27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
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Using fonts installed in local texlive
I have installed texlive at ~/texlive .
I have installed collectionfontsrecommended using tlmgr .
Now, ~/texlive/2014/texmfdist/fonts/ has several folders: afm , cmap , enc , ... , vf .
Here is the output of tlmgr info helvetic
package: helvetic category: Package shortdesc: URW "Base 35" font pack for LaTeX. longdesc: A set of fonts for use as "dropin" replacements for Adobe's basic set, comprising: Century Schoolbook (substituting for Adobe's New Century Schoolbook); Dingbats (substituting for Adobe's Zapf Dingbats); Nimbus Mono L (substituting for Abobe's Courier); Nimbus Roman No9 L (substituting for Adobe's Times); Nimbus Sans L (substituting for Adobe's Helvetica); Standard Symbols L (substituting for Adobe's Symbol); URW Bookman; URW Chancery L Medium Italic (substituting for Adobe's Zapf Chancery); URW Gothic L Book (substituting for Adobe's Avant Garde); and URW Palladio L (substituting for Adobe's Palatino). installed: Yes revision: 31835 sizes: run: 2377k relocatable: No catdate: 20120606 22:57:48 +0200 catlicense: gpl collection: collectionfontsrecommended
But when I try to compile:
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{helvetic} \begin{document} Hello World! \end{document}
It gives an error:
! LaTeX Error: File `helvetic.sty' not found.
Type X to quit or
I was expecting a document typeset using Helvetica font. Obviously, I am doing something wrong.
How do I set things right?
{fonts} {texlive}
edited Oct 10 '14 at 13:36 asked Sep 23 '14 at 17:12 deshmukh 646 3 15
This is rather a broad question as it stands. I suggest starting here and trying out some of the different fonts supported by (pdf)LaTeX. You can also use system fonts with XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX but for your current purposes, you are concerned with specifially TeX fonts and the Font Catalogue shows you what is available and how to use them. – cfr Sep 23 '14 at 22:08
If you use XeLaTeX for compiling, then you can use any font installed for your system, independently of whether it is specifically supported by TeX Live. If you want to benefit from TeXspecific support files, http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 1/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange obviously you'd need to pick a package which supports that. You can still use 'standard' TeX fonts, but you don't have to. (Some packages, as Andrew Cashner mentions now configure the fonts using a switch method such that appropriate options are chosen to use the fonts for XeLaTeX, if that's what you use. In other cases, you'd be better off using system fonts with fontspec .) – cfr Oct 3 '14 at 21:30
@cfr I am aiming to have a ~/texlive installation that is, kind of, portable. So, want to be as independent of system fonts, etc. as possible – deshmukh Oct 8 '14 at 13:42
2 Then you don't want to use fontspec . Use the font catalogue for samples and examples of how to use font packages. You can still use XeLaTeX if you wish. – cfr Oct 8 '14 at 14:54
1 Answer
Since you wish to use TeX Live rather than system fonts, it is better to look for information about the font packages available to you than to create lists of font files. This is because most packages will include many different files under texmfdist/fonts and the relation of those files to package names will not always be at all obvious. (The directory names are likely to be a better guide but still not great.)
To see why this is, it is necessary to think a little bit about the different kinds of files included under texmfdist/fonts . On my machine, I have the following:
afm/ cid/ cmap/ enc/ fea/ lig/ map/ misc/ ofm/ opentype/ ovf/ ovp/ pfm/ pk/ sfd/ source/ tfm/ truetype/ type1/ vf/
afm files are Adobe Font Metrics. TeX doesn't use these directly, as far as I know, but they are used to create other files.
cmap files are used to support searching. They help to map characters in PDFs, for example, to characters which can be searched. (They may have further uses I'm not aware of.)
enc files specify various encodings for fonts which TeX needs to figure out which 'slot' contains which character.
fea and lig are feature and ligature files for use with fontspec , I think.
map helps TeX to figure out which font file corresponds to which font, and whether the font encoding has been altered.
opentype selfexplanatory.
pfm font metrics in a different format from afm files. The two can be converted into each other.
