Using Truetype fonts and Unicode in Pdflatex

Otfried Cheong

April 30, 2007

This page explains how to set up Pdflatex to use Truetype fonts, and how to access arbitrary scripts using Unicode in your Latex source. (If you are not interested in Unicode, no problem--you can stop reading before we get to that.)

I'm using tetex on Linux, and MikTeX on Windows. Both TeX distributions come with Pdflatex, but don't have any examples using Truetype fonts.

These instructions have been updated in July 2005 to work with recent versions of Pdftex (which no longer make use of the pdftex.cfg configuration file). Consequently, the current instructions no longer work with old versions of Pdftex.

• Using a Truetype font in Pdflatex
• Unicode text with Pdflatex
• A more complicated example: Gentium
• Building ttf2tfm

Some other useful links:

• The Pdftex page has the excellent Pdftex manual in various formats, and archives of the Pdftex mailing list.
• You may need the most recent version of pdftex.def to get the \includegraphics command to work properly if you upgrade Pdftex without upgrading the rest of tetex.
• The MiKTeX TTF Font Installer is a Windows program that asks you for TTF fonts and then fully automatically adds them to your MikTeX setup.
• How to install TTF fonts for an alternative, somewhat different description, on using TTF fonts with Tex and Pdftex under Windows (MikTeX).
• The Latex homepage.
• Using common PostScript fonts with Latex
• The Latex font guide is fntguide.tex.
• The fontinst http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/fontinst package, and Phillip Lehman's guide for installing Type 1 fonts with fontinst.
• The TeX font guide by David Wright.
• Gentium, a free Unicode Truetype typeface designed by Victor Gaultney. Note that at least some version of Gentium broke ttf2tfm version 1.5 (and earlier). You may need to use the latest cvs version of ttf2tfm. The most recent version of MikTeX is okay (run the MikTeX Update Wizard to be on the safe side). Alternatively, I have been told that you can work around the problem by running ttf2afm and afm2tfm instead of ttf2tfm.