[Tex/LaTex] How to install OTF fonts with otfinst.py

fonts

I want to install some fonts that I have in OTF format for use in LaTeX.

I learned that I should use otfinst.py, but I have absolutely no idea how. The manual is by far the worst ever I've seen.

I have three files, that I'd like to convert: Crimson-Roman.otf, Crimson-Bold.otf, Crimson-Italic.otf, and Crimson-BoldItalic.otf.

The script asks for a "berryname" which I have no Idea where to set it, or what it should be.
I want to use the old-style numerics in that font, how do I generate them, and how do I select them in LaTeX?

And what about all the other textual replacements in the OTF file, do those glyphs get converted, too?

And what's the deal with the font encoding? It uses Ly1, what is that? I need UTF-8 if that has anything to do with it.

Best Answer

Here is a good news for you: if you use XeTeX or LuaTeX, you don't have to convert OTF fonts, you can just use them directly by installing them in your system.

Here is an example on Ubuntu:

$ sudo cp EBGaramond.otf /usr/local/share/fonts
$ sudo fc-cache /usr/local/share/fonts
$ fc-list | grep Garamond
EB Garamond:style=Regular

and then you can use it in LaTeX:

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{xunicode}
\defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text}
\setmainfont{EB Garamond}

All OpenType features are available via fontspec. See for example this project which makes an heavy use of OpenType features with XeTeX.

So unless you heavily rely on specific PDFTex functionalities, I would really recommend you use XeTeX (or LuaTeX) if you want to use OTF fonts.

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