How can I install a specialist package of metafonts on TeX Live?

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What worked for me on MacOSX (you didn't specify your own platform yet):

  • Install the STY and Defs directories into the tex directory of your personal TEXMF directory (here on MacOSX in ~/Library/texmf/tex/byzfonts, arborescence to be created if needed, on other Unixes it would be probably ~/texmf/tex/byzfonts);
  • Install the Alphabet folder, the XAP folders and the byyf.mf, byzf.mf, bzal.mf files in the ~/Library/texmf/fonts/source/byzfonts directory (also create this arborescence if needed);

Note: ~ stands for your personal HOME directory, that is /Users/<your_username> on MacOSX.

You can choose to install those files in you local texmf directory instead, /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local on MacOSX (and other Unixes as well it seems), but then you'll have to enter, after the previous steps, the mktexlsr or texhash instruction on the command line, as a "super user" (in MacOSX, sudo mktexlsr).

If I compile the file tst.tex I get this:

enter image description here

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wakajawaka
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wakajawaka

Updated on August 01, 2022

Comments

  • wakajawaka
    wakajawaka over 1 year

    I'm new on LaTeX, can you tell me how to install byzfonts ("Byzantine Music Font") on TeX Live? I've downloaded it from CTAN, but there is no installation manual for it.

    [ADDED by cfr]

    I started trying to answer this but I can't understand the package well enough.

    There are a lot of files here and the file names don't make sense to me. For example, the .sty files are certainly not LaTeX packages. So they are 'style' files in some other sense I'm not familiar with. Moreover, there do not seem to be any .fd files to support the use of the fonts with LaTeX, although there is certainly support for LaTeX in .tex files defining new commands.

    Are these meant to be installed as fonts at all? Or are they meant to be used in some other way?

    • Franck Pastor
      Franck Pastor over 8 years
      Which platform do you use? Windows, Mac OS X, Linux?
    • Johannes_B
      Johannes_B over 8 years
      Crosspost to LaTeX Community.
    • cfr
      cfr over 8 years
      Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format.
    • cfr
      cfr over 8 years
      I started to write an answer to this but I've given up. Do any of the documents say anything about what to do with things? The .sty files are not .sty files of any kind familiar to me. That is, they are not LaTeX packages at all. They look more like plain TeX. (You can use these in LaTeX, too, but they are not 'style' files as the README claims.) There don't appear to be any .fd files. So you'd need to create these unless they have been misnamed or are hidden in one of the sub-directories.
    • cfr
      cfr over 8 years
      This is not going to be an easy installation. How badly do you need these particular fonts? Are there any alternatives you could use? If you absolutely need them, which ones specifically do you need? Are you aware that these fonts will not look good if used in PDF documents viewed with certain PDF viewers (e.g. Adobe)? If the fonts are good, they should print fine. But the results won't be good for use in e.g. PDFs posted online or by email.
    • cfr
      cfr over 8 years
      I've added some specifics to the question. If you prefer, feel free to roll-back my edit.
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    @wakajawaka I forgot to mention that the XAP folders must also go to ~/Library/texmf/fonts/source/byzfonts (or probably rather to ~/texmf/fonts/source/byzfonts since you are on Linux), since they also contain Metafont files. I've edited my answer accordingly.
  • wakajawaka
    wakajawaka over 8 years
    thanks for your reply which command is in latex *.tex to define my font? i use linux texlive: i've made folders ~/usr/local/share/texmf/fonts/source/byzfonts and install here Alphabet folder and other folders including files with type *.mf ; and also i've installed in ~/usr/local/share/texmf/ folder Defs and STY. now what should i do?
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    You seem to make a confusion between ~/texmf and /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local. Which one have you chosen?
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    Yes, it is correct. If you indeed have done all the installations I previously told, i.e. in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/fonts/source/byzfonts and /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/tex/byzfonts, the only thing remaining to be done is updating the filename database, by entering the command mktexlsr as a ‘‘super user’’. On Mac OS X, this is done by entering sudo mktexlsr which will require a administrator password. On Linux, this may be similar.
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    You can choose either (but not both). See also my comment above.
  • wakajawaka
    wakajawaka over 8 years
    ok, ive updated database, now please tell me how to define this fonts in *.tex file.
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    As for this, I can't answer. The only thing I did about this was to check that my installation worked, by executing the file tst.tex. There seems to be a lot of other examples, maybe you should try to see how they invoke the fonts.
  • wakajawaka
    wakajawaka over 8 years
    maybe Ive Poorly explained you this last request. : last thing I want is to define this fonts in tex file: I don't know there are different command like usepackage, usefont ,i.e. if you'll help me to do this then I will work with text independently.
  • Franck Pastor
    Franck Pastor over 8 years
    As cfr already noticed, these fonts are not organized the way a classical LaTeX font package usually is. They don't follow the usual scheme, e.g. they are not simply called by \usepackage{thefont} and so on. Really, I don't know anymore than you do about this. The only advice I can give you is to study how the given example files (test.tex and co.) call the fonts and understand the logic behind this (which I don't understand myself).
  • cfr
    cfr over 8 years
    (+1) but 2 suggestions. (1) I think that the use of 'arborescence` makes things needlessly difficult for users whose English is less than perfect. (2) It would be more effective, more accurate and more efficient to suggest users run kpsewhich -var TEXMFHOME and install into e.g. $(kpsewhich -var TEXMFHOME)/tex/byzrfonts. On unices, mkdir -p $(kpsewhich -var TEXMFHOME)/fonts/source/byzrfonts would create that directory. You can then say that another option is to use TEXMFLOCAL which reduces the risk of confusion with the main texmf tree.
  • cfr
    cfr over 8 years
    @wakajawaka You are using your distro's TeX Live packages, right? So kpsewhich -var TEXMFLOCAL gives you a different result from fpast? I'm assuming that it gives you /usr/local/share/texmf/. However, if you really installed under ~/usr/local/share/texmf/ then that's almost certainly wrong. This would be e.g. /home/yourusername/usr/local/share/texmf which is probably not what you get it you run kpsewhich -var TEXMFHOME.