I found it, want 230eur for a download in net!). In those 
cases I see lines like:

\fontspec[Ligatures={Common}]{Adobe Garamond Pro}
\fontspec[Variant=7]{Zapfino}

or for transparent characters, which overlap:
\fontspec{HoeflerText-Italic}
{\addfontfeature{Color=00FF0044, Scale=4, Alternate=1}Q}\kern-4ex
{\addfontfeature{Color=FF000033, Scale=8, Alternate=1}Q}\kern-8ex
{\addfontfeature{Color=0000FF22, Scale=16, Alternate=1}Q}\kern-16ex
}


When I try this kind of things, they just don't work because my TT fonts don't 
support it. So I need OpenType or AAT, but those are currently a land of 
confusion for me. Before I dive into long texts about them, I'd like to read 
some short reflections about their obtaining and use on Linux and with XeTeX!
(As system fonts / something else)

Also it would be very nice, if you posted some URL which explain about setting 
text-type <=> font+spec. relations as noted above! Actually some well 
explained opinion about those choices is also my interest.


[1] http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex