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Say, I have a font.ttf or font.otf file. Is there any method by which we can get the font.pfb file from them? In other words, Can we convert ttf to type1 fonts? If yes, somebody please tell me how or direct me to the right path.

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    Could you add some motivation to this? What part of your TeX based workflow raised this issue? – qubyte Feb 27 '12 at 05:39
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    @MarkS.Everitt Anyone who wants to use PDFLaTeX instead of LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX with a font that isn't on CTAN would need to do this... – Canageek Feb 27 '12 at 06:22
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    @Canageek: Yes I know. However, the question is a little thin and could use some padding, especially as it doesn't involve TeX on first glance. In addition, the simple answer is just "use LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX", so what is the reason not to use those? – qubyte Feb 27 '12 at 06:28
  • @MarkS.Everitt, My experience with xelatex has not been good with some of the fonts since I struggled my way out. So I thought if I learn this conversion I can directly use them with pdflatex. –  Feb 27 '12 at 07:10
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    @MarkS.Everitt LuaLaTeX is still buggy, and neither support Microtype. Also neither are used by scientific journals. – Canageek Feb 27 '12 at 15:32
  • @Canageek: Microtype is the same by default for LuaTeX and pdfTeX, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. It has less capability, sure, but you'll only see the difference if you really poke around. Your point on journal publishing valid of course, and why I rarely use anything other than pdflatex masquerading as LaTeX. – qubyte Feb 27 '12 at 15:42
  • @MarkS.Everitt I thought it didn't have the ability to stick punctuation out into the margin yet? Or did the fix that? – Canageek Feb 27 '12 at 18:02
  • @Canageek: That's disabled by default, and only supported by pdfTeX at the moment. I think anyway. The documentation may have been updated since I last looked at it. – qubyte Feb 27 '12 at 18:04
  • @Canageek - where is the problem with microtype? It works fine here. And which bugs do you encounter? Not saying that there are none, but in my practice, it works just fine. – topskip Feb 27 '12 at 23:37
  • @PatrickGundlach I've not used LuaTeX: I was warned away from it on the LaTeX IRC channel as not worth it if you weren't trying to use otf fonts, as it had some unfound bugs yet. Also it doesn't support all the features of Microtype that pdfTeX does, including margin protrusion as mentioned above. – Canageek Feb 28 '12 at 23:57
  • @Canageek that's just FUD. Even TeX might have unfound bugs. A lot of people are using LuaTeX. – topskip Feb 29 '12 at 07:32

2 Answers2

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You should be able to use ttf fonts directly with PDFLaTeX. You can generate Type1 fonts from OTF with the LCDF type tools. For example the command

otftotfm JosefinSansStd-Light.otf

gives you the files JosefinSansStd-Light.pfb and JosefinSansStd-Light.tfm.

topskip
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You might be interested in the installfont bash script. It automates the process of creating the font support files and installing them at the proper place. You need a *nix like environment like cygwin to run it. There's also a package of fontforge for cygwin, which would also solve your problem with the LCDF type tools. Just load the font in fontforge, reencode it to AdobeStandardEncoding and export it to PostScript Type1 (Binary).

Josef
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  • Thanks, Your answer was also useful. But I can choose only one answer. But I can say thanks again. –  Mar 02 '12 at 15:36