pk preprepared fonts based on metafont sources.
sfd ?? (FontForge source for fonts?)
source metafont sources used to generate pk files (either above or onthefly during typesetting as required)
tfm TeX font metrics generated from afm or pfm files together with other information. As far as TeX is concerned, these are fonts. They do not, however, include the glyphs. That is, they don't include the 'pictures' of characters. Instead, they contain information about the boxes needed to accommodate those characters, how to adjust the spacing between pairs of boxes, when to replace two boxes by a different box, box dimensions and more. (TeX typesets boxes. Like everything else, a character is a box.) These are not quite fonts as far as pdfTeX is concerned it wants the pictures, too.
truetype self explanatory.
type1 somewhat self explanatory. These files contain nothing but pictures of characters. Without the metric information, they are not useful. (Postscript fonts are distributed with both type1 font files ( .pfb or .pfa ) and metric files ( .afm or pfm ). Unlike opentype and truetype fonts, there is no single file which is a postscript type1 font.
vf complicated. These are 'virtual fonts'. They tell TeX how to create new fonts from other fonts. For example, if you wanted to combine oldstyle figures and ligatures from a supplementary font with the characters from a primary font, you could create a virtual font which took the appropriate characters from each and combined them. TeX can then treat this font as a single font for typesetting purposes. The virtual font files tell TeX where to find the various bits of information and glyphs it needs to construct the virtual font. (Traditionally, oldstyle figures, small capitals and ligatures were often provided in a separate .pfb or .pfa file. To use these with TeX, you need to create a combined font http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 2/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange using characters from the additional file along with those from the main one.) These files can also be used to 'fake' glyphs which are not present in the actual font, to approximate small capitals or an oblique shape, and to provide various other features.
Rather than trying to work out from the contents of these directories which fonts you have, then, it would be better to look for font packages which provide a coherent interface to groups of files which together support entire fonts and their families.
Since you are using TeX Live, you can get some information about the font packages available to you using tlmgr .
There are several different options here. tlmgr uses a concept of 'taxonomies' which can be used to search for packages according to various classifications e.g. characterization or keyword . Let's take keyword as an example.
We need to know first which keywords are available:
tlmgr search list keyword
will give us a list:
Keywords: Computer Science DVI file manipulation Humanities Mathematics (the subject) MetaFont, Metapost Physics, Chemistry, Biology Social Science URLs, hyperlinks abbreviations, acronyms abstract alignment appendix arrays, matrices arrows article style author bibliography, formatting bibliography, management book style boxed text, frames calendar, schedule caption changebars chapters, sectioning collections, proceedings, conferences color columns, multiple columns commutative diagrams computer code, verbatim text cross references dates and times distributions, whole systems document style dropped letter, often initial letter editing, graphical work environment encodings, Unicode equations, subequations exams, exercises, answers external programs, interfacing figures, floating matter foils, overhead slides font selection fonts, mathematics fonts, text footnotes, end notes front matter, end matter glossary, dictionary graphics created inside TeX (pictures, PSTricks, PGF, etc.) graphics from outside TeX headers, footers http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 3/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
help, documentation, FAQ hyphenation include file index, indexing justification languages other than English letters, envelopes, labels lists, bullets literate programming macro programming make, compilation systems marginal material minipage music output format PDF, PostScript output format other than PDF (HTML, etc.) output viewer page breaks page geometry (margins, etc.) page numbering page styles paper size, orientation paragraph presentations (powerpointlike, using a beamer) proof sheets (typographical) proofs publisher's style punctuation quotation, poetry report style scientific units spacing, horizontal or vertical symbols, mathematical symbols, text table of contents tables text decoration (underline, etc.) theorems thesis style title, maketitle vita, CV, resume watermark, draftmark word processor conversion wrap around a figure
Several here are related to fonts: font selection , fonts, text and fonts, mathematics . The last two sound especially hopeful, so let's try those.
