Using common PostScript fonts with LATEX

Walter Schmidt

This document refers to

PSNFSS version 9.0 as of 2002-04-24

Contents
1 What is PSNFSS ? 2

2 Package overview 2

3 Special considerations 2
3.1 Inter-line spacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3.2 Using sans serif fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.3 Output font encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.4 Euro support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

4 The package helvet 3

5 The package mathptmx 4

5.1 Package options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.2 New commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.3 Font size of the ‘large’ math symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.4 Known bugs and deficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

6 The package mathpazo 4

6.1 Package options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.2 New commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.3 Font size of the ‘large’ math symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

7 The package pifont 6

7.1 Commands for using Zapf Dingbats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.2 Generic commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

8 NFSS classification 8

9 Obsolete packages 8
9.1 The packages times and palatino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.2 The package mathptm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.3 The package mathpple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

10 Typeface samples 10

1
1 What is PSNFSS ?
The PSNFSS collection includes a set of files that provide a complete working
setup of the LATEX font selection scheme (NFSS2) for use with common PostScript
fonts. The basic distribution, which should be part of any useful LATEX installation,
covers the so-called ‘Base 35’ fonts (which are built into any Level 2 PostScript
printing device and the Ghostscript interpreter) and the free Utopia, Charter and
Pazo fonts.

2 Package overview
The easiest way to make use of the above-mentioned typefaces is to completely
replace one or more of the font families used by LATEX as ‘roman’, ‘sans serif’ and
‘typewriter’ family and for math. This is accomplished by the packages listed in
table 1. Its first row lists the default (Computer Modern) font families. An empty
column indicates that a package does not change the particular font family.
The PSNFSS distribution includes also a package pifont, which serves for accessing
symbol fonts (aka ‘Pi fonts’), such as Symbol and Zapf Dingbats, see section 7.

Table 1: Packages for using common PostScript fonts

package roman sans serif typewriter formulas
(none) CM Roman CM Sans Serif CM Typewriter ≈ CM Roman
mathptmx Times ≈ Times
mathpazo Palatino ≈ Palatino
helvet Helvetica
avant Avant Garde
courier Courier
chancery Zapf
Chancery
bookman Bookman Avant Garde Courier
newcent New Century Avant Garde Courier
Schoolbook
utopia Utopia
charter Charter

3 Special considerations
3.1 Inter-line spacing
With certain font families, the leading of the standard LATEX document classes may
be too small. This results from the larger x-height of these fonts, as compared with
Computer Modern. Since it is a question of document design and line width, the
packages of the PSNFSS bundle do not take care of this. Issuing the command
\linespread {hfactori}
in the preamble will globally enlarge the leading by the given factor.

2
3.2 Using sans serif fonts
The packages helvet and avant do not change the default text font family from
‘roman’. If required, the additional command
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}
makes LATEX use the sans serif font family (Helvetica or Avant Garde) as the de-
fault one.

3.3 Output font encoding

None of the packages listed in table 1 changes the output font encoding from its
default setting OT1. It is, however, recommended to use the fonts in the extended
T1 and TS1 (text symbols) encodings through the commands:
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
When using PostScript fonts that come from ‘outside the TEX world’, there is no
reason at all to stay with the obsolete OT1 encoding, which would not provide
access to all available glyphs. However, since these fonts were not particularly
designed for use with TEX, they do not include all of the text companion (TS1)
symbols.

3.4 Euro support

From PSNFSS version 9 on, the Palatino font family provides a built-in Euro sym- New feature
bol, which can be reached throgh the \texteuro command. This requires the 2002-04-10
textcomp package, see above. v9.0

The other Base35 fonts and the free versions of the Utopia and Charter fonts do,
however, not include the Euro symbol. If required, the Euro needs to be taken from
an extra symbol font.

4 The package helvet

Helvetica is actually somewhat larger than other typefaces of the same nomi-
nal size. As a result, mixing, e.g., Times and Helvetica within running text
may look bad. This can be fixed by loading the helvet package with the option
[scaled=hscalei], e.g.:
\usepackage[scaled=.92]{helvet}
This will load the font family phv (Helvetica) for sans-serif, scaled down to 92%
of its ‘natural’ size, which is suitable for use with Adobe Times. The hscalei can
be omitted:
\usepackage[scaled]{helvet}
A default scaling of 0.95 will be assumed then, which makes the height of the
Helvetica capital letters comply with most other typeface families.

