[OS X TeX] XeLaTeX from TeXShop

[Red Roo]

--- On Fri, 2/6/09, Thomas Käufl <kaeufl at ira.uka.de> wrote:
> Am 6. Feb 2009 um 17:41 schrieb Red Roo:
> 
> > On Fri Jan 16 17:50:51 CET 2009 Peter Vamos P.Vamos
> wrote:
> > 
> > I tried running the XeLaTeX example from p. 54 of the
> above AMS article with TeXShop 2.18, but it fails to find
> the Garamond Premier Pro font. ...
> 
> the font Garamond Premier Pro is not contained in Mac OSX.
> If you have not installed this font, the example will not
> work. The same applies to the font Bickham.
> 
> Today, I tried this example too. I replaced Garamond by
> Baskerville and Bickham by Zapfino.
> 
> So part of the preamble specifying the fonts looks like
> 
> \setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Baskerville}%{Garamond
> Premier Pro}
> \setmonofont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{Courier}
> \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text,
> Scale=MatchLowercase}
> \setsansfont{Lucida Grande}%{Helvetica Neue}
> \newfontfamily{\Zap}{Zapfino}

And very nicely done too, if I may say so.

That's my point. It is bad form for the AMS author to show off new concepts (XeLaTeX in the case) with latent assumptions (e.g., having certain commercial fonts available) such that when an innocent/naive reader (the most likely audience; otherwise why write it in the first place) tries running the XeLaTeX example in MacTeX/TeXShop (which is beautifully integrated and capable of doing so at the push of a button), only to have it fail!

Using these standard Mac fonts, illustrates the point of XeLaTeX without getting distracted by unnecessary font complications. That can all come later.

That said, it wasn't a total waste of time (from my original objective) because I did discover that the Apple-supplied MacOS fonts are in the root dir /Library/Fonts/ (not ~/Library/...). Even nicer, clicking on the font filenames allows you to see a preview of characters in that font (in most cases).  
 
> "Helvetica Neue" is the German name. Have a look
> in the font
> book for the English name of Helvetica.
> 
> To see the Zapfino font in its full glory, try
> 
> {\Zap T}\\
> {\Zap Th}\\
> {\Zap Thi}\\
> {\Zap This}\\
> {\Zap This is Z}\\
> {\Zap This is Za}\\
> {\Zap This is Zap}\\
> {\Zap This is Zapf}\\
> {\Zap This is Zapfi}\\
> {\Zap This is Zapfin}\\
> {\Zap This is Zapfino.}
> 
> And don't use the command LaTeX. Use XeLaTeX instead.
> 
> Thomas Käufl