How to Get Arbitrary Font Sizes


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/lib/tex/fonts/tfm:\
/mit/sipb/lib/tex/fonts/vf:/mit/texfonts:/mit/texfonts/ipa:
setenv TEXPKS $TEXFONTS 
extend TEXPKS /mit/sipb/lib/tex/fonts/pk:
setenv PKFONTS $TEXPKS

The names of some of the postscript fonts we have are listed below. A complete list for dvi2ps names can be found by searching appropriate font directories such as /usr/athena/lib/tex/fonts. The list for dvips names can be found in the file /mit/sipb/lib/tex/ps-config/psfonts.map. (An explanation of the dvips names is also given at the end of the stock answer What is DVIPS? at the top level of the LATEX sub-menu.)
Postscript Font Name	        Name to use in	        Name to use in
				\newfont command	\newfont command
				if using dvi2ps:	if using dvips:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
AvanteGarde-Book		ag-book         	rpagk
AvanteGarde-BookOblique		ag-bookobl      	rpagko
AvanteGarde-Demi		ag-demi         	rpagd
AvanteGarde-DemiOblique		ag-demiobl      	rpagdo
Bookman-Demi			b-demi			rpbkd
Bookman-Light			b-lig			rpbkl
Courier				c-med           	rpcrr
Courier-Bold			c-bol           	rpcrb
Courier-Oblique			c-obl           	rpcrro
Courier-BoldOblique		c-bolobl        	rpcrbo
Helvetica			h-med           	rphvr
Helvetica-Bold			h-bol           	rphvb
Helvetic-Oblique		h-obl           	rphvro
Helvetica-BoldOblique		h-bolobl        	rphvbo
NewCenturySchlbk-Roman		ncs-rom         	rpncr
NewCenturySchlbk-Italic		ncs-ita         	rpncri
NewCenturySchlbk-Bold		ncs-bol         	rpncb
NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic	ncs-bolita      	rpncbi
Palatino			p-rom			rpplr
Palatino-Bold			p-bol			rpplb
Palatino-Italic			p-ita			rpplri
Palatino-Oblique		p-obl			rpplro
Times-Roman			t-rom           	rptmr
Times-Bold			t-bol           	rptmb
Times-Italic			t-ita           	rptmri
Times-BoldItalic		t-bolita        	rptmbi
Zapf Chancery Medium Italic	zc-medita		rpzcmi
NOTE: xdvi is unable to display PostScript fonts, and will substitute the default Computer-Modern in their place.