System font configuration for XeTeX and LuaTeX
XeTeX and LuaTeX can use any font installed on the system, not just those in the TeX trees. Such system fonts (not part of TeX Live) are usually accessed by giving the font name, e.g., ‘Liberation Serif’, although the system filename can also be used.
A related issue is making the fonts from the TeX Live distribution available as system fonts, which will in turn make them available by font name.
For LuaTeX
for access by font name, nothing special need be done. All fonts in TeX Live should be equally accessible by either font name or filename to LuaTeX, via the luaotfload package, which supports both LaTeX and plain TeX. The luaotfload font name index may need to be rebuilt for new fonts; this is triggered automatically when trying to load a font which isn’t known yet.
For XeTeX
on Windows, fonts shipped with TeX Live are automatically made available (by running the fc-cache program provided for Windows as part of TeX Live). For the Mac, you’ll need to consult other documentation. For Unix systems other than macOS, the procedure is the following.
When the xetex package is installed (either at initial installation or later), the necessary configuration file is created in TEXMFSYSVAR/fonts/conf/texlive-fontconfig.conf. To make the TeX Live fonts available as system fonts,
Setup 1
Copy that texlive-fontconfig.conf file to (typically) /etc/fonts/conf.d/09-texlive conf.
Setup 2
Run
fc-cache -fsvIf you do not have sufficient privileges to carry out the steps above, or if you want to make the TeX Live fonts available to only one user, you can do the following:
Setup 1
Copy the texlive-fontconfig.conf file to (typically) ~/.fonts.conf.d/09-texlive.conf, where ~ is your home directory.
Setup 2
Run
fc-cache -fvYou can run fc-list to see the names of the available system fonts. The incantation fc-list : family style file spacing (all those arguments are literal strings) shows some generally interesting information.
Integrating third-party fonts
This is unfortunately a messy topic for TeX and pdfTeX. Forget about it unless you want to delve into many details of the TeX installation. Many fonts are included in TeX Live already, so take a look if you like; the web pages under Font Catalogue display nearly all of the text fonts included in the main TeX distributions, categorized in various ways.
If you do want to install your own fonts, see Font Install for our best effort at describing the procedure.
Also consider using XeTeX or LuaTeX, which let you use operating system fonts without any installation in TeX. (But beware that using system fonts usually makes your document sources unusable by anyone in a different environment.)
getnonfreefonts
Some font suppliers provide fonts which can be used freely but they disallow charging money for the distribution. Hence, for distributions on CD or DVD it is usually impossible to include these fonts.
getnonfreefonts is a script which downloads and installs these fonts.
Conclusion
Installing custom fonts in TeX Live on Linux doesn't have to be complicated. By following these steps—whether using the texmf directory for local projects or updating your system-wide font cache—you can significantly enhance the visual quality of your LaTeX documents. Remember to run texhash and fc-cache to ensure your system recognizes the new additions. Happy typesetting!
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