[XeTeX] [texlive] opentype fonts from $TEXMFLOCAL

Thu Mar 25 10:14:00 CET 2010

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply! What you're basically doing that way is using a
windows tool to install the fonts into c:\windows\fonts (btw, you can
just copy your fonts and then paste them into this directory, windows
will install them as well).

Basically, I have a big bunch of fonts I want to play with and I dont
want them all installed in windows, its slow enough as it is. Also,
I'll only need those fonts in XeTeX. I was hoping putting them in the
text tree would do the trick.

I found out now that if I add the directory where the fonts are to
C:\texlive\2009\texmf-var\fonts\conf\fonts.conf, all works well (as is
suggested in many tutorials). So I could stick with that, but was
hoping I could cleanly keep all my manual changes confined to my
$TEXMFLOCAL tree :)

I hope that will help others as well that simply did things the dirty
way after some frustration, if we reach an answer here, google will be
able to find it (except in china)!

Dee

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:56 PM, John Was <john.was at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> If it's of any use, under Windows I put the actual font files wherever I
> want them to be (in my case d:\fontbkup\otffonts), and then use Windows' own
> utility for installing the font (settings > control panel > fonts > File >
> Install new fonts).  At that point I need to scroll down to the directory
> where I have put the font files, highlight those that I want to install, and
> then with a click the job is done (the fonts are then available to all
> programs, such as MS Word or any other program that might want to use a
> font).
>
> When I next load XeTeX, it's clear from a bit of disk activity that it
> recognizes the addition of new fonts, and thereafter the fonts are available
> to XeTeX, as are all fonts that are available to Windows programs generally.
> You can force it to manually to rebuild its database of fonts with the
> fc-cache command, but I haven't found that to be necessary.
>
> The only trouble I've ever had is with old fonts that have potential name
> conflicts with others, but if I confine myself as far as possible to proper
> OTF fonts the system seems pretty robust.  (I did briefly lose an accented
> character in a Greek font a few months ago, for no obvious reason - but then
> I had been tinkering with Fontmonger!)
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Diederick C. Niehorster"
> <dcnieho at gmail.com>
> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] [texlive] opentype fonts from $TEXMFLOCAL
>
>
>> Hi Wilfred,
>>
>> Thank you for your reply. Ah, I'm definately not putting the fonts in
>> a system font directory (thats c:\windows\fonts), that would explain
>> why fc-cache cant find them. I tried the otfinfo command to find the
>> identification string, it was "Arno Pro". It should be noted all
>> worked well on miktex before when I simply dropped the font in
>> texmf/fonts/opentype. I was planning to do things correctly now and
>> not drop anything manually into my texlive/2009/fonts, but keep it in
>> the $TEXMFLOCAL tree, where I believe things I add myself should be.
>>
>> I expected kpathsea (thats just the utility that does file finding
>> right?) would search the local tex trees for fonts as well, but maybe
>> i have to tell it or fc-cache to do so. I heard about font.conf, but
>> there is none of those in my $TEXMFLOCAL tree...
>>
>> Best,
>> Dee
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 3:12 PM, Wilfred van Rooijen
>> <wvanrooijen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello Diederick,
>>>
>>> The 'fc-cache' command will only cache the fonts in the 'system font
>>> directories'. I don't know where and exactly those directories are defined,
>>> but it may well be that the $TEXMFLOCAL is not one of those system
>>> directories. Then, fc-cache simply does not cache the fonts there and then
>>> they also don't show up using 'fc-list'.
>>>
>>> On linux a simple trick is to start OpenOffice and see if the requested
>>> font shows up in the list. I don't know if the same trick works on Windows,
>>> though.
>>>
>>> Furthermore, the fonts can have various "identification strings". Xetex
>>> uses a specific one of these. From the error, it may be that you are
>>> requesting a font but using the wrong identifier.
>>>
>>> Wilfred
>>>
>>> --- On Thu, 25/3/10, Diederick C. Niehorster <dcnieho at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: Diederick C. Niehorster <dcnieho at gmail.com>
>>>> Subject: [XeTeX] [texlive] opentype fonts from $TEXMFLOCAL
>>>> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
>>>> Date: Thursday, 25 March, 2010, 2:59 PM
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Just yesterday I moved from miktex to texlive 2009 (fresh
>>>> install,
>>>> fully updated). I'm having trouble with XeTeX not detecting
>>>> the
>>>> opentype fonts i put in $TEXMFLOCAL
>>>> (C:\texlive\texmf-local\fonts\opentype and underlying
>>>> folders). I ran
>>>> fc-cache on that folder with the --verbose switch. The
>>>> first time i
>>>> run it, it tells me it is caching the fonts in all the
>>>> subdirectories,
>>>> the second time it tells me it is skipping them as they are
>>>> already in
>>>> the cache, so that seems to have worked correctly. However,
>>>> when I run
>>>> "fc-list > fc.log" and search in that text file (no grep
>>>> on windows
>>>> for as far as i know) I find no references to the fonts
>>>> that were just
>>>> cached. XeLaTeX aborts with the following error:
>>>> ----
>>>> kpathsea: Invalid fontname `Arno Pro', contains ' '
>>>>
>>>> ! Font \zf at basefont="Arno Pro" at 10.0pt not loadable:
>>>> Metric (TFM) file or ins
>>>> talled font not found.
>>>> \zf at fontspec ...ntname \zf at suffix " at \f at size pt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> \unless \ifzf at icu \zf at set@...
>>>> l.103 \setromanfont[Ligatures=Common]{Arno Pro}
>>>> ----
>>>> This must be some basic mistake, but after 2 hours of
>>>> googling, I have
>>>> decided to ask it on the list here. I'd like to keep my
>>>> fonts in
>>>> $TEXMFLOCAL so they stay with updates (hope I understood
>>>> that
>>>> correctly) and I'll only want to use them from XeTeX.
>>>>
>>>> What's the trick?
>>>>
>>>> Best and thanks,
>>>> Dee
>>>>
>>>>
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