[XeTeX] Change fonts for different environment/commands

[Paul Isambert]

Selon Wilfred van Rooijen <wvanrooijen at yahoo.com>:

> Hi all,
>
> > But why ?  What exactly do you dislike about the use
> > of
> > sans serif for headings ?  To my mind, and in a
> > scientific
> > as opposed to artistic context, sans serif headings with
> > serif prose seem absolutely normal and fine.
>
> The age-old discussion as to whether or not sans-serif is evil or not. It is
> commonly stated that serif letters are more readable because the little
> serifs give a better visual baseline, with a more clear distinction between
> words and spaces. I have always had difficulty with accepting this wisdom. I
> think that there is also a cultural component and a component of "getting
> used to". Unless somebody can show me scientifically and statistically sound
> research which shows that serif if better than sans-serif, I am not willing
> to accept the common wisdom that serif is better than sans-serif and my
> opinion will remain that it is a matter of taste (*).

Some authors say indeed that sans-serif fonts are easier to read, some say
they're equivalent to serif ones, so there's obviously no definitive truth about
that. And above all it greatly depends on the font used: Helvetica and Optima
are both sans serif, but they don't have the same readibility at all. The same
is true for serif too. Wilfred's right in stressing the importance of what one
is used to: "Readers read best what they read most", says Zuzana Licko (add a
caron to the "c"). I've had an interesting experience recently: I've read an
English novel, and immediately after I finished it I turned to an American one:
I was so used to single quotation marks for dialogs (English custom) that double
ones (American custom) really hindered my reading at the beginning, even though
I read American books more often than English ones.

Readability does not depend on the font only, anyway. Line width,
x-height/leading ratio, justification, not to mention printing (ever read a
cheap paperback in Sabon? well you can forget about its readibility), etc.


> Now, for the use of sans-serif and serif within the same document, I think
> that it is also a matter of taste. Some people may like it, others dislike
> it, and again, I think it has more to do with being used to something than
> with hard science.

My position, for what it's worth, is nonetheless that there should be as few
font variations as possible. First try with the normal text font for headings,
then perhaphs italics, then perhaps small caps, then perhaps the same font at
larger size, then perhaps bold, then perhaps switch to a sans-serif... Titles do
not have to scream, they are sufficiently different from the main text:
generally one line, unindented, with perhaps a section number, surrounded by
blank lines. LaTeX's default to big fat section title is unnecessary in most
cases, although it can make sense if a text has many interruptions (e.g.
equations) since the white space that surrounds them might be mistaken for
section break. Fat titles for reading on the screen is no bad idea either.

So, about unserifed section headings, yes, why not, "it's a matter of taste",
but there's so much more to typography than simply personal taste...

Best,
Paul