No worries. It
can be frustrating, definitely.
Let me try to begin to explain, the commands are not really so different. When you font load a package, the package contains just the kinds of commands you'd use if there was no package. The command I gave you originally for Augie defines the default Sans serif font as Augie and makes it the default family. When you load the arev package,
inside that package is a command just like that one, except for its font instead. You never
need to load any packages. You could rely on direct low level font-commands. You'll find a summary of these commands
here.
The problem is that the direct font commands can get fairly complicated for the TeX fonts. Some TeX fonts have very advanced features, such as optical sizes (basically, this means you get slightly different characters at large font sizes as opposed to small font sizes), multiple subversions and series (e.g., Computer Modern has not just bold and italic and small caps, but things like ``bold extended'' for use in bold titles, etc.). Many of the fonts use different encodings. Often the math fonts are different than the text fonts, even the italic text fonts, to accommodate different kerning and ligature features. (E.g., you generally don't want ligatures in math code.) This complexity is largely responsible for why it is TeX looks so good compared to Word Processor output.
When a package is available, it combines together a whole range of different commands to automatically set things up for the right shape, series, assigned to the right ``semantic'' commands so that the author can focus on content rather than style. Most of them make the math mode fonts match the text mode fonts in the right way.
Decorative fonts like augie and starburst, however, usually just have one look, and have very limited uses. I guess people didn't see it as worthwhile to create a package for what represents a single command. And moreover, with those, it isn't cut and dried that you really want to set it as the ``default'' anything; I did that in my advice to you about augie, following your lead since it looked like in your sample that that's what you were trying to do. You could have used a command more like the command I gave for Starburst instead. But then it wouldn't be default; it would just apply to a limited region.
There is a uniform underlying syntax. You can for example, select a font family inside a document by using:
Code: Select all
\fontfamily{<fontname>}\selectfont
Putting that inside a group defined by { ... } will make the selection apply just inside that group. Witness the consistency of the results of something like:
Code: Select all
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
This is Computer Modern.
{\fontfamily{augie}\selectfont This is Augie.}
{\fontfamily{pag}\selectfont This is Avant Garde.}
{\fontfamily{fvs}\selectfont This is Bitstream Vera Sans.}
{\fontfamily{pbk}\selectfont This is Bookman.}
{\fontfamily{bch}\selectfont This is Charter.}
{\fontfamily{ccr}\selectfont This is Computer Concrete.}
{\fontfamily{pcr}\selectfont This is Courier.}
{\fontfamily{mdugm}\selectfont This is Garamond.}
{\fontfamily{phv}\selectfont This is Helvetica.}
{\fontfamily{fi4}\selectfont This is Inconsolata.}
{\fontfamily{fxb}\selectfont This is Linux Biolinum.}
{\fontfamily{fxl}\selectfont This is Linux Libertine.}
{\fontfamily{pnc}\selectfont This is New Century Schoolbook.}
{\fontfamily{ppl}\selectfont This is Palatino.}
{\fontfamily{ptm}\selectfont This is Times.}
{\fontfamily{uncl}\selectfont This is Uncial.}
{\fontfamily{put}\selectfont This is Utopia.}
{\fontfamily{pzc}\selectfont This is Zapf Chancery.}
\end{document}
That yields this:
- fontlist.png (32.11 KiB) Viewed 11427 times
So things aren't so strange after all. The hardest thing is remembering the names. (The older fonts use three-character names to adhere to a standard set back when filenames could only be so long. These are a PITA to remember--another advantage of packages.)
But there are reasons you don't see people using commands like that in a LaTeX document. Most importantly, it violates the wonderful value of separating form and content. That's why people generally prefer, when possible, to simply set defaults and load packages in the preamble rather than using low-level commands in the body. It makes switching styles so much easier, and keeps the author focused on content.
And generally, just because you
can do something doesn't mean you should; using more than two fonts in a document is generally considered bad typography.
Actually installing things into the right folder, running texhash, etc., is another story altogether, and applies to everything TeX related, not just fonts. In your case, you're battling a clash of package-management systems, since TeXlive has its own package manager, but using it would conflict with Ubuntu's package manager, and when you try make do with the latter, sometimes things aren't optimal.
But like you said, I am not attempting to have the entire presentation in a cartoon font.