3
 5 The package mathptmx
Loading this package changes the default roman font family to Times, and the
virtual ‘mathptmx’ fonts will be used for math.
These virtual fonts are made up basically from Times Italic, with the missing math
symbols coming from CM, RSFS (for \mathcal) and Adobe Symbol.

5.1 Package options

[slantedGreek]

When the package is loaded with this option, uppercase Greek letters in math will New feature
be slanted by default. 2001-06-04
v8.2

5.2 New commands

\upDelta
\upOmega

Regardless of the slantedGreek option, these commands will always print an

upright ∆ and Ω.

5.3 Font size of the ‘large’ math symbols

With mathptmx, the ‘large’ math symbols are automatically scaled to fit the base
font size. In contrast to standard LATEX you need not load the package exscale for
this purpose!

5.4 Known bugs and deficiencies

• There are no bold math fonts, and \boldmath is not supported.
• The following symbols are either missing or unusable:
\emptyset, \jmath, \coprod, \amalg.

6 The package mathpazo

Loading this package changes the default roman font family to Adobe Palatino, New feature
and the virtual ‘mathpazo’ fonts will be used for math. 2001-06-04
v8.2
These virtual fonts are made up basically from Palatino Italic, with the missing
math symbols coming from the CM and Pazo math fonts.

6.1 Package options

[slantedGreek]

When the package is loaded with the [slantedGreek] option, uppercase Greek
letters in math will be slanted by default.

4
[noBBpl]

This option disables the use of the Pazo fonts as a partial \mathbb alphabet – see
below. This option is to be specified, if you want to use a different ‘blackboard
bold’ font.

[sc]
[osf]

By default, the package mathpazo uses the typeface family ppl as the roman text
font family. The option [sc] selects pplx instead, i.e. Palatino with true small-
caps. Correspondingly, the option [osf] selects pplj, i.e. Palatino with small-
caps and default oldstyle figures. (Of course, oldstyle figures will only be used in
text mode, not in formulas.) Note that the option [sc] was not yet available with
version 1.x of the package.
With version 1.x of the package, equation numbers were always typeset using lin-
ing figures, unless another option [osfeqnnum] was specified in addition to
[osf]. Now the style of the equation numbering always follows the other num-
bers in text, and the option [osfeqnnum] is simply ignored.
Caution: The Palatino Type 1 fonts with smallcaps and oldstyle figures are solely
commercial, and they are not part of the Base 35 fonts.

6.2 New commands

\upDelta
\upOmega

Regardless of the slantedGreek option, these commands will always print an

upright ∆ and Ω.

\mathbold
\mathbb

\mathbold is a math alphabet for typesetting variables (incl. Greek) in a bold

italic style. Do not mix this up with \mathbf, which selects a bold upright text
font for use in math!
\mathbb is a ‘blackboard bold’ alphabet, whose characters are taken from the
Pazo fonts. All upper case letters and the numeral ‘1’ are available. If you want to New feature
use a different, external, doublestroke alphabet, this command must be disabled by 2002-04-10
specifying the option [noBBppl], see above. v9.0

6.3 Font size of the ‘large’ math symbols

With mathpazo, the ‘large’ math symbols are automatically scaled to fit the base
font size. In contrast to standard LATEX you need not load the package exscale for
this purpose!

5
 7 The package pifont
Using symbol fonts is supported through the pifont package, providing commands
for using the Zapf Dingbats font, as well as an interface to other families.1

7.1 Commands for using Zapf Dingbats

\ding {hnumberi}

A given character can be chosen via the \ding command. Its parameter is an
integer that specifies the character to be typeset. For example, \ding{38} gives
✆; see table 2 on the following page.

\begin{dinglist} {hnumberi}
\begin{dingautolist} {hnumberi}

The dinglist environment is a special itemized list. The argument specifies the
number of the character to be used as the beginning of each item. For example,
\begin{dinglist}{43}
\item The first item in the list
\item The second item in the list
\item The third item in the list
\end{dinglist}
prints
☞ The first item in the list
☞ The second item in the list
☞ The third item in the list
There also exists an environment dingautolist, which allows you to build an
enumerated list with a set of Zapf Dingbats characters. In this case, the argument
specifies the number of the first character in the list. Subsequent items will be
numbered with the character following the previous one. E.g.,
\begin{dingautolist}{192}
\item The first item
\item The second item
\item The third item
\end{dingautolist}
prints
➀ The first item
➁ The second item
➂ The third item

\dingfill {hnumberi}
\dingline {hnumberi}

\dingfill acts like the other filling commands in TEX, but fills the space with
a chosen symbol ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ ➠ like that.
1 This section was adopted, with minor changes, from [1], chapter 11.9.3 and 11.9.4.

