Minion pro step by step installation

Question

I write my thesis with classic thesis and I would like to use Minion pro fonts (regulars and italics) instead of Palatino. Therefore, I am about to buy those fonts. But, I understood that it was quite difficult to install it. Is there anyone who may help me to do it and guide me into a step-by-step installation ?

Answer 1

If you compile with XeLaTeX (perhaps also with LuaLaTeX, but I'm not sure), you can use any font known to your system, so there's nothing to do, except use the exact Opentype names. Don't load inputenc (XeLaTeX supposes it's utf8-encoded (check the settings of your editor); don't load fontenc since you will use ordinary fonts (truetype or opentype).

You will have to load the dedicated font manager: fontspec and declare a main font with the setmainfont command. Likewise, you can declare \setsansfont and \setmonofont. You can define the default font features you want, such as special ligatures, oldstyle numbers, tabular numbers, colour, &c. Actually, fontspec is an interface to opentype font features. For this, you have two main commands: \setdefaultfontfeatures and, if you want a font feature only for a short piece of text: addfontfeatures.

Of course, you'll find many more details in the documenation. And now for a small example:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt, twoside]{article}

\usepackage[marginratio={4:6, 5:7}, textwidth=131mm, noheadfoot]{geometry}

\usepackage{fontspec}% font selecting commands%
\defaultfontfeatures{Numbers = {OldStyle, Proportional}, Ligatures = Rare, WordSpace = 1.1}%,2
\setmainfont{Minion Pro}%
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage[variant = british]{english}%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{verse}
\renewcommand*\vin[1][1]{\hspace*{#1\vgap}}

\usepackage[x11names]{xcolor}
\title{\color{Tomato2}\bfseries\itshape\huge\addfontfeatures{LetterSpace=2}The Great Panjandrum \\Himself}
\author{Samuel Foote}
\date{(1755)}

\begin{document}

\maketitle
\thispagestyle{empty}

\begin{verse}

So she went into the garden

to cut a cabbage-leaf

to make an apple-pie;

and at the same time

 a great she-bear, coming down the street,

 pops its head into the shop.

What! no soap?

\vin So he died,

and she very imprudently married the Barber:

and there were present

\vin the Picninnies,

\vin[2] and the Joblillies,

\vin[3] and the Garyulies,

and the great Panjandrum himself,

with the little round button at top;

and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can,

 till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boot
\end{verse}

\end{document}