[Tex/LaTex] XeLaTeX ttf font support

fontsfontspecxetex

Watertank is some ttf font that I got from one of those cheap fonts CDs. I know it is installed in my system because I can use it in other programs; but when I use it in XeLaTeX (which works with other Windows fonts) XeLaTeX complains. The command is

\newfontface\hmathscr{Watertank}

And the message is:

(C:\ProgramsToo\MiKTeX\tex\latex\oberdiek\rerunfilecheck.sty)))Running
miktex-makemf.exe… miktex-makemf:
The Watertank source file could not be
found.

Running hbf2gf.exe…

hbf2gf (CJK ver. 4.8.0)

Couldn't find `Waterta.cfg'

miktex-maketfm: No creation rule for
font Watertank.

! Font \zf@basefont=Watertank at
10.0pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) file or inst alled font not found.
\scan_stop: l.23 \newfontface\hmathscr{Watertank}

If I try to use the file name (by giving Watertank.ttf), I get the following error message

xelatex.exe: Broken pipe

I tried refreshing the font cache, with fc-cache -fv, it does not work either. I tried with -output-driver=xdvipdfmx, with -output-driver=xdv2pdf, with –no-pdf

MiKTeX-XeTeX 2.9.3971 (0.9997.4)
(MiKTeX 2.9)

Do I have to "prepare" the font besides installing it?

EDIT 1:

(Thanks Will Robertson)
Running "xetex -no-pdf s.tex" on

\font\1="Watertank"\1 hello
\bye

gives the same message as before.

Running "xetex -no-pdf s.tex" on

\font\1="[Watertank.ttf]"\1 hello
\bye

produces the xdv file. The subsequent "xdvipdfmx -vv s.xdv" crashes on Windows 7 but leaves the following message

DVI Comment: XeTeX output
2011.01.16:1738 s.xdv -> s.pdf [1<C:/Windows/Fonts/Watertank.ttf@9.96pt
fontmap:
[C:/Windows/Fonts/Watertank.ttf]/H/65536/0/0
-> C:/Windows/Fonts/Watert ank.ttf(Identity-H)

pdf_font>> Input encoding "Identity-H"
requires at least 2 bytes. pdf_font>>
The -m <00> option will be assumed for
"C:/Windows/Fonts/Watertank.ttf".

What is the -m option?

Best Answer

Sounds like a problem with the font if you have no trouble loading other fonts in the same way. (I've had troubles with such fonts before.) Create a minimal example in plain TeX with

\font\1="Watertank"\1 hello
\bye

\font\1="[Watertank.ttf]"\1 hello
\bye

and compile the document with

xetex -no-pdf «filename»
xdvipdfmx -vv «filename»

to verify that it's the font that causes the problem, and if these still fail you might be able to debug the problem further by sending the info to the XeTeX mailing list. Not much we can do here, I'm afraid.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] XeLaTeX can find font, but xdvipdfmx can’t

An update to TeX Live 2010 solved the problem for me. Apparently, this is a problem specific to XeTeX 0.9996.

[Tex/LaTex] XeLaTeX with fontspec is slow every time, not just the first time

The first thing to diagnose for "XeTeX running slowly" problems is to compile the document with xelatex -no-pdf, and then run xdvipdfmx manually on the resulting .xdv file. Timing each one separately will indicate whether it's XeTeX running slowly or xdvipdfmx.

The next step is to figure out if it's XeTeX or fontspec at fault. I would be surprised if it were fontspec that were causing this slowdown. (Not because I have high regard for fontspec's efficiency, but rather that others haven't reported such terrible performance.) Try compiling the following example instead:

\documentclass{article}
\message{Hello}
\font\x="AlegreyaSC-Regular" at 10pt
\message{How are you?}
\begin{document}
{\x Test}
\end{document}

My hypothesis is that this is also slow for you. (If not, maybe it is my fault after all.)

This method for loading the font (by "font name") is presumably using the Windows equivalent of fc-cache, which I know very little about. It's possible that you have many many fonts installed in your system, and this is slowing things down. Or that there's something misconfigured that's forcing some sort of database rebuild every time XeTeX queries for a font.

You might be able to get around this problem by loading the font by filename instead:

\setmainfont[Path=...]{AlegreyaSC-Regular.otf}

This will require you to select the bold/italic shapes manually; e.g., something like:

\setmainfont[Path=...,Extension=.otf,
   UprightFont=*-Regular,
   ItalicFont=*-Italic,...]{AlegreyaSC}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] XeLaTeX can find font, but xdvipdfmx can’t

[Tex/LaTex] XeLaTeX with fontspec is slow every time, not just the first time

Related Question