First, for text:
tlmgr search keyword "fonts, text" amiri A classical Arabic typeface, Naskh style. berenisadf Berenis ADF fonts and TeX/LaTeX support. calligratype1 Type 1 version of Calligra. cantarell LaTeX support for the Cantarell font family. cmunicode Computer Modern Unicode font family. comfortaa Sans serif font, with LaTeX support. dejavu LaTeX support for the DejaVu fonts. droid LaTeX support for the Droid font families. fntproof A programmable font test pattern generator. fontbook Generate a font book. fontstlwg Thai fonts for LaTeX from TLWG. funduscalligra Support for the calligra font in LaTeX documents. fundussueterlin Sutterlin gillcm Alternative unslanted italic Computer Modern fonts. gnufreefont A Unicode font, with rather wide coverage. hacm Font support for the Arka language. ipaex IPA and IPAex fonts from Informationtechnology Promotion Agency, Japan. latexfonts A collection of fonts used in LaTeX distributions. lato Lato font family and LaTeX support. lcyw Make Classic Cyrillic CM fonts accessible in LaTeX. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 4/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
lfb A Greek font with normal and bold variants. lh Cyrillic fonts that support LaTeX standard encodings. libris Libris ADF fonts, with LaTeX support. linearA Linear A script fonts. lm Latin modern fonts in outline formats. marvosym Martin Vogel's Symbols (marvosym) font. mathcomp Text symbols in maths mode. mdsymbol Symbol fonts to match Adobe Myriad Pro. mex Polish formats for TeX. mf2pt1 Produce PostScript Type 1 fonts from Metafont source. mxedruli A pair of fonts for different Georgian alphabets. nkarta A "new" version of the karta cartographic fonts. ocherokee LaTeX Support for the Cherokee language. ocrb Fonts for OCRB. ogham Fonts for typesetting Ogham script. oldstandard Old Standard: A Unicode Font for Classical and Medieval Studies. opensans The Open Sans font family, and LaTeX support. orkhun A font for orkhun script. pacioli Fonts designed by Fra Luca de Pacioli in 1497. paratype LaTeX support for free fonts by ParaType. phaistos Disk of Phaistos font. phonetic Metafont Phonetic fonts, based on Computer Modern. pigpen A font for the pigpen (or masonic) cipher. poltawski Antykwa Poltawskiego Family of Fonts. psnfss Font support for common PostScript fonts. punk Donald Knuth's punk font. punknova OpenType version of Knuth's Punk font. pxfonts Palatinolike fonts in support of mathematics. pxgreeks Shape selection for PX fonts Greek letters. recycle A font providing the "recyclable" logo. sanskrit Sanskrit support. sauter Wide range of design sizes for CM fonts. staves Typeset Icelandic staves and runic letters. stix OpenType Unicode maths fonts. superiors Attach superior figures to a font family. tabfigures Maintain vertical alignment of figures. tapir A simple geometrical font. tipa Fonts and macros for IPA phonetics characters. trajan Fonts from the Trajan column in Rome. txgreeks Shape selection for TX fonts Greek letters. typeface Select a balanced set of fonts. uhc Fonts for the Korean language. umtypewriter Fonts to typeset with the xgreek package. universa Herbert Bayer's 'universal' font. utopia Adobe Utopia fonts. wadalab Wadalab (Japanese) font packages. wnri Ridgeway's fonts. wsuipa International Phonetic Alphabet fonts. xecjk Support for CJK documents in XeLaTeX. xepersian Persian for LaTeX, using XeTeX. xits A Scientific Timeslike font with support for mathematical typesetting. yannisgr Greek fonts by Yannis Haralambous.
