10.8 Sans serif fonts
In contrast to the serif font families, we present all sans serif font families in alphabetical order by name. There are, of course, also classification schemes for sans serif fonts, but the distinctions are much hazier and are less useful when trying to find suitable fonts.
Many books on typography discuss how to select a suitable sans serif font to a given serif one, but it depends so much on how the two are used together that we give only a few general rule of thumbs here.
If the sans font is used as part of the body text and is intermixed with the serif font within sentences (as in this book, where we use sans serif for denoting package names, etc.), then it is best if both families have the same flow, i.e., a similar width of individual characters and consequentially a similar running length. In most cases they should also have similar characteristics in x-height, capital height, slope of their italics, etc., so that they blend well with each other.
If you are typesetting using one of the few larger “meta”-families such as Latin Modern or IBM Plex, then this is automatically the case when selecting the corresponding sans serif font from the family.
For many fonts shown in the previous sections, you have to decide on a companion sans serif by yourself— by setting up some typical sample text and studying the results. Sometimes one or the other family needs scaling up or down to achieve a similar x-height; this is why most font packages offer you a scaled or scale option. For example, here we combine Palatino (TEX Gyre Pagella) with Quattrocento Sans scaled down to 96% to get matching x-heights.
10.8.1 Alegreya Sans
The Alegreya Sans family has a matching serif design (but no monospaced variant). You can find the description of both families on page 11 and the NFSS classification in Table 10.2 on the same page.
10.8.2 Arimo
The Arimo family, designed by Steve Matteson, is a sans serif font that is metrically compatible with Arial. It contains the glyphs necessary for typesetting in many languages including Greek and Cyrillic. However, the non–Latin glyphs are accessible only in Unicode engines at the moment as the support files for pdfTEX cover only Latin languages. Basic LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package arimo by Bob Tennent, which sets up Arimo as and offers the usual options such as scaled or sfdefault.
10.8.3 ITC Avant Garde Gothic (TEX Gyre Adventor)
Avant Garde Gothic was designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase based on the distinctive logo designed for Avant Garde magazine. It is a geometric sans serif type with basic shapes built from circles and lines. It is effective for headlines and short texts, but it needs generous leading. A (commercially available) condensed version that better retains legibility in lengthier texts was designed by Ed Benguiat. The TEX Gyre Adventor version shown here is based on the URW Gothic L version of the font family.
10.8.4 Cabin
Cabin is a humanist sans serif family designed by Pablo Impallari. It offers four weights with italics and true small capitals. A compatible condensed family is also available. According to the designer, it was inspired by typefaces from Eric Gill (1882–1940) and Edward Johnston, with a touch of modernism.
LaTEX support for all engines is available through the package cabin by Bob Tennent providing the typical options such as condensed, sfdefault, medium, and others.
10.8.5 Chivo
Chivo (Spanish for goat) is a Grotesque sans serif font family designed by Héctor Gatti. It offers upright and italic shapes in seven weights from thin (extra-light) to black (ultra-bold). The light and regular weights are usable for body texts, while the bold and black weights are meant for headlines. LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package Chivo by Arash Esbati. With the options thin, light, or medium you can change the default sans serif body font, and with extrabold or black you can request that the black weight be used instead of bold.
10.8.6 Classico — A design based on Optima
Optima, designed by Hermann Zapf (1918–2015) in 1958, is a font family I personally like very much. It is very calligraphic in nature with varying stroke width in the letters and works well as a display face but equally well in body text size for whole documents. It is a bit like an Oldstyle serif design with only implied serifs. In 1998 Zapf in collaboration with KOBAYASHI Akira reworked its design, which was released under the name Optima Nova. As with many fonts by Hermann Zapf (1918–2015) Optima has many admirers and as a result unfortunately many pirate copies (usually of inferior quality) under different names. If you are using a Macintosh, then Optima (but not Optima Nova) is one of the system fonts, which is lovely as it allows you to use this superb family in a Unicode TEX engine directly using its TrueType name Optima . But this does not work on other operating systems or for pdfTEX. Fortunately, there is also the family URW Classico, which is a rework of the original Optima by its designer for the URW foundry. This family is freely usable (though you have to install it yourself via getnonfreefonts due to its license restrictions).
LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package classico by Bob Tennent providing the options scaled to specify a scale factor and sfdefault (which I often use) to make this family the default document family. Being a sans serif design the italics are more oblique than true italics, and the small capitals are faked — however, they do not come out too badly because the characters have a varied stroke width.
10.8.7 Clear Sans
Clear Sans is a design by Daniel Ratighan at Monotype. It was commissioned by Intel, and it is particularly suitable for user interfaces, because it has slightly narrow proportions and unambiguous glyphs; e.g., “I” (uppercase i) has serifs to distinguish it from “l” (lowercase l). Clear Sans is available in three weights with corresponding italics (regular, medium, and bold), plus thin and light upright (without italics).
Basic LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package ClearSans by Bob Tennent, which sets up Clear Sans as and offers the usual options such as scaled, sfdefault, or medium. The light and thin weights are made available through and , respectively.
10.8.8 CM Bright
The CM Bright sans serif fonts have a matching monospaced design. The families are described on page 12, and the NFSS classification is given in Table 10.3. The sample on the opposite page shows the words “almost anything” in bold extended. A (probably better) alternative is semi-bold as shown in the sample on page 12. Matching math fonts are exhibited in Figure 12.42 on page 290.
10.8.9 Cuprum
Cuprum, designed by Ivan Gladkikh (a.k.a. Jovanny Lemonad), is a narrow grotesque sans serif typeface inspired by the works of Miles Newlyn. It is offered in two weights and upright and italic shapes. LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided through the package cuprum by Federico Roncaglia. Somewhat unconventionally, the missing Small Caps shape is aliased to boldface when pdfTEX is used.
10.8.10 Cyklop
The Cyklop typeface was designed roughly a hundred years ago in a workshop at a type foundry in Warsaw. This sans serif typeface has a highly modulated stroke with vertical stems that are much heavier than horizontal ones. Most characters have thin rectangles as additional counters, which give the unique shape of the characters. The font is available in only one weight — a request for the medium series gives you the same as
LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided through the package cyklop by Janusz Marian Nowacki (1951–2020), but that just sets , which is not very helpful unless you really want the whole document in this typeface. As the font is mainly of interest for headings and other display material and not for body text, it is probably best to set it up manually as needed.
10.8.11 DejaVu Sans
DejaVu Sans has a matching slab serif and a monospaced design. You can find the description of all three families on page 12 and their NFSS classifications in Table 10.4 on page 13.
10.8.12 Fira Sans
Erik Spiekermann’s Fira Sans has a matching monospaced design. This Humanist Sans works great as a body text font with many different weights and also offers polytonic Greek if that is needed. Both families are described on page 14, and their NFSS classifications can be found in Table 10.5.
10.8.13 Gandhi Sans
The Gandhi Sans fonts have a matching serif family described on page 15. The NFSS classifications are found in Table 10.6.
10.8.14 GFS Neo-Hellenic
In 1927 a Greek type called New Hellenic designed by Victor Scholderer (1880–1971) was cut by Lanston Monotype in Britain. GFS Neo-Hellenic is a digitalization based on this design. It offers both true italics and an oblique shape, although the differences are not easy to spot.
LaTEX support is provided through the package gfsneohellenic that defines the command to access the font selectively. If loaded with the option default, GFS Neo-Hellenic is also made the roman default font. The family is well matched to mathematical fonts from CM Bright, which makes this an option when typesetting with pdfTEX. Besides Latin languages, it fully supports polytonic Greek.
10.8.15 Gillius
The Gillius family of fonts designed by Hirwen Harendal was inspired by Eric Gill’s (1882–1940) famous Gill Sans. It is available in medium and condensed width in all faces. LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the packages gillius and gillius2 by Bob Tennent. The option condensed lets you use the condensed faces for the whole document.
