10.5 Transitional Neoclassical serif fonts
The Humanist and Garalde fonts discussed above are also often collectively referred to as Oldstyle fonts, and the Didone designs that we show in the next section are also known as Modern. In-between we have fonts classified as Transitional or Neoclassical that first appeared in the late 17th century.
There is no longer a calligraphic influence, and the letter axis is now nearly, if not completely, vertical. The weight difference between the thickest and thinnest points shows an even higher contrast compared to Garalde designs. The serifs are now (nearly) horizontal and less bracketed, and overall details become very refined. In this section we show roughly a dozen high-quality transitional designs, some of which are revivals of famous types of that period; others are new designs in the transitional style.
10.5.1 Antykwa Poltawskiego
The Antykwa Poltawskiego fonts (originally named “Antykwa Polska”) were designed in the 1920s by typographer Adam Półtawski with special shapes for frequent letters in the Polish language. For a long time it has been the major text type for musical publications in Poland.
10.5.2 BaskervilleF and Libre Baskerville
Libre Baskerville is a revival of John Baskerville’s (1706–1775) typeface, designed by Pablo Impallari and Rodrigo Fuenzalida as a font family optimized for web usage. It is based on the American Type Founder’s Baskerville from 1941, but with a taller x-height, wider counters, and somewhat less contrast, making it work well for reading on computer screens. LaTEX support for all engines is available with the librebaskerville package by Bob Tennent. There are matching math fonts by Michael Sharpe; see page 271.
10.5.3 Baskervald (Baskervaldx)
Another font inspired by Baskerville is Baskervald designed by Hirwen Harendal. It was extended with additional accented glyphs and oldstyle figures by Michael Sharpe. His version, named Baskervaldx, is made available for the pdfTEX engine through the package Baskervaldx, providing typical options such as scaled or oldstyle. This family has matching math fonts too, which are shown in Figures 12.15 to 12.16 on page 272.
10.5.4 ITC Bookman (TeX Gyre Bonum)
Bookman was originally designed in 1860 by Alexander Phemister (1829–1894) for the Miller & Richard foundry in Scotland (commercially available from Bitstream). The ITC revival by Ed Benguiat has a larger x-height and a moderate stroke contrast that is well suited for body text and display applications. TEX Gyre Bonum shown here is based on the URW Bookman L version of the font family (which is set up with the TEX Gyre tgbonum package).
10.5.5 Cambria
Cambria is a commercial transitional serif typeface designed by Jelle Bosma with contributions from Steve Matteson and Robin Nicholas. It has even spacing and proportions, is intended to be used for body text, is especially suitable for small print, and displays well on low-resolution screens. This makes it, together with the fact that it offers extensive support for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, IPA symbols, and a full collection of math symbols, a very versatile solution for typesetting documents for consumption on screen as well as on paper. Commissioned by Microsoft, it is shipped as part of the Windows operating system as well as in several Office products for different platforms. Thus, while the font requires a license for use, many users will have this license if they work on Windows or because they own a product that installs the font. Because of this and its excellent math capabilities, we decided to include it in the collection even though it is available only for Unicode engines and has the license restrictions.
10.5.6 Bitstream Charter
Bitstream Charter is an original design by Matthew Carter based on the characters of Pierre-Simon Fournier, intended to work well on low-resolution devices; hence, it contains squared serifs and avoids excessive use of curves and diagonals. It is useful for many applications, including books and manuals. Charter was contributed by Bitstream to the X consortium.
Basic LaTEX support for the pdfTEX engine is provided through the package charter, but these days it is much better to use the package XCharter by Michael Sharpe as it offers improved small capitals, oldstyle, superior figures, and the typical options of a modern font package. Mathematical typesetting with matching fonts is shown in Figure 12.19 on page 275.
10.5.7 Charis SIL - A design based on Bitstream Charter
Charis SIL (developed by SIL International) is a transitional typeface that is closely based on the design of Bitstream Charter. However, its glyphs were completely redrawn with significant differences in serif structure, proportions, diacritics, and other characteristics, which can be easily seen if you compare the previous and the following sample. The font offers support for Latin and Cyrillic, and, if used with a Unicode engine, offers many additional glyphs including a full set of IPA symbols. LaTEX integration is provided through the CharisSIL package by Bob Tennent.
10.5.8 Caslon - Reinterpreted as Libre Caslon
The Libre Caslon fonts are designed by Pablo Impallari as a reinterpretation of the typeface by William Caslon (1692–1766) from the 17th century of which there are still many revivals in wide use today. LaTEX support for all engines is available with the librecaslon package by Bob Tennent.
10.5.9 Ghandhi Serif
The Gandhi Serif fonts have a matching sans serif design described on page 15. Table 10.6 with their NFSS classifications are there too.
10.5.10 Inria Serif
The Inria Serif family, designed for the French research institute Inria, has a matching sans serif design (but no monospaced variant). You can find the description of both families on page 16 and the NFSS classification in Table 10.8 on page 17.
10.5.11 Libertinus Serif
The Libertinus families consists of a serif, a sans serif, and a monospaced family. They are described together on page 19, and their NFSS classifications can be found in Table 10.10 on page 20.
