[Tex/LaTex] Stuck with NimbusSanL instead of Arial/Helvetica

fontsUbuntu

For an article I need to use Times for the text body and Arial or Helvetica for section headings. I use Latex on Ubuntu. I've looked for ways of getting Arial/Helvetica to work, but I keep getting NimbusSanL in the document. I installed msttcorefonts and I can see them with fc-list | grep -i arial:

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial_Italic.ttf: 
...
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/ariali.ttf:

In the document I have:

\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\sffamily}

But I'm still getting "NimbusSanL-Regu" when I check with pdffonts. How can I get the Arial or Helvetical font to work? The publisher keeps returning my document…

Would be grateful for any hints!
Ed

Minimal Example:

\documentclass[a5paper,10pt,x11names,pdf]{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} 
\usepackage[english,german]{babel}
\usepackage{lmodern} %Times
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}% Arial/Helvetica
\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\sffamily}  
\begin{document}
\chapter{Chapter}
\section{Section}
\lipsum[1-2]
\end{document}

Observation: With 

\usepackage{lmodern} %Times
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}% Arial/Helvetica

I'm getting NimbusSanL-Bold in pdffonts

With 

\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}% Arial/Helvetica
\usepackage{lmodern} %Times

it's LMSans10-Bold.

System: ubuntu
Latex: latex –version
pdfTeX 3.1415926-2.5-1.40.14 (TeX Live 2013/Debian)

Help would be very appreciated!

Ed.

Best Answer

EDIT: If you are under the impression that lmodern gets you Times, try this before you do anything else:

  • remove all font packages from your document;
  • add the following lines to the preamble:

.

\usepackage{mathptmx}
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}
  • send the file back and see what they say.

NimbusSans is a clone of Helvetica. Arial is another clone of Helvetica. NimbusRoman is a clone of Times.

lmodern loads the Latin Modern fonts in their default configuration i.e. Latin Modern Roman, Sans and Typewriter. If you load helvet first, Latin Modern Sans overwrites the effect. If you load it after, you get the font switch to NimbusSans (=Arial) but have done nothing about the serif fonts (i.e. that's still Latin Modern Roman). You don't want lmodern at all!

Otherwise...

You have a few choices. One is much less painful than the others. This is to switch to XeTeX or LuaTeX and use fontspec to select the fonts you need. Then you can use the system-installed .ttf fonts directly.

If that is not an option, you either need to convert the fonts to postscript type1 and create or find suitable support files (.tfm, .fd, .map etc.) or you can use the .ttf files directly if you can use pdfTeX. However, you still need the support files in that case.

Before you embark on any of this, you should get absolutely clear about why exactly the PDF is being returned to you. You want to know precisely what they are checking and what should be true that is not. Otherwise, you are going to spend time on a solution for nothing.

Ideally, the publisher will be able to advise you how to proceed in the case that you are using LaTeX. However, in this case, that sounds unlikely. But they must at least be able to tell you what tests they are running on the PDF and what the results should be.

Without knowing this, there is no guarantee that any of the solutions above will actually satisfy the publisher. The only relatively easy one is the first - XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX + fontspec. So if you want to try anything without more information, try that one. When you resend it, tell them that you need more details if the file still fails their tests.

The other possibilities are painful unless you already know the methods involved (in which case you wouldn't be asking) and can be time-consuming even if you do. Hence, these are not worth considering unless you are 100% certain that they are both necessary and sufficient to satisfy the publisher.

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