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I need to use a font family in my LaTeX documents, that is available as 18 .TTF (TrueTypeFont) files.

Where do I have to copy the files in my MiKTeX 2.8 installation? How Do I make the fonts to available for LaTeX?

I usually use pdfLaTeX. I read in Truetype-Fonts in LaTeX that TTF fonts are available without creating all the .TFM files. What is necessary for this case?

Can I install the fonts in the local-texfm directory? I would like to isolate the system installation and my manually added stuff. Probably it would be easier to copy this font family on another installation.

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You should use XeLaTeX instead of LaTeX, if you want a hassle free experience using extra fonts. It's simple as \setmainfont{Lucida Sans Unicode}. MiKTeX is XeLaTeX ready. –  anno Mar 26 '10 at 19:03

5 Answers 5

up vote 13 down vote accepted

The easiest way would be to use XeLaTeX, for which you would just install the fonts to your system. A basic template would look like this (from https://web.archive.org/web/20111115151939/http://theotex.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-is-xetex-basic-template_15.html) :

%!TEX TS-program = xelatex
%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
\setromanfont[Numbers=Uppercase]{Hoefler Text}

\title{Your Title}
\author{Your Name}



\section{Section Title}
Your text

\subsection{Subsection Title}
Your Text
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Using XeLaTeX sounds like a solution. I dont have "Hoefler Text" installed, so I replaced it with Verdana, what I see in the Fonts directory. I always get the message: ! LaTeX Error: File `metalogo.sty' not found. The "Extended TeX logo macros" package 2009-09-11 is installed. –  harper Mar 27 '10 at 10:40
what tex distribution are you using? have you tried including the file in your preamble? –  Mica Mar 29 '10 at 16:21
Try this opensource-archive.org/showthread.php?p=198133 –  anno Mar 30 '10 at 2:44
If you're using miktex and texniccenter, there is a known bug between the two where miktex can't prompt you to install new packaged. I have miktex set to auto-install packages without prompting me, and sometimes that fails too. when it does fail, i usually just make a pass of pdflatex from the command line. this ususallyl resolves the problems. –  Mica Mar 30 '10 at 16:17

Use ttf2tfm and ttf2pk programs

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try the following: http://www.radamir.com/tex/ttf-tex.htm. I tried it several YEARS ago; i found some bugs but I can't remember them anymore. I think it had something to do with wrong files being used with another program. The author had SWITCHED file extensions due to confusion because of the number of files being generated. I notified the author about it but I don't know if he had corrected it.

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If you want to stick to LaTeX, you can generally try these steps:

  1. Create the TeX font metrics (tfm), the font description (fd) and the font mapping (map).
    • Using ttf2tfm to generate .vpl, then vptovf to create .tfm.
  2. Put the files (ttf, tfm, fd, map) into the proper directories in the local texmf tree.
  3. Update the TeX filename database.
    • Using texhash
  4. Register the mapping.
    • Using updmap-sys

It seems rather straightforward, but there are many traps regarding the font description and mapping, as well as the naming scheme for the output files.

There are a lot of scripts and howtos which didn't work for me. So I wrote this tool to help me use ttf fonts with LaTeX: http://devnotcorp.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/use-truetype-font-with-pdflatex/.

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These instructions seem to be fairly easy: http://fachschaft.physik.uni-greifswald.de/~stitch/ttf.html

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It does not work with MikTex 2.9... –  markusN Aug 24 '11 at 11:32

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