And for maths:
tlmgr search keyword "fonts, mathematics" a0poster Support for designing posters on large paper. accfonts Utilities to derive new fonts from existing ones. ae Virtual fonts for T1 encoded CMRfonts. aeguill Add several kinds of guillemets to the ae fonts. allrunes Fonts and LaTeX package for almost all runes. amsfonts TeX fonts from the American Mathematical Society. antt Antykwa Torunska: a Type 1 family of a Polish traditional type. arabtex Macros and fonts for typesetting Arabic. aramaicserto Fonts and LaTeX for Syriac written in Serto. archaic A collection of archaic fonts. arev Fonts and LaTeX support files for Arev Sans. arphic Arphic (Chinese) font packages. augie Calligraphic font for typesetting handwriting. auncialnew Artificial Uncial font and LaTeX support macros. aurical Calligraphic fonts for use with LaTeX in T1 encoding. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 5/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
b1encoding LaTeX encoding tools for Bookhands fonts. bbding A symbol (dingbat) font and LaTeX macros for its use. bbm "Blackboardstyle" cm fonts. bbmmacros LaTeX support for "blackboardstyle" cm fonts. bbold Sans serif blackboard bold. bboldtype1 An Adobe Type 1 format version of the bbold font. belleek Free replacement for basic MathTime fonts. bera Bera fonts. beton Use Concrete fonts. blacklettert1 T1encoded versions of Haralambous old German fonts. boisik A font inspired by Baskerville design. boldextra Use bold small caps and typewriter fonts. boondox Mathematical alphabets derived from the STIX fonts. brushscr A handwriting script font. calligra Calligraphic font. calrsfs Copperplate calligraphic letters in LaTeX. casyl Typeset Cree/Inuktitut in Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. cbcoptic Coptic fonts and LaTeX macros for general usage and for philology. ccpl Polish extension of Computer Concrete fonts. charter Charter fonts. cherokee A font for the Cherokee script. cm Computer Modern fonts. cmlgc Type 1 CMbased fonts for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. cmsuper CMSuper family of fonts cmunicode Computer Modern Unicode font family. cmbright Computer Modern Bright fonts. cmcyr Computer Modern fonts with cyrillic extensions. cmpica A Computer Modern Pica variant. cmsd Interfaces to the CM Sans Serif Bold fonts. cmtiup Upright punctuation with CM italic. concmath Concrete Math fonts. concmathfonts Concrete mathematics fonts. concrete Concrete Roman fonts. cryst Font for graphical symbols used in crystallography. cyklop The Cyclop typeface. dancers Font for Conan Doyle's "The Dancing Men". doublestroke Typeset mathematical double stroke symbols. duerer Computer Duerer fonts. dutchcal A reworking of ESSTIX13, adding a bold version. ec Computer modern fonts in T1 and TS1 encodings. ecc Sources for the European Concrete fonts. eiad Traditional style Irish fonts. elmath Mathematics in Greek texts. epiolmec Typesetting the EpiOlmec Language. esint Extended set of integrals for Computer Modern. esinttype1 Font esint10 in Type 1 format esstix PostScript versions of the ESSTIX, with macro support. ethiop LaTeX macros and fonts for typesetting Amharic. ethiopt1 Type 1 versions of Amharic fonts. eulervm Euler virtual math fonts. euroce Euro and CE sign font. eurosym Metafont and macros for Euro sign. fc Fonts for African languages. fdsymbol A maths symbol font. fntproof A programmable font test pattern generator. foekfont The title font of the Mads Fok magazine. fontbook Generate a font book. fourier Using Utopia fonts in LaTeX documents. fpl SC and OsF fonts for URW Palladio L frcursive French cursive hand fonts. gothic A collection of old Germanstyle fonts. greektex Fonts for typesetting Greek/English documents. hfbright The hfbright fonts. hyphenat Disable/enable hypenation. ibygrk Fonts and macros to typeset ancient Greek. ifsym A collection of symbols. inconsolata A monospaced font, with support files for use with TeX. initials Adobe Type 1 decorative initial fonts. iwona A twoelement sansserif font. junicode A TrueType font for mediaevalists. kerkis Kerkis (Greek) font family. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 6/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
kpfonts A complete set of fonts for text and mathematics. kurier A twoelement sansserif typeface. latexfonts A collection of fonts used in LaTeX distributions. libgreek Use Libertine or Biolinum Greek glyphs in mathematics. lm Latin modern fonts in outline formats. lmmath OpenType maths fonts for Latin Modern. mathabx Three series of mathematical symbols. mathabxtype1 Outline version of the mathabx fonts. mathdesign Mathematical fonts to fit with particular text fonts. mathpazo Fonts to typeset mathematics to match Palatino. mathspec Specify arbitrary fonts for mathematics in XeTeX. mdputu Upright digits in Adobe Utopia Italic. mdsymbol Symbol fonts to match Adobe Myriad Pro. mex Polish formats for TeX. mf2pt1 Produce PostScript Type 1 fonts from Metafont source. mnsymbol Mathematical symbol font for Adobe MinionPro. prodint A font that provides the product integral symbol. pxfonts Palatinolike fonts in support of mathematics. pxtxalfa Virtual maths alphabets based on pxfonts and txfonts. rsfs Ralph Smith's Formal Script font. sansmathaccent Correct placement of accents in sansserif maths. sauter Wide range of design sizes for CM fonts. shuffle A symbol for the shuffle product. stmaryrd St Mary Road symbols for theoretical computer science. texgyremath Maths fonts to match texgyre text fonts. trsym Symbols for transformations. txfonts Timeslike fonts in support of mathematics. typeface Select a balanced set of fonts. urwchancal Use URW's clone of Zapf Chancery as a maths alphabet. xits A Scientific Timeslike font with support for mathematical typesetting. yhmath Extended maths fonts for LaTeX.
