[XeTeX] fonts for units in math mode

[Faisal Moledina]

On 29-Jan-06, at 4:03 PM, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> It depends on what you mean by properly. The code re. math fonts in  
> fontspec.sty was added by its author (Will Robertson) following a  
> suggestion I had done, and which itself was based on the way math  
> fonts are handled in slides.cls -- the standard LaTeX class for  
> slides. This was done so that text elements in maths are using the  
> main text font.
>
> Such considerations do not arise in standard TeX, which uses by  
> default the Computer Modern font family -- a complete set of text  
> and math fonts all properly matched. As soon as you start replacing  
> the text fonts by modern TrueType, PostScript or OpenType fonts,  
> problems arise because the default math fonts are still Computer  
> Modern -- generally considered too thin and spindly to blend well  
> with the modern fonts such as Times.
>
> This is why, for example, the mathptmx and mathpazo packages use  
> Times and Palatino, respectively, as the text font and use the  
> virtual font mechanism to combine characters from this text font  
> with characters from Symbol and CMSY in order to produce a  
> reasonably matching math font. See /Library/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/ 
> doc/latex/psnfss/psnfss2e.pdf.

Ah, that makes good sense, from that point of view.

> Commercial alternatives are:
>
> - MathTime <http://www.pctex.com/ 
> fonts.html#MathTimeProfessional_Fonts>: a complete set of math  
> fonts to be used with Times.
>
> - Lucida <http://www.pctex.com/fonts.html#Lucida_Fonts>: a complete  
> set of text and math fonts, replacing Computer Modern completely. A  
> personal favorite of mine. I use them in conjunction with the OS X  
> fonts in XeTeX, using such declarations as:
>
> \usepackage[LY1]{fontenc}
> \usepackage[expert,vargreek,lucidasmallscale]{lucidabr}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setromanfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Optima Regular}

I suppose this is a better-equipped version of the Lucida fonts that  
come by default with OS X?

> Finally, the STIX fonts <http://www.stixfonts.org/> (to be released  
> next June -- supposedly) would provide a complete and free set of  
> Unicode math fonts in TrueType, PostScript and OpenType formats,  
> and their use in TeX should be possible.

Wow, that STIX project is huge.  Free?  Really?  That looks really  
promising.

Faisal