How can I get an arbitrary font size in LaTeX?
The standard fonts that LaTeX uses are bitmaps. These bitmapped fonts can, theoretically, be generated at any point size; however, this requires that you know how to run the font-generating program (metafont) and have enough space to store the bitmapped fonts that are generated. Generally, though, you'll just use the sizes that have already been created, and these are only in the standard (\large, \Huge, etc) sizes.
However, if you use a postscript font, you can use whatever size you want, since these are not stored as bitmaps anywhere, but instead generated at the right size internally on the printer. So, if you're using a postscript font (say, by specifying "timrom" or "newcen" in the documentstyle), you can use arbtrary sizes of these fonts, by just saying:
\newfont{\wayhuge}{t-rom scaled 10000}
Then, if you used
{\wayhuge Big}
you would get "Big" in 100pt Times Roman when you printed it.
You should also specify the following environment variables in order to get the file to latex cleanly when using many of the postscript fonts. Just type (or include these lines in your .environment file):
attach texfonts attach sipb setenv TEXFONTS .:/usr/athena/lib/tex/fonts:/mit/sipb/share/tex/fonts/tfm:/mit/sipb/share/tex/fonts/vf:/mit/texfonts:/mit/texfonts/ipa: setenv TEXPKS $TEXFONTS extend TEXPKS /mit/sipb/share/tex/fonts/pk: setenv PKFONTS $TEXPKS
The names of some of the postscript fonts we have are listed below.
Postscript Font Name | Name to use in \newfont command (dvips syntax) |
---|---|
AvanteGarde-Book | rpagk |
AvanteGarde-BookOblique | rpagko |
AvanteGarde-Demi | rpagd |
AvanteGarde-DemiOblique | rpagdo |
Bookman-Demi | rpbkd |
Bookman-Light | rpbkl |
Courier | rpcrr |
Courier-Bold | rpcrb |
Courier-Oblique | rpcrro |
Courier-BoldOblique | rpcrbo |
Helvetica | rphvr |
Helvetica-Bold | rphvb |
Helvetic-Oblique | rphvro |
Helvetica-BoldOblique | rphvbo |
NewCenturySchlbk-Roman | rpncr |
NewCenturySchlbk-Italic | rpncri |
NewCenturySchlbk-Bold | rpncb |
NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic | rpncbi |
Palatino | rpplr |
Palatino-Bold | rpplb |
Palatino-Italic | rpplri |
Palatino-Oblique | rpplro |
Times-Roman | rptmr |
Times-Bold | rptmb |
Times-Italic | rptmri |
Times-BoldItalic | rptmbi |
Zapf Chancery Medium Italic | rpzcmi |
xdvi is unable to display PostScript fonts, and will substitute the default Computer-Modern in their place. |