Cross-platform font availability with TeX

[Peter Flynn]

My experience with Mac OS and Windows distributions of TeX is limited,
so perhaps someone with wider knowledge can help:

For the purposes of a demo/test XeLaTeX document I'd like to use a set
of rm/sf/tt typefaces that is neither CM nor Adobe "35". This means

• not CM
• not Adobe 35
• must be text fonts, not display fonts
• must work out of the box with any of the
three main TeX distributions (TL, MacTeX, MiKTeX)
• must be packaged (ie use a .sty file,
not a XeLaTeX \setxxxfont load

There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are common
between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files are
installed and ready to use.

Peter

[Jean-Côme Charpentier]

Post by Peter Flynn
My experience with Mac OS and Windows distributions of TeX is limited,
For the purposes of a demo/test XeLaTeX document I'd like to use a set
of rm/sf/tt typefaces that is neither CM nor Adobe "35". This means
• not CM
• not Adobe 35
• must be text fonts, not display fonts
• must work out of the box with any of the
  three main TeX distributions (TL, MacTeX, MiKTeX)
• must be packaged (ie use a .sty file,
  not a XeLaTeX \setxxxfont load
There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are common
between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files are
installed and ready to use.
Peter

Surely, there are several possibilities. For instance:

\usepackage{kpfonts}

This package isn't cm, nor Adobe 35, is text fonts, works out of the box
under any of the three main TeX distribution and is packaged. Moreover
it's a very complete font with tons of features and proper math alphabets.

Jean-Côme Charpentier

[Peter Flynn]

[...]

Post by Jean-Côme Charpentier

Post by Peter Flynn
There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are
common between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files
are installed and ready to use.
Peter

\usepackage{kpfonts}
This package isn't cm, nor Adobe 35, is text fonts, works out of the box
under any of the three main TeX distribution and is packaged. Moreover
it's a very complete font with tons of features and proper math alphabets.

Looks ideal...except that when I use it, I get CM and a lot of error
messages:

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `TU/jkp/m/n' undefined

It loaded a bunch of font def files OK

(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/kpfonts/omljkp.fd)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/kpfonts/omsjkp.fd)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/kpfonts/omxjkp.fd)
(/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/kpfonts/ujkpexa.fd)

Looks like it's all PSNFSS Type 1 fonts, and they all seem to be
installed OK, so it looks like a new user would need to know to run updmap.

So I did updmap -sys --enable Map=kpfonts.map and it all looked fine,
but I still get CM and all the same error messages.

Basically, they don't work out of the box, so I don't think I can expect
a new user to understand this.

Peter

[Ulrike Fischer]

Post by Peter Flynn
My experience with Mac OS and Windows distributions of TeX is limited,
For the purposes of a demo/test XeLaTeX document I'd like to use a set
of rm/sf/tt typefaces that is neither CM nor Adobe "35". This means
‧ not CM
‧ not Adobe 35
‧ must be text fonts, not display fonts
‧ must work out of the box with any of the
three main TeX distributions (TL, MacTeX, MiKTeX)
‧ must be packaged (ie use a .sty file,
not a XeLaTeX \setxxxfont load
There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are common
between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files are
installed and ready to use.

Anyone in TL should work also in miktex.

https://ctan.org/topic/font-otf

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Ulrike Fischer

Post by Peter Flynn
My experience with Mac OS and Windows distributions of TeX is limited,
For the purposes of a demo/test XeLaTeX document I'd like to use a set
of rm/sf/tt typefaces that is neither CM nor Adobe "35". This means
‧ not CM
‧ not Adobe 35
‧ must be text fonts, not display fonts
‧ must work out of the box with any of the
three main TeX distributions (TL, MacTeX, MiKTeX)
‧ must be packaged (ie use a .sty file,
not a XeLaTeX \setxxxfont load
There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are common
between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files are
installed and ready to use.

Anyone in TL should work also in miktex.
https://ctan.org/topic/font-otf

Do you know which of those are installed by default?

P

[Ulrike Fischer]

Post by Peter Flynn

Post by Ulrike Fischer
Anyone in TL should work also in miktex.
https://ctan.org/topic/font-otf

Do you know which of those are installed by default?

in miktex? No I have a full miktex installation, I don't know what
the basic set contains.

But if you use a font with a style \usepackage should normally
trigger the on-the-fly installation.

