Find alternative to ifsym package so it works more easily with tectonic

[fperez]

I tried building a myst doc with this template using the tectonic engine (based on XeTeX), but I'm running into a hard wall due to this font error:

warning: Tectonic unable to generate PK font "ifsym10" (dpi 420) on-the-fly
warning: Could not locate a virtual/physical font for TFM "ifsym10".
warning: >> There are no valid font mapping entry for this font.
warning: >> Font file name "ifsym10" was assumed but failed to locate that font.
error: Cannot proceed without .vf or "physical" font for PDF output...

I can't find any reference to that error, but this similar issue about the bbm10 font seems to indicate it's not an easy fix.

Tectonic seems like a very portable and nice alternative for non-root environments, so it would be nice if the template worked out of the box with it.

From what I can gather, the only problem is the little "envelope" \Letter symbol, proviced by the ifsym package. There might be a way to fix that with some unicode symbol perhaps?

[roaldarbol]

Author of the upstream LaPreprint here. I'll see if I can find a replacement that works - please let me know if you do beforehand. I'd love for it to work with Tectonic too!

[rowanc1]

Thanks @roaldarbol!! I have been meaning to reach out about a better way to support this template and tie it into the existing repository so that we can centralize improvements.

By far my favorite latex template, and we show it off anytime we talk about MyST!!

[roaldarbol]

Aw, that's really really cool, excited to hear that! If you have any photos from workshops, events or similar of that, I'd really appreciate if you can send them my way (would help make the case for me working on it, that it has made some ripples), e.g. on Twitter or Mastodon.