[SOLVED] texlive-extra broken? cm-super fonts not detected

Ilgar · 02-18-2022, 05:27 PM

Hi all,

Today I sent a (pdf)LaTeX-generated pdf file to someone, and this person complained about the font looking "pale". He was right.

I made a little Googling and discovered that this happens when the cm-super package is not (properly) installed, causing lower-quality fonts being used (in my case, T3 instead of T1). I even stumbled upon a stackexchange discussion which perfectly explains my situation, see here.

The Slackware user there gave up using sbo.org's texlive-extra package. Can anyone here shed light on what to do to fix the problem?

emmet · 02-18-2022, 06:32 PM

Unhappy news. I'm just dipping my toe into TeX now, and I had some niggling worries about that extras package, which I suspected was designed to supplement a SlackBuilds.org core package, now superseded by the official Slackware package, leading me to wonder if the SlackBuilds.org extras was going to happily mesh with the official Slackware core package. Given the massive, multilayered complexity of all that is TeX, the suspicion seemed warranted. And here you have settled that question, so thanks for that. It's not the answer one might want, but, hey, you bring with you corroborating evidence. I hate when that happens.

So, the expedient solution is the one proposed in that stackexchange thread. Put the kibosh on the SlackBuilds.org extras package and the official Slackware package and do a full install from https://www.tug.org/texlive/. That will probably be my recourse unless someone comes along here and reveals a better path.

Other options, assuming some rescuer is not about to appear, is try to figure out what is amiss with the extras bundle, make an appeal to the extra SlackBuild maintainer and stand around, shuffling from foot to foot to see what happens, or make your own SlackBuild for the full upstream texlive package. I'd find that last option more appealing if I was a TeX veteran, not a TeX noob.

franzen · 02-19-2022, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilgar

Hi all,

Today I sent a (pdf)LaTeX-generated pdf file to someone, and this person complained about the font looking "pale". He was right.

I made a little Googling and discovered that this happens when the cm-super package is not (properly) installed, causing lower-quality fonts being used (in my case, T3 instead of T1). I even stumbled upon a stackexchange discussion which perfectly explains my situation, see here.

The Slackware user there gave up using sbo.org's texlive-extra package. Can anyone here shed light on what to do to fix the problem?

I assume you are on slackware 15.0 with texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2 installed.

Since SBo needs some more time to be ready for slackware 15.0, the corresponding texlive-extra is waiting in the master-branch:
https://git.slackbuilds.org/slackbui...071ced049b318e
Please install that and report back if your issue persists.

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 01:18 AM

Actually I tried this both on 14.2 with

Code:

texlive-2020.200608-x86_64-2_SBo
texlive-extra-2020.200608-x86_64-1_SBo

and on 15.0 with texlive-extra-2021.210418-x86_64-1ponce on top of the official texlive package. The results are the same, even a simple test file (as in the link I provided) produces a pdf output with T3 fonts.

I also stumbled upon this page from the Slackware 10.2 days about installing cm-super, but my attempts of imitating the suggestions there also failed. However I am definitely not a TeX veteran, perhaps not even a noob.

Edit: I said I would install the master branch version you suggested, but turns out I already have it.

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 01:34 AM

It looks like the situation regarding cm-super has been like this on Slackware since at least version 10.2. I have been using Slackware since version 10 and that's probably why it looked so normal to me. But apparently others immediately realize the difference in font quality. Therefore, I would like to suggest moving cm-super fonts into the core texlive package.

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 02:49 AM

Good news, everyone!

Following the instructions here, I ran

Code:

updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-t1.map
updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-ts1.map
updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-t2a.map
updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-t2b.map
updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-t2c.map
updmap-sys --force --enable Map=cm-super-x2.map

mktexlsr

and voila, now the documents compile with T1 fonts, event if \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} is not given in the document preamble.

And yes, now the fonts look wayyy better. I really hope cm-super gets moved into the core package.

franzen · 02-19-2022, 03:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilgar

Therefore, I would like to suggest moving cm-super fonts into the core texlive package.

That would almost double the size of the texlive-package in slackware 15.0, unlikely to happen. TeTex also had
no cm-super fonts for that reason.

There are alternatives, e.g. here is the example from your links using tex-gyre fonts, which should look good
when using a pdf-viewer:

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tgtermes}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by franzen

That would almost double the size of the texlive-package in slackware 15.0, unlikely to happen.

