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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"><head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/tugstyle.css">   <title>Fonts and TeX - TeX Users Group</title> </head><body> <h2>Fonts and TeX</h2> <p>In principle, TeX can use any font for which it has metrics (character widths, kerning, etc.), and shapes (these days, generally PostScript Type 1 or <a href="/TUGboat/tb30-1/tb94thanh.pdf">TrueType</a> or <a href="https://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~jowens/code/otfinst/">OpenType</a>). <p>A couple notable articles on basic font concepts and usage in LaTeX: <ul> <li><a href="/TUGboat/tb14-2/tb39rahtz-nfss.pdf">Essential NFSS</a>, by Sebastian Rahtz. <li><a href="/pracjourn/2006-1/schmidt/">Font selection in LaTeX</a>, by Walter Schmidt. <li><a href="https://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/base/fntguide.pdf">LaTeX2e font selection reference</a>, by the LaTeX team. </ul> <p>For additional information of all kinds: <ul> <li>the <a href="/FontCatalogue/">LaTeX Font Catalogue</a>, by Palle Jørgensen of <a href="https://tug.dk">DK-TUG</a>, has short samples of most fonts available in TeX distributions, with LaTeX usage examples. <li>Brief <a href="fontinstall.html">font installation instructions</a>. <li><a href="https://typosetting.co.uk/">Ken Moffat's table of style and language coverage of numerous Unicode TTF and OTF fonts</a>, with examples. <li><a href="/TUGboat/tb44-1/tb136andre-prehistory.pdf">Prehistory of digital fonts</a>, an extensively illustrated history by <a href="https://jacques-andre.fr">Jacques André</a>. <li><a href="/TUGboat/Contents/listkeyword.html#CatTAGFonts">Font articles</a> in <a href="/TUGboat/">TUGboat</a>. <li><a href="https://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html">Luc Devroye's vast font site</a> (closed 2022). </ul> <p><b><a href="licenses/">Font licensing</a></b> is a perennial and troublesome topic. The freely available fonts listed below are under a variety of licenses; some <a href="licenses/">commonly-used licenses for fonts</a> are listed separately. <p id="utilities"><b>Notable font utilities</b> include: <ul> <li><a href="https://www.lcdf.org/type/otftotfm.1.html">otftotfm</a> and <a href="https://www.lcdf.org/type/otfinfo.1.html">otfinfo</a> in <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/lcdf-typetools">Eddie Kohler's lcdf-typetools</a>. <li><a href="https://www.mankier.com/1/autoinst">autoinst</a> in <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/fontools">Marc Penninga's fontools</a> wrapping lcdf-typetools. <a href="/TUGboat/tb34-1/tb106tennent.pdf">Bob Tennent wrote an article on using them</a> in practice to create TeX font support. <li><a href="https://github.com/behdad/fonttools">TTX</a> provides nearly lossless conversion between OpenType/TrueType fonts and an ASCII (XML) representation. <li><a href="https://fontforge.github.io/">FontForge</a> is the major free software font editor. </ul> <h3 id="families">Font families</h3> <p><b>Computer Modern</b>: Getting to specifics, the first and still most prevalent typeface in the TeX world is <a href="https://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/fonts/computer-modern.html">Computer Modern</a>, developed by Donald Knuth using his novel <a href="https://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/fonts/metafont.html">Metafont</a> program, which is distributed alongside TeX. <p><b>Other Modern</b>: Variants of Computer Modern have been created which cover letters and symbols from virtually all other Latin-based languages, as well translating the characters into PostScript Type 1 fonts, etc. <a href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-uselmfonts">Latin Modern</a>, <a href="https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/ps-type1/cm-super/">cm-super</a>, and <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/newcomputermodern">NewComputerModern</a> (also <a href="/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130tsolomitis-newcm.pdf">TUGboat article on NewCM</a>). <p><b>Base PostScript</b>: TeX also comes with support for the <a href="/fontname/html/Standard-PostScript-fonts.html">35 standard PostScript fonts</a>: Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier, Palatino, et al. (<a href="https://www.urwpp.de/english/home.htm">URW++</a> graciously <a href="deutsch-urw.txt">donated these fonts to the public</a> in 1996, thanks to the efforts of Peter Deutsch for Ghostscript. In 2009, URW also <a href="lppl-urw.txt">made them available under the LPPL</a>, thanks to the GUST font team's request. The <a href="ftp://tug.org/historic/fonts/base35/ghostscript-fonts-std-4.0.tar.gz">GPL'd