My favourite fonts to use with LaTeX (2022)

Summary

My favourite fonts to use with LaTeX (part I) 21 Nov 2022 • Lino Ferreira Table of Contents Introduction Fonts Bembo Palatino Crimson Libertine Introduction TeX and related systems are often associated with their default fonts, Donald Knuth’s Computer Modern (CM) typefaces. While these fonts are excellent, they have become so ubiquitous in the scientific community that many LaTeX users have sought alternative fonts for their documents. As a result, a plethora of font packages and even OpenType-compatible engines (XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX) have emerged in the past 20 years. A while ago, I set out to explore this extensive set of LaTeX font options. My goal was to select a small group of high-quality free fonts which I could later choose from when typesetting different documents. As I moved forward with my search, I also became interested in the history and rationale behind the design of different fonts and this led me to write some descriptive notes on each of my favourites. In the paragraphs below, I list and give a brief description of seven fonts which I personally like (where the original fonts are commercial, I focus on free alternatives). These are: Bembo, Palatino, Crimson, Libertine, STIX, Charter and Utopia. I also provide a small sample of each font (containing both text and maths) so that the different choices can be easily assessed and compared. Longer samples for each font (code and resulting PDF file) are available on this GitHub repo. When using LaTeX, three types of fonts can be selected and are commonly used: a roman or serif font which is normally employed for body text and which should have maths support; a sans-serif font which is sometimes used for headers; and a monospaced or typewriter font. When selecting a font for a document, it is therefore important to consider whether the font supports mathematical characters (at least if we will be typing some maths!) and also to choose an appropriate sans-serif font to accompany it (the monospaced font ofte...