metsymb

metsymb is a LaTeX package that introduces vectorial definitions of official meteorological symbols. Individual symbols are first designed using TikZ. They are then bundled into a dedicated font with FontForge, and eventually tied to dedicted LaTeX commands. The metsymb OpenType font is a side-product that can be used on its own.

This README contains information about the metsymb source code and repository.

For the description of the metsymb LaTeX package, see this file.

Table of contents

• License and Copyright
• Installation
• Troubleshooting and bug reports
• Suggesting new symbols
• Contributing

License and Copyright

The metsymb package is released under the terms of the BSD-3-Clause license. The terms of this license are available at https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause, and in the LICENSE file included in the package.

The copyright (C) 2021-2023 of metsymb is owned by MeteoSwiss. The contributors to the code are listed in AUTHORS.

Installation

Depending on your needs, you may want to install metsymb:

• as a LaTeX package, or
• as an OpenType font

Install metsymb as a LaTeX package

Since metsymb includes a new font, its manual installation is a bit hairier (😱) than regular packages. It is thus strongly recommended to use your favorite TeX package manager to install metsymb, given that it lives on CTAN.

Should you be willing/required to install the package manually nonetheless, here are some guidelines:

1. Download the latest metsymb release. If you are interested in the latest changes, you can also clone the metsymb Github repo directly.

2. Create the TeX .sty file:

   cd some/path/to/metsymb/source/
   latex metsymb.ins
   

3. Many of the package files will need to be placed under specific locations within your TeX-tree, which I shall call tex_loc for simplicity.

   In my case (Mac OSX 10.15), tex_loc = /usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/. To find your own tex_loc, you can try the following command: kpsewhich --var-value=TEXMFLOCAL. In case of trouble, the following resources may prove useful:

   • https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/88423/manual-font-installation
   • https://tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html

   Having identified your tex_loc, place the following files where they belong in the tree:

   cp metsymb.tfm tex_loc/fonts/tfm/public/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.afm tex_loc/fonts/afm/public/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.pfb tex_loc/fonts/type1/public/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.otf tex_loc/fonts/opentype/public/metsymb/
   cp umetsymb.fd tex_loc/tex/latex/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.sty tex_loc/tex/latex/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.map tex_loc/fonts/map/dvips/metsymb/
   cp metsymb.enc tex_loc/fonts/enc/dvips/metsymb/
   

4. At this point, we need to tell TeX about these new files. Run the following commands to do so:

   sudo mktexlsr
   sudo updmap-sys --enable Map metsymb.map
   sudo updmap-sys
   

   ⚠️ sudo is required under OS X, but not necessarily elsewhere ?

   👋 The bash file manual_install.sh can be used to automate these different steps with the command sh manual_install.sh. Before you run it blindly, mind the TeX-tree paths in there, that will most certainly need to be adjusted to your needs !

And that's it !

You should now be able to compile the metsymb documentation with the command: pdflatex metsymb.dtx.

You should also be able to run the Python example with the command: python metsymb_mwe.py.

If these two commands work, you have successfully installed the metsymb package manually, and can now access it in your LateX documents and matplotlib figures. 🎉

Installing metsymb as an OpenType font

Deploy the metsymb.otf file on your system like you would any other OpenType font, and you should have access to its symbols in your favorite text editor.

Troubleshooting and bug reports

If you encounter any issue when installing or using metsymb, you can check if it has already been reported here. If not, please create a new Github Issue to report it and get help.

Suggesting new symbols

If your favorite meteorological symbol is not yet included in metsymb, you can suggest its inclusion by creating a new Discussion on Github.

Contributing

If you simply cannot wait to see your favorite symbol included inside metsymb, you should check our contributing guidelines.