[nc] Generate TeX files of the Ubuntu Font Family during build time

[Sense Egbert Hofstede]

At the moment it is not possible to use the Ubuntu Font Family in LaTeX without importing it manually. It would be great if this font would be made available in LaTeX by default, so you can choose to use a modern font without too much of a hassle.

Vincent-Xavier Jumel posted an article on his blog with some instructions for converting the font for use with TeX at <http://blog.thetys-retz.net/post/2010/11/02/Importing-Ubuntu-Font-Family-in-LaTeX/>.

I'm requesting to generate these files at build time. We could then make LaTeX recommend the resulting package, so every user on Ubuntu who installs LaTeX will be able to use the font straight away.

Related: bug #603574 (errors showing up during AFM build)

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Magic lines:

  autoinst --encoding=T1,OT1 --verbose Ubuntu-BI.ttf Ubuntu-B.ttf Ubuntu-I.ttf Ubuntu-R.ttf
  mkdir -p ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var/tex/latex/Ubuntu/Ubuntu/
  mv *.fd *.sty ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var/tex/latex/Ubuntu/Ubuntu/
  texhash ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var/

  \usepackage{Ubuntu}

Couple of things that need clarifying;

  (a) if this report is for .afm files, why are only *.fd and *.sty installed
  (b) what's the preferred system-wide target directory
  (c) in bug #603574 Vincent notes that DM could supply the AFMs, is this a better solution?

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Nicolas: that's your preferred solution for TeX/AFM build from the Debian font team angle?

[Sense Egbert Hofstede (sense)]

a) I referred to AFM files because I tried to use terminology I didn't fully grasp in order to make this bug report clearer. I removed references to it from the description, because I may have been using the wrong words. I'm not that familiar with LaTeX, I just play with it incidentally.

For the other questions I cannot help you.

I would like to say that I get error messages when trying to run the autoinst command on the TTF files downloaded from <font.ubuntu.com>: for each file I get this:
ERROR: I've parsed both 'Ubuntu-BI.ttf'
                    and 'Ubuntu-I.ttf' as

         Family
         Width regular
         Weight regular
         Shape roman
         Size 0-0

No file is generated as a result.

[Vincent-Xavier JUMEL (vincentxavier)]

Paul, be careful. Vanilla Ubuntu LaTeX installation uses TEXMFVAR = $HOME/.texmf-var dans TEXMFCONFIG = $HOME/.texmf-config

autoinst automagically puts files under those two directories, and they are used.

Prefererd system-wide directory is <file:///usr/share/texmf>.

I'm also thinking that if Vincent provides us with the afm files, it will be better than to generate them from the ttf's file.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubuntu-font-family-sources (Ubuntu Oneiric) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Vincent-Xavier: do you know what needs doing?

If you can document the instructions for generating the necessary files we can do it.

I did raise it with the LinuxLibertine guys in Berlin after Berlin, and their suggestion was that the problem has mostly been superseded by the availability and use of XeTeX which has native OpenType/TrueType.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubuntu-font-family-sources (Ubuntu Oneiric) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubuntu-font-family-sources (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio (andrewsomething)]

Setting back to new from expired.

AFAIK, XeTeX can't be used as a builder when generating documentation with Sphinx. I'd love to be able to use the Ubuntu font in latexpdf Sphinx docs.