6
 Table 2: The characters in the PostScript font Zapf Dingbats
32 33 ✁ 34 ✂ 35 ✃ 36 ✄ 37 ☎ 38 ✆ 39 ✇
40 ✈ 41 ✉ 42 ☛ 43 ☞ 44 ✌ 45 ✍ 46 ✎ 47 ✏
48 ✐ 49 ✑ 50 ✒ 51 ✓ 52 ✔ 53 ✕ 54 ✖ 55 ✗
56 ✘ 57 ✙ 58 ✚ 59 ✛ 60 ✜ 61 ✝ 62 ✞ 63 ✟
64 ✠ 65 ✡ 66 ✢ 67 ✣ 68 ✤ 69 ✥ 70 ✦ 71 ✧
72 ★ 73 ✩ 74 ✪ 75 ✫ 76 ✬ 77 ✭ 78 ✮ 79 ✯
80 ✰ 81 ✱ 82 ✲ 83 ✳ 84 ✴ 85 ✵ 86 ✶ 87 ✷
88 ✸ 89 ✹ 90 ✺ 91 ✻ 92 ✼ 93 ✽ 94 ✾ 95 ✿
96 ❀ 97 ❁ 98 ❂ 99 ❃ 100 ❄ 101 ❅ 102 ❆ 103 ❇
104 ❈ 105 ❉ 106 ❊ 107 ❋ 108 ● 109 ❍ 110 ■ 111 ❏
112 ❐ 113 ❑ 114 ❒ 115 ▲ 116 ▼ 117 ◆ 118 ❖ 119 ◗
120 ❘ 121 ❙ 122 ❚ 123 ❛ 124 ❜ 125 ❝ 126 ❞
161 ❡ 162 ❢ 163 ❣ 164 ❤ 165 ❥ 166 ❦ 167 ❧
168 ♣ 169 ♦ 170 ♥ 171 ♠ 172 ① 173 ② 174 ③ 175 ④
176 ⑤ 177 ⑥ 178 ⑦ 179 ⑧ 180 ⑨ 181 ⑩ 182 ❶ 183 ❷
184 ❸ 185 ❹ 186 ❺ 187 ❻ 188 ❼ 189 ❽ 190 ❾ 191 ❿
192 ➀ 193 ➁ 194 ➂ 195 ➃ 196 ➄ 197 ➅ 198 ➆ 199 ➇
200 ➈ 201 ➉ 202 ➊ 203 ➋ 204 ➌ 205 ➍ 206 ➎ 207 ➏
208 ➐ 209 ➑ 210 ➒ 211 ➓ 212 ➔ 213 → 214 ↔ 215 ↕
216 ➘ 217 ➙ 218 ➚ 219 ➛ 220 ➜ 221 ➝ 222 ➞ 223 ➟
224 ➠ 225 ➡ 226 ➢ 227 ➣ 228 ➤ 229 ➥ 230 ➦ 231 ➧
232 ➨ 233 ➩ 234 ➪ 235 ➫ 236 ➬ 237 ➭ 238 ➮ 239 ➯
241 ➱ 242 ➲ 243 ➳ 244 ➴ 245 ➵ 246 ➶ 247 ➷
248 ➸ 249 ➹ 250 ➺ 251 ➻ 252 ➼ 253 ➽ 254 ➾

\dingline generates a freestanding line filled with the given symbol, with a
little space on the left and right:
✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂✂

7.2 Generic commands

The pifont package has a general mechanism for coping with Pi fonts. It provides
the following generic commands with, in each case, the first argument hfamilyi
specifying the name of the Pi font family in question (such as psy for the Symbol
font, and pzd for the Zapf Dingbats font, see table 3 on page 9). If indicated, a
second argument hnumberi specifies the decimal position of a symbol in that font.

