How do I use different fonts in Latex documents with Miktex?

[gnome]

I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to figure out how to use different fonts in Latex documents.

It seems that the standard distribution comes with a nice selection of fonts
(see "ftp://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex-archive/info/fontsampler/sampler.pdf"[/URL] ) but apparently only 10 people in the world know how to use them. Hopefully, at least one of the initiated is a PF-er.

I see that there are commands like \fontfamily{} and \selectfont. And I see in my Miktex\fonts\source directory various subdirectories with names like \ams, \tfm, \type1, \vf, and in sub-subdirectories under those there are numerous files with extensions .mf, .tfm, .pfb, .vf, which I imagine must be the fonts.

I've looked in various tutorials, like http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/beginlatex/beginlatex.pdf"
and
[PLAIN]http://www.physics.umn.edu/support/doc/latex/lshort.pdf"
but I can't figure out exactly what to put into those commands, how to connect a fontname with the corresponding filename, or how the Latex concepts of fontfamily and fontshape relate to specific font designs.

In particular, I'd like to use a few characters from the Calligraphic font in the "Other Scripts Collection" near the bottom of page 2 of the ctan.org "sampler.pdf" in the first link above. How?

 

[gnome]

Well, this is probably not the best way to do it, but I found a command to load a font, & (amazing luck) on the first try I found the font I was looking for.

Here are commands for several fonts that were in the "small miktex" package. If you use miktex you might want to paste them into a document & see what they do.

\documentclass[12 pt]{article}

\begin{document}

rsfs10 (apparently this one has caps only):

\font\testA = rsfs10
\testA ABCDEabcde

\normalfont bigger:

\font\testb = rsfs10  scaled \magstep 1
\testb  ABCDEabcde

\normalfont still bigger:

\font\testc = rsfs10  scaled \magstep 2
\testc ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

\normalfont cmr10:

\font\testl = cmr10 scaled \magstep 1
\testl ABCDEFGHIJKL abcdefghijkl

\normalfont cmmi10:

\font\testd = cmmi10 scaled \magstep 1
\testd ABCDEFGHIJKL abcdefghijkl

\normalfont
cmbx10:

\font\testn = cmbx10 scaled \magstep 1
\testn testing one two

\normalfont xbmc10 (this one is interesting):

\font\teste = xbmc10   scaled \magstep 1
\teste ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJ

\testn testing one two \teste owt eno gnitset

\normalfont

back to normalfont

\font\testf = pcrr7tn % scaled \magstep 2
\testf pcrr7tn PCRR7TN

\font\testg = pcrr8tn % scaled \magstep 2
\testg pcrr8tn PCRR8TN

\font\testh = zplmr7t % scaled \magstep 2
\testh zplmr7t

\font\testi = aett10 % scaled \magstep 2
\testi aett10 AETT10

\font\testj = aessi10 % scaled \magstep 2
\testj aessi10 AESSI10

% \font\testk = bchr8t % scaled \magstep 2 
 bchr8t BCHR8T wanted to install public domain adobe fonts

%\font\testk = putrc8t % scaled \magstep 2
putrc8t wanted to install miktex/tm/packages

\font\testk = putr8c % scaled \magstep 2
\testk putr8c

\normalfont
above was printed by "putr8c"\font\testz = cmbsy7  scaled \magstep 1
\testz cmbsy7 TLSR

\normalfont
above was printed by "cmbsy7"

\font\testm = aesl10 % scaled \magstep 1
\testm aesl10

\end{document}