[Holger Schieferdecker]

Post by Ulrike Fischer

Post by Peter Flynn

Post by Ulrike Fischer
Anyone in TL should work also in miktex.
https://ctan.org/topic/font-otf

Do you know which of those are installed by default?

in miktex? No I have a full miktex installation, I don't know what
the basic set contains.

I think the MiKTeX basic installer contains cm and lmodern, but no
additional fonts.

Post by Ulrike Fischer
But if you use a font with a style \usepackage should normally
trigger the on-the-fly installation.

Yes, that works fine. But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files. I don't
know if that is still what Peter understands as working out of the box.

Holger

[Axel Berger]

Post by Holger Schieferdecker
But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files.

That must be a very long time. I haven't been able to use the Miktex
installer since Miktex 2.6 and Win98 are no longer supported and have
now got to do everyting manually. But before that Miktex did everything
automatically without anything extra being needed.

Axel

[Ulrike Fischer]

Post by Holger Schieferdecker
Yes, that works fine. But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files.

if you use type1 fonts, but Peter was asking about open type fonts,
there are no map files involved here.

[Holger Schieferdecker]

Post by Ulrike Fischer

Post by Holger Schieferdecker
Yes, that works fine. But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files.

if you use type1 fonts, but Peter was asking about open type fonts,
there are no map files involved here.

Oh, my mistake, somehow I missed that the question was about open type
fonts.

Holger

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Holger Schieferdecker

Post by Ulrike Fischer

Post by Holger Schieferdecker
Yes, that works fine. But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files.

if you use type1 fonts, but Peter was asking about open type
fonts, there are no map files involved here.

Oh, my mistake, somehow I missed that the question was about open
type fonts.

No, my fault entirely, I didn't originally mention that.
The key for this application is that the user needs to install a
distribution of TeX and then compile this document without any prior
intervention (OK if the processor auto-installs something, though).

I know MiKTeX has an autoinstaller, and I know tlmgr comes with TL; but
I don't think tlmgr will be run automatically in mid-compile when the
latex binary finds a missing package.

P

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Ulrike Fischer

Post by Peter Flynn

Post by Ulrike Fischer
Anyone in TL should work also in miktex.
https://ctan.org/topic/font-otf

Do you know which of those are installed by default?

in miktex? No I have a full miktex installation, I don't know what
the basic set contains.

I hope I can assume the user has done a full install these days.

Post by Ulrike Fischer
But if you use a font with a style \usepackage should normally
trigger the on-the-fly installation.

That's true: I had forgotten that. Does that apply also to the fonts
themselves, if they come in a separate CTAN package from the style package?

Post by Ulrike Fischer
Yes, that works fine. But at least some years ago I think it was
necessary to go to miktex console and update the font map files. I
don't know if that is still what Peter understands as working out of
the box.

Yes, auto-install is fine: "out of the box" means the user does not need
to do anything (well, maybe click "OK", but otherwise it should Just
Happen).

I just wanted to know what fonts a user could select outside CM and the
Adobe 35 that would already be there or would be installed transparently.

I am trying to avoid Type 1 fonts because I'm trying to highlight that
XeLaTeX can handle other font file types than (eg) pdflatex.

Peter

[Ulrike Fischer]

Post by Peter Flynn

Post by Ulrike Fischer
But if you use a font with a style \usepackage should normally
trigger the on-the-fly installation.

That's true: I had forgotten that. Does that apply also to the fonts
themselves, if they come in a separate CTAN package from the style package?

Probably not. Use only fonts which are packaged together with a
style.

[Herb Schulz]

Post by Peter Flynn
My experience with Mac OS and Windows distributions of TeX is limited,
For the purposes of a demo/test XeLaTeX document I'd like to use a set
of rm/sf/tt typefaces that is neither CM nor Adobe "35". This means
• not CM
• not Adobe 35
• must be text fonts, not display fonts
• must work out of the box with any of the
three main TeX distributions (TL, MacTeX, MiKTeX)
• must be packaged (ie use a .sty file,
not a XeLaTeX \setxxxfont load
There's no shortage of typefaces but I don't know which ones are common
between the distributions; that is, both fonts and .sty files are
installed and ready to use.
Peter

Howdy,

Try the libertinus-otf package which is part of TeX Live and well maintained.

Good Luck,
Herb Schulz