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I want to use the Fontin font in my pdfLatex document.

What steps should I do for using a downloaded font

  • Should I download the TTF or the OpenType version?
  • Where should I store the font?
  • Should any font processing be done?
  • How can pdfLatex find this font?

I am using TexLive 2011 installed in a custom location (/somepath/texlive/2011) on Ubuntu

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I know that I posted a question yesterday about the same thing for XeTeX (tex.stackexchange.com/questions/27659/…), but as pdfLaTeX is so different I thought that a new question is justified – Peter Smit Sep 7 '11 at 10:15
4  
Have you tried LuaTeX? It's based on PDFTeX, will eventually replace it and it is supported by fontspec just like XeTeX. – ℝaphink Sep 7 '11 at 10:19
1  
Use LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX instead of pdfLaTeX, as fontspec makes loading fonts much easier. – Martin Schröder Sep 7 '11 at 14:48
1  
Most users (almost all) can hardly install TrueType or OpenType fonts for pdfTeX (and Dvips/dvipdfm/dvipdfmx etc) properly. You need to at least know the usage of ttf2tfm utility, font mapping of pdfTeX, NFSS of LaTeX, TeX distribution and some other experience. As Martin said, use modern LuaTeX or XeTeX instead would be much easier. – Leo Liu Sep 7 '11 at 15:36

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

There are some tutorials and tools on this topic, but the technique is too tricky for most users, even for experienced ones. Thus, using LuaTeX or XeTeX is always a better choice.

In short, you need:

  1. Download the TrueType fonts. Copy them to LOCALTEXMF/fonts/truetype/somename/.
  2. Use ttf2tfm utility to make .tfm file for these fonts. And you will get the font map on console at the same time. You should copy the .tfm file to LOCALTEXMF/fonts/tfm/somename/.
  3. Write a .map file for the font. And copy it to LOCALTEXMF/fonts/map/somename/.
  4. Run updmap utility to update the font map. This is useful for pdfTeX only.but harmful for dvips and dvipdfm, for dvipdfmx you should edit cid-x.map.
    (For pdfTeX only, you can also use \pdfmapline primitive instead of step 3 and step 4.)
    (Now you can use the fonts in Plain TeX.)
  5. Write a .fd file for LaTeX NFSS. Copy it to LOCALTEXMF/tex/latex/somename/.
  6. Maybe write a .sty file to load the font easily in LaTeX. Copy it to LOCALTEXMF/tex/latex/somename/.
  7. Run texhash utilily to make the files can be found by TeX.

The steps above are only a outline. All these steps are tricky and error-prone. Even you read some tutorials like http://c.caignaert.free.fr/Install-ttf-Font.pdf, or use some special tools for this, you still need to be very careful.

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up vote 3 down vote

You can download the ttf or otf version of the font. Then load it it in fontforge and export it to Postscript Type1 (Binary) in Adobe Standard Encoding. Then you can use the installfont-tl bash script, like:

installfont-tl -f 6gs -n 'Softmaker Goudy Old Style' -c FFGoudyOldStyle -P SMFF@Sgs -p goudyoldstyle -m goudyoldstyle -O -d 2011/03/06 -v v1.0 -s softmakerfreefont/GoudyOldStyle -C 2011

installfont can also handle ttf or otf if you install other programms. Take a look at the doc.

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For pdfTeX and dvipdfmx, TrueType can be handled directly. Fontforge or ttf2pt1 are over used, I think. The advantage of Type1 fonts is that dvips and dvipdfm can be supported. – Leo Liu Sep 7 '11 at 16:24

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