[OS X TeX] Font in TeXShop

[Herbert Schulz]

On Feb 23, 2006, at 7:38 AM, Arthur Snoke wrote:

> I found the following message from Bruce very useful.  After  
> changing scale to scaled, the latex file not gives no error  
> messages and the output looks fine.
>
> I would appreciate examples showing how I sould use the Helvetica  
> and Courier.  I have a command to make headers:
>
> \newcommand{\heading}[1]{\begin{center}\large\bf #1\end{center}}
>
> To make it use Helvetica instead of the default font, does this work?
>
> \newcommand{\heading}[1]{\begin{center}\textsf\large\bf #1\end 
> {center}}
>
> If so, does the order matter?
>

Howdy,

Short answers are yes, it will work and no, the order is not important.

> Will the \texttt or the \verbatim environment automatically use  
> Courier?
>

Again, yes.

> Finally, what in these commands tells it to use Times rather than cm?
>

The \usepackage{mathptmx} sets up Times as the roman font and also  
the maths fonts are changed to ones that better fit with Times.

The \usepackage[scaled=0.92]{helvet} set up Helvetica scaled down by  
a multiplicative factor of 0.92 (i.e., if you are using 10pt Times  
the Helvetica will be set at 9.2pt to better match the Times) as the  
sans serif font. I tend to like it even smaller---scaled to 0.87--- 
but that is personal.

The \usepackage{courier} sets up Courier as the mono-spaced font.  
There is a scalable Courier package on CTAN, couriers.sty, that  
allows you to scale Courier as you can Helvetica. I then use courier  
scaled up a tiny bit.

> Thanks in advance,
>
> Arthur Snoke

By the way, while \bf still works (for backward compatibility) to  
declare bold face you should be using \bfseries.

Finally, why are you defining this heading macro? It makes no table  
of contents entry, etc. Try the sectsty or titlesec packages; they  
are really nice.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


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