texlive fonts configuration: cannot find Arial, Times

Polytropon freebsd at edvax.de
Mon Jan 20 10:41:12 UTC 2014


On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 02:22:43 -0800 (PST), Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'm starting to use texlive.
> I installed texlive-full-20120701.
> 
> I need to build a document with these
> declarations:
> 
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \usepackage{subfigure}
> \setmainfont{Times New Roman}
> \setsansfont{Arial}
> 
> [...]
> 
> I presume these basic fonts should be available
> as part of the default installation, right?

I don't think so. Those are fonts made by MICROS~1 to avoid
licensing real fonts. :-)



> So probably I haven't configured texlive fonts correctly?

I'm not sure in how far TeXlive is able to pick up fonts
installed on the system (usually fonts for use in X), but
maybe you could try installing the "webfonts" package? It
helps to make web pages look better when they have been
"optimized" for use with "Windows" (i. e., explicitely
requiring things like "Arial"). The results can then be
found in the /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/ directory.



> I've these directories:
> 
> $ ls /usr/local/share/texmf-dist/fonts/
> afm             enc             misc            ovf             sfd             truetype
> cid             fea             ofm             ovp             source          type1
> cmap            map             opentype        pk              tfm             vf
> 
> But not sure if this is enough.

Those are the fonts to be used with Metafont. As I said,
I'm not sure if those can interact in some way with other
fonts in the systmm.



Just as a sidenote:

If you want a good-looking serif font, just use the CMR
(Computer Modern Roman) that is the default font for many
LaTeX cases. If you want a Helvetica-like font (which "Arial"
is a poor replacement for), try this:

	\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
	\usepackage[scaled]{helvet}
	\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

Note that I'm using this when I need a sans serif font, and
it works in teTeX. Not sure if it will also work in TeXlive,
but I assume this functionality has been kept.

Also note that it isn't "the real Helvetica", but a very good
variation that comes with ligatures and looks _much_ better
than shabby "Arial".

Maybe if you use

	\setmainfont{cmr}
	\setsansfont{helvet}

you can get the same result? Again, note that I haven't tested
this. But giving it a try isn't a hard exercise. :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


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