How to use Times Roman (Nimbus Roman) with fontspec under Linux and LuaLaTeX

Question

Times Roman under Linux is usually Nimbus Roman. If I use the times package, Nimbus Roman will be embedded successfully, as a Type 1 font.

Now I want to use the fontspec package to load it. This a minimal example.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Times Roman}

\begin{document}
test
\end{document}

fontspec says it cannot find the font TimesRoman. I have also tried

\setmainfont{Nimbus Roman}
\setmainfont{Nimbus Roman No 9 L}
\setmainfont{NimbusRomNo9L}
\setmainfont{NimbusRomNo9L-Regu}

but none of them can load it successfully.

Any hint will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use the TeX Gyre Termes font, which is an extended version of Nimbus Roman No9 L available as Type 1 and OpenType. It is already installed in TeX Live, so using it with LuaLaTeX should be as simple as

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{TeX Gyre Termes}

\begin{document}
The quick brown fox jumps over the sleazy dog
\end{document}

TeX Gyre Termes:

Nimbus Roman No9 L:

_{(The font samples are from the LaTeX Font Catalogue.)}

Answer 2

With

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Times Roman}
\begin{document}
    
foo
    
\end{document}
    

I get

voss@shania:~/Test> pdffonts test.pdf
name                          type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
----------------------------- ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
YDJOHC+Times-Roman-Identity-H CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes yes      5  0

and when running fc-list | grep Times I get a lot of fonts in my Linux system. And with LuaLaTeX my Times Roman installed in ~./font is used . From the log:

[...]
/home/voss/.texlive2012/texmf-var/l
uatex-cache/generic/fonts/otf/temp-times-0.lua)(save: /home/voss/.texlive2012/t
exmf-var/luatex-cache/generic/fonts/otf/temp-times-0.lua) 
[...]

Answer 3

To sum up,

• Times Roman on Linux is Nimbus Roman
• Only type1 format of Nimbus Roman is shipped with the system
• fontspec does not support type1 font
• Mixing fontspec and type1 font usage is possible but difficult

So my problem can be solved if I can get a ttf or otf format of Times Roman.

Herbert seems to be using Times New Roman from Windows. This way is easy if you have access to a Windows PC or a Mac.

Another way is to convert type1 format of Nimbus Roman to ttf or otf format. There are some online font converter sites, and the conversion is very fast. After conversion, I can use fontspec to load Nimbus Roman directly. For those who need it,

• Nimbus Roman No9 L Regular is /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/n021003l.pfb
• Nimbus Roman No9 L Medium is /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/n021004l.pfb
• Nimbus Roman No9 L Regular Italic is /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/n021023l.pfb
• Nimbus Roman No9 L Medium Italc is /usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/n021024l.pfb

But in fact I don't like this way, because it makes font management complicated. Now there are two versions of Nimbus Roman in my system.

Is there some better way to solve the problem?

(Maybe I can request the Linux distribution or TexLive to ship a ttf or otf version of Nimbus Roman?)