\Pifont {hfamilyi}

This switches to the font family hfamilyi and the encoding U.

\Pisymbol {hfamilyi} {hnumberi}

This command typesets the specified symbol (compare this with the \ding com-
mand).

\begin{Pilist} {hfamilyi} {hnumberi}

\begin{Piautolist} {hfamilyi} {hnumberi}

In the Pilist environment the specified symbol is used in front of each item in
an itemized list (compare with the dinglist environment).

7
 Piautolist is an environment where a series of symbols starting with the one at
the decimal position hnumberi in font family hfamilyi is used to number the items
in an enumerated list (compare with the dingautolist environment).

\Pifill {hfamilyi} {hnumberi}

\Piline {hfamilyi} {hnumberi}

\Pifill acts like the other filling commands in TEX, but fills the space with a
chosen symbol (compare with \dingfill).
\Piline typesets a line consisting of several copies of the specified symbol, with
some space at the left and right (compare with \dingline).

8 NFSS classification
Table 3 on the following page lists all text and symbol font shapes and the related
PostScript fonts that are supported through the basic PSNFSS distribution. Avail-
able encodings are OT1, T1, TS1 and 8r, except for Symbol and Zapf Dingbats,
which are implemented with encoding U. See [3] for how to access a given font
shape directly.
Note, that none of the font families provides true small capitals, so the shape
‘sc’ refers to so-called ‘faked’ small capitals, whose typographical quality is—at
least—questionable.
The math font families loaded by the mathptm, mathptmx, mathpazo and mathpple
packages are not listed here. See the documented source file psfonts.dtx for
information on this topic.

9 Obsolete packages
The macro packages listed in table 4 on page 10 are obsolete; they are provided for
compatibility with existing documents only.

9.1 The packages times and palatino

These packages do not scale the Helvetica fonts appropriately to match Times and
Palatino—see section 4. Use mathptmx or mathpazo in conjunction with helvet
and courier instead!
In case you want to load Times or Palatino without the related math fonts of the
PSNFSS bundle, you can still use the basic NFSS commands. For instance,
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{ptm}
will change the default roman font family to ptm, i.e. Times.

9.2 The package mathptm

The package mathptm is a predecessor to mathptmx. In contrast to the latter and
to LATEX’s standard behavior, lowercase Greek in math is typeset upright. Zapf
Chancery is used as the calligraphic math alphabet, which causes some problems
with proper spacing. mathptm needs the font cmex9, which may not be available
in Type 1 format.

8
 Table 3: Font shapes supported by the basic PSNFSS distribution
family series shape(s) PostScript font names
Times
ptm m n, sl, it, sc Times-Roman, Times-Italic
ptm b n, sl, it, sc Times-Bold, Times-BoldItalic
Palatino
ppl m n, sl, it, sc Palatino-Roman, Palatino-Italic
ppl b n, sl, it, sc Palatino-Bold, Palatino-BoldItalic
New Century Schoolbook
pnc m n, sl, it, sc NewCenturySchlbk-Roman, NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
pnc b n, sl, it, sc NewCenturySchlbk-Bold,
NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
Bookman
pbk m n, sl, it, sc Bookman-Light, Bookman-LightItalic
pbk b n, sl, it, sc Bookman-Demi, Bookman-DemiItalic
Helvetica
phv m n, sl, sc Helvetica, Helvetica-Oblique
phv b n, sl, sc Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-BoldOblique
phv mc n, sl, sc Helvetica-Narrow, Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
phv bc n, sl, sc Helvetica-Narrow-Bold,
Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
Avant Garde
pag m n, sl, sc AvantGarde-Book, AvantGarde-BookOblique
pag b n, sl, sc AvantGarde-Demi, AvantGarde-DemiOblique
Courier
pcr m n, sl, sc Courier, CourierOblique
pcr b n, sl, sc Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique
Zapf Chancery
pzc m it ZapfChancery-MediumItalic
Utopia
put m n, sl, it, sc Utopia-Regular, Utopia-Italic
put b n, sl, it, sc Utopia-Bold, Utopia-BoldItalic
Charter
bch m n, sl, it, sc CharterBT-Roman, CharterBT-Italic
bch b n, sl, it, sc CharterBT-Bold, CharterBT-BoldItalic
Symbol
psy m n Symbol
Zapf Dingbats
pzd m n ZapfDingbats

