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I noticed that LyX 2.0.6 has a very limited selection of Roman (Serif) fonts listed under the Document Settings Fonts dropdown menu. I'd like to be able to use any of the LaTeX fonts that come with my TeXLive or MIKTeX installation, that came bundled with the LyX installation.

I use LyX 2.0.6 in Kubuntu and Windows, and no matter which document class I set, there are always those very same fonts to pick from, but no more.

  • Roman fonts listed on the LyX Document Settings Fonts dropdown menu:

    • Default
    • Latin Modern Roman
    • Computer Modern Roman
    • AE (Almost European)
    • Times Roman
    • Palatino
    • Bitstream Charter
    • New Century Schoolbook
    • Bookman
    • Utopia
    • Bera Serif
    • Concrete Roman
    • Zapf Chancery

** Kubuntu (TeXLive) version's dropdown menu also says this font is "(Not Installed)" That's Bera Serif and Concrete Roman.

I checked the TUG Font Catalog to pick a favorite, and some that I thought were popular are not listed in the LyX dropdown menu. Here are some highlights of those not included in the dropdown.

  • Missing:

    • Garamond
    • DejaVu Serif
    • Linux Libertine and many others.

    I noticed that LyX includes four typefaces that aren't even listed in the TUG font catalog:

    • Zapf Chancery
    • Concrete Roman
    • Bitstream Charter
    • AE (Almost European)

I'm not worried about why LyX choose thirteen serif fonts to put on their dropdown menu, or why a couple of them I suppose aren't part of their GNU/Linux installation package (TeXLive), or why four of them aren't available in the TUG font catalog for browsing.

I'm writing a novel and researched popular books and the fonts they use. Harry Potter and Hunger Games both use Garamond, for instance. If it's a huge effort to add fonts to LyX, then I'll just add that one. By the way, it appears that the regular latin alphabet for Utopia is identical to Garamond, according to the TUG font catalog.

The LyX manual says that other fonts can be added. It instructs to look into the fonts manual. Where do I find the manuals for the fonts that TeXLive or MIKTeX installs? I need to find out how to add all the other LaTeX fonts. By the way, I don't care to explore XeTeX yet. I'm looking for a superb typeset finish in pdf form.

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    Perhaps an easier way is to tell LyX to use XeLaTeX for compilation and then you can use any of your system installed fonts.
    – Alan Munn
    Dec 13, 2013 at 4:07
  • Don't the XeLaTeX system fonts have the disadvantage of being fuzzy under close inspection?
    – user12711
    Dec 13, 2013 at 4:09
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    No. They should be fine.
    – Alan Munn
    Dec 13, 2013 at 4:14
  • I'm thinking that LyX won't be able to right justify and hyphenate the words correctly using XeLaTeX in a novel. Could that be an issue? Also, would it be correct to say that LaTeX fonts are more or less obsolete now, or maybe a better question is, what do LaTeX fonts work best with?
    – user12711
    Dec 13, 2013 at 4:47
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    LyX uses TeX underlyingly so pretty much everything TeX can do, LyX can do. You should have no problems with hyphenation or justification. Standard pdfTeX uses Type 1 postscript fonts, which are far from obsolete. XeTeX can use OpenType fonts which have more advanced features.
    – Alan Munn
    Dec 13, 2013 at 5:03

2 Answers 2

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LyX 2.1 has support for new fonts. Note, in particular, the URW Garamond and Libertine additions.

LyX 2.1 is in beta 2 and is stable (we have had no serious reports of new bugs). You can easily install the development version of 2.1 in Ubuntu with the PPA without risk of conflict with your current 2.0.x version.

Otherwise, use XeTeX or LuaTeX. Your fears that LyX will have problems typesetting them are not correct. The XeTeX and LuaTeX engines do all of the work, not LyX.

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You can use any font supported by your LaTeX installation but not yet by LyX by just loading it inside the documents preamble. To use urw-garamond, just set the serif font in the document settings to "default" (should be CM) and add the following line to the document's preamble (also accessible from the document settings):

\usepackage[urw-garamond]{mathdesign}

Another option is to use the garamondx package:

\usepackage{garamondx}

Note that on most LaTeX distros you need to install the respective font files either manually or by the getnonfreefonts script.

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    You will get more extensive support if you use getnonfreefonts to install garamondx and then call that package, which extends URW GaramondNo8.
    – cfr
    Dec 19, 2013 at 1:18
  • I've added this to the preamble "\usepackage{urw-garamond}" in both my Kubuntu and Windows installation of LyX. In both instances there is an error message generated by VIEW PDFLATEX, saying: 'urw-garamond.sty' not found.
    – user12711
    Dec 20, 2013 at 16:11
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    @user12711: Right, the recommended way to use URW Garamond is via the mathdesign or the garamondx package (see answer).
    – Daniel
    Dec 22, 2013 at 1:51

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