originals</a>, are available for reference. Version 4.0 of the fonts was the basis for subsequent work by GUST. The current versions distributed by Ghostscript are substantially different. <p>Please see the <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/psnfss">psnfss2e documentation</a> for usage in LaTeX, and the <a href="https://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/psnfss/test1.tex">test1.tex</a> (and the other test*.tex) for more examples of output and use. In brief: <pre> \usepackage{mathptmx} % times roman, including math (where possible) \usepackage{mathpazo} % palatino, including math (where possible) \usepackage{helvet} % helvetica </pre> <p>The <a href="https://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/tex-gyre/">TeX Gyre</a> fonts from the <a href="https://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/">GUST Typefoundry</a> extend the base 35 PostScript fonts to many other scripts, analogous to Latin Modern's extensions of Computer Modern. <h3 id="samplers">Font samplers</h3> <p>The fonts below cover typesetting in a wide variety of languages and scripts, as well as of most mathematics. Font sampler documents are available, showing what they look like: <ul> <li><a href="/TUGboat/tb35-2/tb110sharpe.pdf">Additions to font repertoire</a>, by Michael Sharpe, reporting ca.2014 on a variety of high-quality Garamonds, Baskervilles, typewriter and sans, and plenty more fonts now available. <li><a href="https://home.vr-web.de/was/mathfonts">Mathematikschriften für LaTeX</a> by Walter Schmidt, shows many text/math combinations, both free and nonfree. <li><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/fontsampler/sampler.pdf">Free typeface sampler</a> by <a href="https://www.silmaril.ie/downloads/">Peter Flynn</a>, showing many of the fonts included in TeX Live and other distributions. <li><a href="https://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/showfont.pdf">Fonts in ConTeXt</a> by <a href="https://www.pragma-ade.com/">Hans Hagen</a>, showing text examples of common fonts (most free, some commercial) and how to specify them in ConTeXt. <li><a href="special-s.pdf">Typographical comparison document</a> by Hans Hagen, showing TeX fonts at large sizes, along with background information and mini-biographies of the designers. </ul> <h3>Fonts in TeX distributions</h3> <p>These fonts come with standard TeX installations, such as <a href="/texlive/">TeX Live</a> and <a href="https://miktex.org/">MiKTeX</a>, ready to use. <ul> <li>More fonts from the GUST Typefoundry: <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/antt/">Antykwa Toruńska</a>, <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/psfonts/polish/antp">Antykwa Półtawskiego</a>, <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cyklop/">Cyklop</a>, <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/iwona/">Iwona</a>, <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/kurier/">Kurier</a>. <li><a href="https://arkandis.tuxfamily.org/">Arkandis Digital Foundry</a> has created several free fonts with the look of Baskerville, Bodoni, and others. (La)TeX support files are available in most cases. <li>Bitstream has donated the Vera typeface family (slab serif, a Frutiger-like sans serif, and a monospace) to the public. The <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/bera/">version slightly enhanced for TeX</a> is named Bera. <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/bera/bera.pdf">Bera documentation and showings</a> (pdf). The <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/arev/">arev</a> variant is especially for slide presentations. <li>Bitstream has also made the <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/charter/">Charter</a> serif typeface freely available. <li><a href="https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium">Gentium</a> from Victor Gaultney. Gentium is one of <a href="/TUGboat/tb28-3/tb90kew.pdf">SIL's font projects</a>. <li><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/greek/GFS/">Greek Font Society fonts</a> include GFS Artemisia, Baskerville, Bodoni, Complutum, Didot, NeoHellenic, Porson, and Solomos. All support Greek, most also support Latin. <li><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/inconsolata/">Inconsolata</a> is a monospace design supporting most Latin-based scripts, and intended to be mostly compatible with Computer Modern typewriter. <li><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/libertine/">Libertine</a> is a free font family with a wide range of shapes, and support of several alphabets (including Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew). <li><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/mathdesign/">Math