9
 Table 4: Obsolete packages in the PSNFSS collection
package roman sans serif typewriter math
times Times Helvetica Courier
palatino Palatino Helvetica Courier
mathptm Times ≈ Times
mathpple Palatino ≈ Palatino

9.3 The package mathpple

mathpple is a predecessor to mathpazo, using also a set of virtual math fonts to go
with Palatino. The Greek alphabet is, however, taken from the ‘Euler’ fonts (which
get slanted), instead of the Pazo fonts. The package mathpple does not support the
[sc] and [osf] options, and there is no blackboard bold math alphabet, either.
Further flaws are:
• The spacing within numbers and function names in formulas is somewhat
too loose.
• The \coprod symbol is missing.
• There are no boldface variants of \partial and \infty.
• \jmath is taken from the CM math italic font, which does not blend well
witg Palatino.
The newer mathpazo package can be considered as superior, but you may still use
mathpple, if you prefer the shape of its Greek math alphabet

10 Typeface samples
The following samples show the regular font of each typeface family supported
by PSNFSS. The particular font size and baselineskip is indicated below the font
name. Note that Helvetica is scaled to 92 % of the nominal size.

Times The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An or-
10/12pt ange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the mountains. Then
suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between two peaks. The
sickle became a half circle and the first long shadows, the first shafts
of golden light crossed the garden outside the window. And when one
looked up again at the mountains there was the whole unbearable glory
of the risen sun.
Palatino The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An
10/12.4pt orange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the moun-
tains. Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between
two peaks. The sickle became a half circle and the first long shad-
ows, the first shafts of golden light crossed the garden outside the
window. And when one looked up again at the mountains there
was the whole unbearable glory of the risen sun.

10
Bookman The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room.
9.6/11.5pt An orange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the
mountains. Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandes-
cence between two peaks. The sickle became a half circle and
the first long shadows, the first shafts of golden light crossed
the garden outside the window. And when one looked up
again at the mountains there was the whole unbearable glory
of the risen sun.
Charter The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An
10/12.4pt orange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the moun-
tains. Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between
two peaks. The sickle became a half circle and the first long shad-
ows, the first shafts of golden light crossed the garden outside the
window. And when one looked up again at the mountains there
was the whole unbearable glory of the risen sun.
New Century The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An
Schoolbook orange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the moun-
9.6/12pt tains. Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between
two peaks. The sickle became a half circle and the first long shad-
ows, the first shafts of golden light crossed the garden outside the
window. And when one looked up again at the mountains there
was the whole unbearable glory of the risen sun.

Utopia The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An
9.6/12pt orange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the mountains.
Then suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between two
peaks. The sickle became a half circle and the first long shadows,
the first shafts of golden light crossed the garden outside the win-
dow. And when one looked up again at the mountains there was
the whole unbearable glory of the risen sun.
Helvetica The sun was just rising as Dr. Robert entered his wife’s room. An or-
10/12pt ange glow, and against it the jagged silhouette of the mountains. Then
suddenly a dazzling sickle of incandescence between two peaks. The
sickle became a half circle and the first long shadows, the first shafts
of golden light crossed the garden outside the window. And when one
looked up again at the mountains there was the whole unbearable glory
of the risen sun.
Avant Garde Don’t use Avant Garde for typesetting larger portions of text !
9.6pt

Courier A monospaced typeface, suitable for typesetting

10/12pt filenames, URLs etc.

Zapf Chancery To Hermann Zapf – whose strokes are the best.

14.4pt

Credits
The PSNFSS system was originally developed by Sebastian Rahtz.
The virtual mathptm and mathptmx fonts and the related packages were created by
Alan Jeffrey, Sebastian Rathz and Ulrik Vieth.
The mathpple package and its virtual fonts are based on earlier work by Aloysius
Helminck.
The Pazo math fonts and the related virtual fonts were created by Diego Puga.

11
References
[1] Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, and Alexander Samarin: The LaTeX
Companion. Addison Wesley, 1994.
[2] Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, and Frank Mittelbach: The LaTeX Graph-
ics Companion. Addison Wesley Longman, 1997.
[3] LATEX3 Project Team (Ed.): LaTeX2e font selection. CTAN: macros/
latex/doc/html/fntguide/fntguide.html (Part of the LATEX
online documentation)

12