Indexing fonts

[Peter Flynn]

On 15/12/2022 01:55, Norbert Preining wrote:
 > Are you running a Debian version? Ubuntu? Something else?

Me? I'm running Mint, but that's not relevant. I need to document this 
for all platforms.

> In the Debian case, some directories are added to the fonts.conf
> system configuration and thus found.
Excelent, thank you.

 > In the Debian case, yes. But since the fonts in Debian are *not*
 > installed into system searched font directories, but
 > 	/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts
 > the fonts will not be found automatically via fontconfig.

Right. Which is why I have been peddling my own flavour of 
fontconfig.conf, which I can now gladly abandon.


On 15/12/2022 21:39, Karl Berry wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
>      whether either route automatically updates the system's font index,
>      either via a system-provided font installation indexer or via a
>      utility such as fc-cache.
> 
> My question in return is, what "system-provided font installation
> indexer" exists (on Unix), other than fc-cache?

There appears to be a GUI routine called Font Manager which I assume 
does something. And there must surely be some GUI utility to install a 
font which a user has bought or downloaded. Or maybe no-one has ever 
done this, given that fc-cache can do it almost trivially.

> Anyway, Norbert answered for Debian. For native TL, the answer is here:
> https://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#xetexfontconfig

Aha :-) Perfect, thank you.

> Which is to say, nothing is run on Unix (the fontconfig file is created,
> but not run). On Windows, fc-cache is run, which I guess helps with
> XeTeX (and LuaTeX, presumably -- can anyone confirm?), but I presume
> that does not make the TL fonts available as true system fonts, e.g., to
> Word.

I didn't know fc-cache existed for Windows. From examination of a couple 
of users' Windows systems, I believe it may make the fonts available. 
That is, I have seen CM appear in the font selection drop-down in Word. 
I have also seen it happen on a Mac, but I don't know the incantation.

> For that specific invocation of Accanthis, specifically, yes, must be
> manually added as a system font.
> 
> If the accanthis package provided a fontspec file, nothing manual would
> need to be done. Many OT/TT font packages do provide fontspec files.

Useful, thanks. I've never seen or investigated one.

> You already know my opinion of system font lookups, so I won't belabor
> the point :). 

With which I agree...for expert users. The novice user (whom I am trying 
to educate) needs to start with simpler methods like 
\setmainfont{Accanthis ADF Std No3}

Peter