companion fonts for Garamond, Utopia, and Charter</a> are available from the Math Design project. <li>The <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/utopia/">Utopia</a></b> serif typeface has been donated by Adobe. The excellent <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/fourier-GUT/">Fourier-GUT</a> collection is based on Utopia. </ul> <h3>Free OpenType/TrueType-only fonts</h3> <p>These free (libre) fonts do not have Type 1 versions and therefore are most easily used with XeTeX and LuaTeX. (Some of the fonts above and below also have OpenType and/or TrueType versions.) They are all included in the principal TeX distributions. <ul> <li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/">GNU FreeFont</a> provides serif, sans serif, and monospaced variants supporting a very wide range of scripts. <li><a href="https://www.stixfonts.org/">The STIX Project</a> has released <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/stix2-otf/">OpenType math fonts for Unicode</a>, also in <a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/stix2-type1">Type1</a>. This <a href="/TUGboat/tb28-3/tb90beet.pdf">article on STIX by Barbara Beeton</a> explains some of the background and issues. <li><a href="https://ctan.org/pkg/stickstoo">SticksToo</a> is an extended derivative of STIX2, developed by Michael Sharpe. </ul> <p>While we're here, the article <a href="/TUGboat/tb30-1/tb94vieth.pdf">OpenType Math Illuminated</a> by Ulrik Vieth gives a detailed comparison of OpenType and TeX math font parameters. <h3>Some nonfree fonts</h3> <p>A few additional typefaces are available for general use by individuals, but have various restrictions which prevent inclusion in the free TeX distributions: <ul> <li><b><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/urw/garamond/">Garamond</a></b> and <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/urw/lettergothic/">Letter Gothic</a></b> from URW, originally released as part of <a href="https://www.artifex.com/downloads/">GhostPCL</a>. Additional fonts from the same source may acquire TeX support in the future. <li><b><a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/LuxiMono/">LuxiMono</a></b> from Bigelow & Holmes, a monospaced variant of Lucida. </ul> <p>The <a href="getnonfreefonts/">getnonfreefonts</a> script simplifies installation of these fonts, and others. Try <tt>getnonfreefonts --help</tt>. <h3>Proprietary typefaces</h3> <p>First, if you are interested in helping produce more free fonts, please see the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/fontutils/">GNU Font Utilities</a> web page and this <a href="/TUGboat/tb22-4/tb72berry.pdf">TUGboat article</a> for starting points, and let us know. <p>Excellent fonts are available commercially from many companies. Unfortunately, the ones we checked (Adobe, Bitstream, et al.) have extremely high prices for a font library (thousands of dollars). Prices for individual typefaces are also expensive. There are a number of inexpensive collections available, of varying quality and legality, but since none are legally usable everywhere in the world, regrettably TUG cannot specifically recommend any of them. Commercial fonts typically do not come with support for TeX, such as .tfm files, but many such metrics are available on CTAN; see especially <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/metrics/w-a-schmidt/">Walter Schmidt's collection</a> and <a href="https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/minionpro/">MinionPro TeX support</a>. <p>One commercial font collection we can recommend is <a href="https://pctex.com/mtpro2.html">MathTime Pro 2</a> by Michael Spivak, distributed by <a href="https://www.pctex.com/">Personal TeX, Inc.</a> It has a full complement of Times Roman characters for math typesetting with TeX, based on original designs. It can be used with any TeX implementation that supports TeX's <a href="https://texfaq.org/FAQ-virtualfonts">virtual fonts</a>. <p>Finally, the <a href="/lucida/">Lucida typeface family</a>, while remaining under a proprietary license, is available through TUG, in both Type 1 and OpenType versions. <hr><small>$Date: 2024/12/07 22:20:18 $</small>;   <small> <a href="/index.html">TUG home page</a>; <a href="/join.html">join TUG/renew membership</a>; <a href="mailto:webmaster@tug.org">webmaster</a>; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeXUsersGroup">facebook</a>; <a href="https://x.com/texusersgroup">x</a>; <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/texusersgroup.bsky.social">bluesky</a>; <a href="https://techhub.social/@TeXUsersGroup">mastodon</a>.  </small> </body></html>