67 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
67 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: How to use OTF fonts with pdflatex
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author: nek0
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tags: english, writing, programming
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description: A small howto for importing OTF fonts
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---
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In the last days I had an interesting Problem to solve, which involved
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LaTeX, OTF font files and a special set of requirements. I needed to import and
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use the OTF fonts in a LaTeX document and this document needed to be compiled
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through pdflatex.
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First off: If you need to use OTF fonts in LaTeX documents, you can simply
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switch to XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, like I did in the first place. Both of these
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environments support the package `fontspec`, which makes using fonts installed
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in your system extremely easy. So if you can, switch the environment.
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If you can't switch the environment, don't want to, feel a little adventurous or
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even want to feel some of the innards of LaTeX you can choose the path I am
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about to show.
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Before you can start, you need to install the [LCDF typetools][lcdf], which is
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a set of tools for manipulating the font definitions of LaTeX. Most GNU/Linux
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distributions have them in their repositories, Mac users can install them
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through homebrew and even Windows binaries are available on the website.
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Additionally make sure, that you use `updmap` in system mode and have root
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privileges.
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To create the font mappings from the OTF, you simply run
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```bash
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sudo otftotfm -a <fontfile> --vendor <vendor> --typeface <typeface> -e texnansx
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```
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Where you replace the items in the angle brackets. This not only produces the
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mappings, but also places them in the right directory. (If `otftotfm` complains
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because of `updmap`, run the `updmap` commands in the error messages as
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`updmap-sys`.)
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Before you can actually use the Font, you have to write your own font
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definition. A small template for this follows, which should be saved as
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`T1<typeface>.df`
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```latex
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\ProvidesFile{T1<fontname>.fd}
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[YYYY/mm/dd foobar]
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\DeclareFontFamily{T1}{<fontname>}{}
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\DeclareFontShape{T1}{<fontname>}{m}{n} {<-> <fontface> } {}
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\endinput
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```
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Here you can define `<fontname>` as you wish, the other elements in angle
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brackets correspond to the box above.
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To actually use it, you can call
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```latex
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\renewcommand*{\familydefault}{<fontname>}
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```
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from your document to change the font in the whole document, assuming the
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`T1<fontname>.fd` is in your project folder, or call
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```latex
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Lorem ipsum {\fontfamily{<fontname>}\fontseries{m}\fontshape{n}
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\selectfont dolor sit} amet
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```
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to change the font only for "dolor sit" in this example.
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There are tons of other options how to handle fonts in LaTeX, but this is the
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most convenient one I found.
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[lcdf]: http://www.lcdf.org/type/#typetools
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