From this list, you can select packages for further investigation. Further information about any particular package can be obtained in various ways. First, tlmgr can itself provide basic information about a package:
tlmgr info urwchancal package: urwchancal category: Package shortdesc: Use URW's clone of Zapf Chancery as a maths alphabet. longdesc: The package allows (the URW clone of) Zapf Chancery to function as a maths alphabet, the target of \mathcal or \mathscr, with accents appearing where they should, and other spacing parameters set to reasonable (not very tight) values. This package supersedes the pzccal package. installed: Yes revision: 21701 sizes: doc: 37k, run: 17k relocatable: Yes catversion: 1 catdate: 20140226 23:03:13 +0100 catlicense: lppl collection: collectionfontsextra
Second, texdoc can be used to examine locally installed documentation:
texdoc urwchancal
Occasionally, texdoc doesn't give you the most useful document. In that case, you can also look in texmfdist/doc/fonts/
Finally, as others have said, if you want to pick fonts in a more visual way, the Font Catalogue allows you to browse possibilities. Note, however, that not all of the fonts listed will be installed on your machine as not all are part of TeX Live. This information is, however, provided as part of the catalogue record for the font. Addendum
If the font you wish to use is one of the base postscript fonts, such as Helvetica, texdoc psnfss provides information about usage. The manual tells us that to use Helvetica, we need
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 7/8 27-04-2015 Using fonts installed in local texlive - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
\usepackage{helvet}% See notes about scaling if using in combination with something like Times
However, by itself, this will not use Helvetica for the body text since Helvetica is a sans serif font. What the package does is installs Helvetica (actually a clone) as the default sans family. To use it, you have to switch to the sans font:
\sffamily abc
or
\textsf{abc}
If you want the entire document to use sans, you can change the default serif family to match the sans:
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{helvet} \renewcommand*{\rmdefault}{\sfdefault} \begin{document} Hello World! \end{document}
edited Oct 10 '14 at 14:01 answered Oct 9 '14 at 1:20 cfr 42.6k 2 38 93
This answer is much more specific to the question and provides detailed information not available elsewhere. I wanted that bounty, but this one deserves it more. – Andrew Cashner Oct 9 '14 at 2:08
@AndrewCashner Thank you. Not trying to tread on your toes ;). – cfr Oct 9 '14 at 2:15
@cfr We are closer to the answer, I guess. The problem is, \usepackage{helvetic} does not help set the font. I have edited the question and made it more specific now, with an MWE :) – deshmukh Oct 10 '14 at 13:40
2 @deshmukh Helvetica is a sans serif font. If you want to use it for the body of your document, you'd have to issue \sffamily at the start or \renewcommand*{\rmdefault}{\sfdefault} . However, Helvetica is one of the base postscript fonts so for information about using it, you'd need texdoc psnfss . That tells you that the package name is actually helvet . – cfr Oct 10 '14 at 13:55
@deshmukh See updated answer. – cfr Oct 10 '14 at 14:01
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202767/using-fonts-installed-in-local-texlive 8/8