10.5.12 Literaturnaya - A favorite in the days of the USSR
Based on a design by Hermann Berthold from 1899, Literaturnaya was designed around 1940 by Anatolii Shchukin. Towards the end of the last century a digital version was developed by Lyubov Kuznetsova. The family was predominately used in the USSR and other socialist countries and was the standard Cyrillic typeface there in the period between 1950 and 1990. After the cold war it got more and more displaced by the then popular Times New Roman and is nowadays rarely seen.
LaTEX support files are provided by Vladimir Volovich. To make the font the default roman typeface, load his literat package (no options). The fonts are not part of the standard distributions but can be installed with getnonfreefonts.
10.5.13 Lucida Bright
Lucida Bright is a modern design, but according to its designer Charles Bigelow, “[. . . ] its inner forms are based on writing styles of the Italian Renaissance, and its sophisticated detailing is reminiscent of printing types of the French Enlightenment. It can be classified as a ‘Transitional’ or ‘Reale’ style of typeface, like the 18th century designs of Baskerville or Fournier”. They show, however, in my opinion aspects of Didone and even tend towards slap serif in parts — which just proves that classification in few categories is difficult. The Lucida Bright fonts have matching sans and monospaced designs and a full set of math fonts. The families are described together in Section 10.2.10 on page 21, and the NFSS classification is given in Table 10.11 on page 22. They are the fonts we have used for this book, except that we have set them even smaller than the typeface example here. Examples of typesetting mathematics (in all engines) are exhibited in Figures 12.24 to 12.26 on pages 278–279.
10.5.14 Lucida Fax
This is another typeface in the Lucida extended family of fonts that you obtain if you purchase the set from TUG. It is particularly useful if you need small sizes because it remains nicely readable. Its description and NFSS classification is given in Section 10.2.10 on page 21.
10.5.15 Merriweather
The Merriweather fonts have a matching sans serif described on page 25. The NFSS classifications are found in Table 10.2.11 on same page.
10.5.16 New Century Schoolbook (TeX Gyre Schola)
The New Century Schoolbook typeface was designed at the beginning of the 20th
century by Morris Fuller Benton (1872–1948) of the American Type Founders. It was created in response to a publisher’s commission that sought a typeface with maximum legibility for elementary schoolbooks. Italics were originally not part of the design; they were added in later revivals by Linotype and ITC. TEX Gyre Schola shown here is based on the URW Century Schoolbook L version of the font family (which is set up with the TEX Gyre tgschola package).
Typesetting with matching mathematical fonts is available for all engines; see Figures 12.20 to 12.21 on page 276 for examples.
10.5.17 Plex Serif
The IBM Plex families consist of a serif, sans serif, and monospaced family described on page 30. The NFSS classifications are found in Table 10.16 on page 31.
10.5.18 PT Serif
Paratype’s PT fonts also consist of a serif, sans serif, and monospaced family. They are described on page 30, and the NFSS classifications are in Table 10.16 on page 31.
10.5.19 Quattrocento
The Quattrocento families consists of serif and sans serif fonts. They are described together on page 33, and their NFSS classifications can be found in Table 10.18 on page 33.
10.5.20 Times Roman (TeX Gyre Termes and Tempora)
Times Roman is Linotype’s version of Monotype’s Times New Roman, which was originally designed under the direction of Stanley Morison (1889–1967) for the London Times newspaper. The Adobe font that is built into many PostScript devices uses Linotype’s 12-point design.
TEX Gyre Termes shown here is based on the URW Roman No9 L version of the font family, which is set up with the TEX Gyre tgtermes package.
10.5.21 Tinos
As an alternative to New Times Roman, the Tinos fonts by Steve Matteson have a very similar running length. They are, however, not offering a Small Caps shape.
LaTEX support for all engines is available with the tinos package by Bob Tennent.
10.5.22 STIX 2
The Scientific and Technical Information Exchange (STIX) Fonts project, sponsored by several leading scientific and technical publishers, intends to provide a comprehensive font set of mathematical symbols and alphabets under a royalty-free license for electronic and print publications. STIX 2, the current version, is an original design by Ross Mills, John Hudson, and Paul Hanslow of Tiro Typeworks, loosely based on Times New Roman but with a larger x-height.
LaTEX support for the pdfTEX engine is provided through the stickstootext1 package by Michael Sharpe. It accepts the typical options such as scaled or osf but also others related to STIX’s math support; see the package documentation for details. Typesetting examples involving mathematics are shown in Figure 12.30 on page 282 (pdfTEX) and Figure 12.31 on page 282 (Unicode engines).
10.5.23 Utopia (Heuristica, Erewhon, and Linguistics Pro)
Utopia, designed by Robert Slimbach, combines the vertical stress and pronounced stroke contrast of 18th century Transitional types with contemporary innovations in shape and stroke details.
Andrey V. Panov extended the Utopia font family under the name Heuristica by adding additional accented glyphs, additional figure styles, and small capitals for the regular weight. The LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided by Michael Sharpe through the package heuristica with options like scaled, osf, and others.