10.8.16 Helvetica (TEX Gyre Heros)
Helvetica was originally designed by Max Miedinger (1910–1980) for the Haas foundry of Switzerland, hence the name. It was later extended by the Stempel foundry, with further refinements being made by Mergenthaler Linotype in the United States. Helvetica is purported to be one of the most popular typefaces of all time. TEX Gyre Heros shown here is based on the URW Nimbus Sans L version of the font family (which is set up with the TEX Gyre tgheros package):
10.8.17 Inria Sans
The Inria Sans family has a matching serif design. You can find the description of both families on page 16 and their NFSS classifications in Table 10.8 on page 17.
10.8.18 Iwona
Iwona was designed by Małgorzata Budyta for typesetting newspapers and similar periodicals as an alternative version of her Kurier fonts shown below. The difference lies in the absence of ink traps, which typify the Kurier family, e.g., “any” (Kurier) vs. “any” (Iwona). As a result, Iwona runs noticeably shorter even though it has a similar design. The family is offered in five weights and two widths and supports an extended character set including Latin and Cyrillic.
LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided through the package iwona by Janusz Marian Nowacki (1951–2020). The default weight can be changed through light, and with condensed you can reduce the width. Note that the package installs the family as the document body font, i.e., as !
Matching math fonts are available too and can be activated with the option math. They cover the basic symbols but not those from amssymb, which would keep their shapes if used; see sample pages in Figures 12.45 to 12.46 on page 292.
10.8.19 Kp (Johannes Kepler) Sans
Kp Sans has both a matching serif and monospaced design. When used with pdfTEX, certain features, such as special ligatures or oldstyle numerals, can be activated by altering the family name as described on page 17; you can find the description of all three families and their NFSS classifications in Table 10.9 on page 18. If used with Unicode engines, the features can be activated through the typical feature sets as supported by fontspec. An example with mathematics is shown in Figures 12.47 on page 293.
10.8.20 Kurier
For her diploma in typeface design in 1975 at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Małgorzata Budyta designed the sans serif typeface Kurier with its characteristic ink traps. The family is offered in five weights and two widths and supports an extended character set including Latin and Cyrillic.
LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided through the package kurier by Janusz Marian Nowacki (1951–2020). The default weight can be changed with the option light, and with condensed you can reduce the width. Note that the package installs the family as the document body font, i.e., as !
Matching math fonts can be activated with the option math. They cover the basic symbols but not those from amssymb, which would keep their shapes if used; see Example 12.48 on page 294.
10.8.21 Latin Modern Sans
You can find the description of the Latin Modern families in Section 9.5.1 and their NFSS classifications in Table 9.6 on page →I 687. Just like its cousin Computer Modern Sans, this family has no small capitals, and
a request to ses Latin Modern Roman instead — a questionable choice, but consistent with the way CM fonts have been set up for decades.
10.8.22 Lato
Lato is a geometric sans serif design by Łukasz Dziedzic. A few years ago, the family was greatly extended with the help of Adam Twardoch and Botio Nikoltchev to cover more than 3000 glyphs and can now be used to typeset most Latin or Cyrillic-based languages, Greek, and IPA phonetics. It is offered in several weights from hairline to extra-heavy and has upright and italic shapes.
LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package lato by Mohamed El Morabity. To set up Lato as the default sans serif font, use defaultsans. To set it up as the default document font, use the option default instead. Use scaled to provide a font scaling factor. For other options see the package documentation.
10.8.23 Libertinus Sans
Libertinus Sans has both a matching serif and monospaced design. The description of all three families is given on page 19 and their NFSS classifications in Table 10.10 on page 20.
10.8.24 Libre Franklin
Libre Franklin is an interpretation of Morris Fuller Benton (1872–1948)’s Franklin Gothic, designed by Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo Fuenzalida, and Nhung Nguyen. It offers upright and italics in nine weights from ultra-light to ultra-bold.
LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package librefranklin by Bob Tennent with typical options such as scaled, default, sfdefault, etc.
