[XeTeX] Change fonts for different environment/commands

Wilfred van Rooijen wvanrooijen at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 8 08:46:00 CEST 2010


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 (*).

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.

Cheers,
Wilfred

(*) note that it almost impossible to test scientifically - all subjects must have learned to read and thus they will have a cultural and educational burden - the subjects are already used to serif of sans-serif :-))



> 
> Philip Taylor
> 
> 
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