Using Thai fonts with MiKTeX 2.4

What's new

Featuring Thai PDF bookmark support this new release also offers something rather more cool. Thai text can now be copied from Acrobat Reader and pasted to any Unicode-aware application! Hope you'll like it. Check out these two PDF examples orchid2.pdf [] and teststd.pdf [] first if you don't know what I'm talking about. Adobe Reader 6.x is required to view Thai bookmarks while Unicode copy-n-paste also works in Acrobat Reader 5.x (and probably Acrobat Reader 4.x as well).

What's this page for?

Installation

1. Remove (or move out of the TeX tree) all your old font files from c:\texmf\fonts\type1\public\[dbtt|norasi|thai], c:\texmf\fonts\afm\public\[dbtt|norasi|thai], c:\texmf\fonts\tfm\public\[dbtt|norasi|thai], c:\texmf\fonts\vf\public\[dbtt|norasi|thai].

2. Remove all your old font files from c:\localtexmf\fonts\pk\modeless\public\[dbtt|norasi|thai] or just remove the whole directories.

3. Download the following files to your local temporary directory. Mine was c:\temp

   • Config files []
   • Norasi font files []
   • DBThaiText font files []
   • Garuda font files []
   • Kinnari font files []
   • PseudoMono & Purisa font files []

   Too lazy to download every single pack above? Then grab this one:

   • Full Pack [][sorry but Netscape doesn't allow files larger than 1MB]

4. Grab Info-ZIP's unzip [] utility (or the original from http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/ if you don't want viruses from me), put it in your temp and go to c:\localtexmf (where you should see fonts, dvips, miktex and other dirs), unzip everything from inside that directory (and to that directory):

   c:\localtexmf> c:\temp\unzip c:\temp\miktex-thaifonts-*.zip
   

   You will probably be asked if you want to replace some old files. Answer Yes, Yes, ..., Yes and Yes. It's probably a good idea to backup each file which gonna be replaced before you say "Yes".

5. Install the CMAP package to enable the Thai Unicode copy-n-paste capability. This step can be skipped as MiKTeX, by default, can install missing packages for you automatically when needed (unless it's been configured otherwise). But if you prefer to do it manually, go to Start -> Programs -> MiKTeX -> MiKTeX Package Manager. Select package "cmap" and right click and select Install. If there is no "cmap" you might have to run MiKTeX Update Wizard first by going to Start -> Programs -> MiKTeX -> MiKTeX Update Wizard then restart MiKTeX Package Manager and you should see "cmap" in there.

6. Run the following commands, in turn.

   c:\localtexmf> initexmf --verbose --update-fndb
   c:\localtexmf> initexmf --verbose --mkmaps
   

7. You're all set. If you want to test the new fonts and/or new features, you can either:

   • Grab the sample files orchid2.tex [] and/or teststd.tex [] and run pdflatex to get the PDF output.

        c:\temp> pdflatex orchid2 && pdflatex teststd

     you might want to compare my output orchid2.pdf [] and teststd.pdf [] with yours.

   • or copy commands from testfont.txt [] to clipboard and run:

        c:\temp> pdftex testfont

     before pasting everything from the clipboard there to get the PDF output of font tables. Again, you might want to compare my output testfont.pdf [] with yours.

8. If you want to test the new fonts in DVI format, you can either:

   • Use the same sample files orchid2.tex [] and/or teststd.tex [] and run latex to get the DVI output.

        c:\temp> latex orchid2 && latex teststd

   • or copy commands from testfont.txt [] to clipboard and run:

        c:\temp> tex testfont

     before pasting everything from the clipboard there to get the DVI output of font tables.

9. Enjoy TeXing!

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