10.8.25 Lucida Sans
Lucida Sans comes with matching serif and monospaced designs, described together in Section 10.2.10 on page 21. Their NFSS classifications are given in Table 10.11 on page 22. This is the font family used in this book for package names and other items.
10.8.26 Merriweather Sans
Merriweather Sans has a matching serif design. The description of both families is given on page 25 and their NFSS classifications in Table 10.12.
10.8.27 Mint Spirit
The Mint Spirit family of fonts were originally designed by Hirwen Harendal for use as a system font on a Linux Mint system. The font combines aspects of Universalis, NeoGothis, and Gillius by the same designer and combines it with the appearance of the Ubuntu font family designed by Dalton Maag.
LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the packages mintspirit and mintspirit2 by Bob Tennent.
10.8.28 Montserrat
Montserrat is a geometric sans serif design by Julieta Ulanovsky inspired by street art from the historical Buenos Aires neighborhood of the same name. There is also a variant called Montserrat Alternates with a noticeably different design. Both fonts are offered in several weights from hairline to heavy and have upright, italic, and Small Caps shapes.
LaTEX support for pdfTEX is provided through the package montserrat by Michael Sharpe. It offers many options to adjust the font loading, e.g., alternates to use Montserrat Alternates or defaultfam to make the font the default document font. Use scaled to provide a font scaling factor and light, etc., to adjust the weight. For other options see the package documentation.
10.8.29 Noto Sans
The Noto Sans fonts (an extended version of Droid Sans with well-designed small capitals) have matching serif and monospaced designs. The families are described on page 26, and the NFSS classification is given in Table 10.14 on page 28. Michael Sharpe prepared matching math fonts for use when the family is selected for body text; an example page is shown in Figure 12.50 on page 295.
10.8.30 Overlock
Overlock, designed by Dario Manuel Muhafara, is a rounded sans serif typeface inspired by the Overlock sewing technique. It is offered in three weights with upright and italic shapes. Small capitals are available only in medium weight. LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package overlock by Bob Tennent with the usual options. The package adjusts
10.8.31 Plex Sans
The Plex Sans family has a matching serif and monospace design. The description of all three families is given on page 30, and their NFSS classifications are in Table 10.16 on page 31.
10.8.32 PT Sans
Paratype’s PT Sans is also accompanied by a matching serif and monospace design. The descriptions are given on page 31 and the NFSS classifications in Table 10.17 on page 32. The sans family also exists in a narrow version, but that has no italic shape.
10.8.33 Quattrocento Sans
Quattrocento Sans also has a companion serif design but no monospaced variant. The description of both families is given on page 33 and the NFSS classifications in Table 10.18.
10.8.34 Releway
Raleway is a sans serif display typeface, designed by Matt McInerney. In 2012 it was extended by Pablo Impallari and Rodrigo Fuenzalida to cover nine weights with upright, italic, and Small Caps shapes. With Unicode engines it offers a number of stylistic alternates inspired by more geometric sans serif typefaces than its neo-grotesqueinspired default character set. LaTEX support for all engines is provided through the package raleway by Silke Hofstra.
10.8.35 Roboto Sans
Roboto Sans exists in two widths and has a matching monospaced font as well as a slab serif companion. All three families are described in more detail on page 34, and the NFSS classifications are found in Table 10.19 on page 35.
10.8.36 Rosario
Rosario is a Humanist sans serif designed by Héctor Gatti with classic proportions, subtle contrast, and weak endings. It comes in two weights with upright and italic shapes. As often,
10.8.37 Source Sans Pro
Source Sans Pro is yet another family with matching serif and monospaced families, but by more than one designer. They are described together on page 35, and the NFSS classifications are found in Table 10.20 on page 36.
10.8.38 Universalis
Universalis is a legible modern style font family designed by Hirwen Harendal suitable as an alternative to designs from Adrian Frutiger (1928–2015) such as Univers or Frutiger. It is available in two weights in upright and italics and also has condensed shapes.
LaTEX support for all engines is provided by Bob Tennent through the package universalis supporting options such as scaled, sfdefault, and condensed.