I'm optimistic

. Texlive has 77MB size. An extra 70-80MB isn't much these days and the installer .iso has still a few hundred MBs to go for a full DVD capacity. And DVDs are rapidly becoming irrelevant anyway... Given the massive increase in a full install size from 14.2 to 15.0, Pat may accept squeezing in a little more for 15.1.

Thanks for the tex-gyre suggestion, they also look nice. This pdf file I mentioned above has to use the template of a publisher, so I need the cm-super fonts for that one.

franzen · 02-19-2022, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilgar

Actually I tried this both on 14.2 with

Code:

texlive-2020.200608-x86_64-2_SBo
texlive-extra-2020.200608-x86_64-1_SBo

and on 15.0 with texlive-extra-2021.210418-x86_64-1ponce on top of the official texlive package. The results are the same, even a simple test file (as in the link I provided) produces a pdf output with T3 fonts.

I just installed installed texlive-extra-2021.210418-x86_64-1_SBo, after texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2,
did "pdflatext test.tex" with

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

... and got test.pdf with type1 font.

Code:

> pdffonts test.pdf 
name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
FOVERL+SFRM1000                      Type 1            Custom           yes yes no       4  0

It seems something went wrong with your texlive-extra install, reinstalling would likely have fixed it.

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 06:11 AM

Interesting. This occurs on a 14.2 system, on one upgraded to 15.0 from -current and one with a fresh 15.0 install. In the latter one, texlive-extra was the last package installed, which kind of rules out disruption by another package. I will play around a little more to see what is going wrong and report my findings.

Ilgar · 02-19-2022, 04:46 PM

I marked the thread as solved. The 14.2 computer with texlive 2020 needs the updmap commands I gave above. In the upgraded one a reinstall solved the issue, and in the fresh install it turned out that texlive-extra was not installed. Sorry for the false alarm there, I must have skipped it accidentally during extra package installation. Interestingly, the simple \lipsum test above picked up T1 fonts although texlive-extra (hence cm-super) wasn't there, which led me to waste time by searching the problem elsewhere.

Anyway, the case is closed, and I thank you all for your contributions.

Ilgar · 02-20-2022, 07:31 AM

Argh, this time it is texindy: Now all my computers are on 15.0 with texlive-extra-2021.210418-x86_64-1ponce. When I run texindy I get

Code:

tux@slackware:~$ texindy
texindy: not a symlink as required for TeX Live at /usr/bin/texindy line 414.

Line 414 is the die command:

Code:

# In TeX-Live, user commands are symlinks in some bin directory, and
# the actual scripts are in the library directory and have a .pl
# extension. In standalone installations, user command xindy is
# expected to be in the same directory as our command.
     
if ( $is_TL ) { # TeX Live

    if ( $is_w32 ) {
        $xindy = "$cmd_dir/xindy.pl";
    } else {
        die "$cmd: not a symlink as required for TeX Live"  unless -l $0;
        # FIXME: What this good for? Ain't xindy not also
        # "$cmd_dir/xindy.pl" in a Unix TL installation? Why does
        # Peter use the directory of the last symlink, where it just
        # finds the symlink again that is then expanded by xindy.pl?
        $real_cmd = $0;
        $cmd_dir = dirname($real_cmd);
        # Follow symlinks, but remember last one
        my $lcmd_dir;
        while ( -l $real_cmd ) {
            $lcmd_dir = $cmd_dir;
            $real_cmd = readlink($real_cmd);
            $real_cmd = "$lcmd_dir/$real_cmd"  unless $real_cmd =~ m,^[\\/],; # relative link
            $cmd_dir = dirname($real_cmd);
        }
        $xindy = "$lcmd_dir/xindy";
    }
...

Ilgar · 02-20-2022, 08:29 AM

A quick fix is to bypass the if check:

Code:

#if ( $is_TL ) { # TeX Live
if ( 0 ) { # TeX Live

franzen · 02-20-2022, 03:06 PM

Code:

tux@slackware:~$ texindy
texindy: not a symlink as required for TeX Live at /usr/bin/texindy line 414.

Thanks for sharing, the proper fix is:

Code:

ln -sf /usr/share/texmf-dist/scripts/xindy/texindy.pl /usr/bin/texindy

Ilgar · 02-20-2022, 04:03 PM

Thanks franzen, I was just too lazy to search for the .pl file

.