[Tex/LaTex] TeX Gyre fonts in XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX: call by name or file name

fontspecxetex

Is there any downside of using file names with \setmainfont, except for the fact that it takes more typing?

I ask because I am experiencing problems with using names for TeX Gyre fonts on my Linux Mint box: as explained here, XeLaTeX on Linux will not find TeX-installed fonts by name. Hence, I installed the fonts also system-wide (Ubuntu package tex-gyre), but the font names are different from my Windows box: the spaces are gone, so "Tex Gyre Termes" becomes "TeXGyreTermes" etc. This means that using names, the code becomes system-dependent 🙁
(By the way, should this be considered a bug and reported to the maintainers of the tex-gyre package?)

On the other hand, calling the font by file name should work as long as the font file names are the same – can one trusts that? And is there any other potential problem with using file names?

Thanks

Best Answer

I discussed some of the problems and choices in my article in TUGboat 117 (vol 37 no 3, 2016) at http://tug.org/TUGboat/tb37-3/tb117inn.pdf — it's basically down to how you work, what your workflow is, and how much you wish to trade off the conveniences of one against the inconveniences of the other. Basically, using filenames (and paths) ties your document to one directory structure, but it's more likely to be accurate for you. Using font names is supposed to be more system-independent, but they are sometimes weird and not always obvious.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] fontspec-example.tex on texlive 2010 and Ubuntu

(From Finding a font for XeTeX): Fonts that are installed with your TeX distribution (like the TeX Gyre fonts; look in .../texmf-dist/fonts) need to be called with their file name (in XeTeX; LuaTeX accepts the font name). For example,

\setmainfont[
    Ligatures=TeX,
    Extension=.otf,
    UprightFont= *-regular,
    BoldFont=*-bold,
    ItalicFont=*-italic,
    BoldItalicFont=*-bolditalic]{texgyretermes}

See also the “Font selection” chapter in the fontspec manual (texdoc fontspec).

[Tex/LaTex] XeTeX and Fedora: can’t use OTF fonts

In section 4.2 (p6) of the fontspec manual, it says:

4.6 By file name

XETEX and LuaTEX also allow fonts to be loaded by file name instead of font name. When you have a very large collection of fonts, you will sometimes not wish to have them all installed in your system’s font directories. In this case, it is more convenient to load them from a different location on your disk. This technique is also necessary in XETEX when loading OpenType fonts that are present within your TEX distribution, such as /usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/fonts/opentype/ public. Fonts in such locations are visible to XETEX but cannot be loaded by font name, only file name; LuaTEX does not have this restriction.

This means that you cannot simply use

\setmainfont{Linux Libertine O}

with XeLaTeX unless the file is seen by your system.

In order to use TeX distribution fonts with XeLaTeX, you need to load them by hand which gets very tedious.

Your best alternative is to use the libertine TeX package (\usepackage{libertine}).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] fontspec-example.tex on texlive 2010 and Ubuntu

[Tex/LaTex] XeTeX and Fedora: can’t use OTF fonts

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