On Using Times New Roman as the Default Font

fontspublishingtimes

I would like to use Times New Roman as the default font for the text in a book I have put together.

After checking this site, it seems that all I have to do is type \usepackage{times} in the preamble.

I did this and it seems to work.

My question is: Is there anything else (or something different) I should invoke in the preamble? I ask because the post which instructed to this this was rather old and I want to make sure there is nothing different I should be doing. Finally, may I assume that the Times New Roman font I use is in the public domain and am free to publish the said book with the said Times New Roman font? How may I check to be certain?

Best Answer

You mention that you want to use Times New Roman font (from Microsoft) but when you use \usepackage{times} then you use Times font, not Times New Roman. It is explained more exactly below.

Times font was designed by Stanley Morison in 1931 for purpose of the newly established newspaper Times. This font has been digitized later by more font foundries:

Microsoft: Times New Roman, it is part of Windows system and typographers say that it is the worst re-implementation of Times. It isn't free.
Adobe: Font Times, it was a part of each PostScript RIP designed by Adobe. It belongs to 35 standard fonts in PostScript. They are not free. If you buy a device with PostScript RIP, then you can use them at this device. Documents needn't to download the font because the font is ready to use when printing by PostScript RIP. It is good implementation of Times, but it was originally designed in Type1 PostScript format (today obsolete) and mostly without accented Latin letters.
URW: Nimbus Roman No9, it is relatively good re-implementation of Times. It is part of Ghostscript, a free implementation of PostScript RIP which is running in Linux systems (not in printing devices). If you are using TeX with standard configuration then \usepackage{times} downloads this Nimbus Roman No9 font, because the configuration is based on free fonts and old TeX engines uses their individual font world independent on fonts in the system. So, even if you happen to be using MS Windows with Times New Roman font, it isn't used.
TeXGyre: Termes, it is very good implementation of Times. It is free and it was available in new (and now commonly used) format OpenType. It is part of typical TeX distributions (for example TeXlive). If you are using a Unicode-aware TeX engine (LuaTeX, XeTeX), then Termes is best choice for using Morison's Times font.

For example, if you are using OpTeX, then the preamble looks like:

\fontfam[Termes]

\fontfam[Times]

The second one is only alias to Termes and you can re-configure it if you buy a non-free re-implementation of Times. But there is no reason to do it because Termes is very good. Much better than Times New Roman, for example.

If you are using LaTeX with Unicode-aware TeX engine then you can use \usepackage{fontspec} and then set Termes by \setmainfont in your preamble.

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This is completely normal, since Nimbus Roman No9 L could be considered the "free version" of the regular Times New Roman. The mathptmx package selects this font as the default font for the document, and provides math and symbol support from other fonts. For actually using the Times True Type Font (TTF), much more work is required, with perhaps a similar outcome (if not worse, in terms of math usage). The txfonts package also provides "Times-like" math support.

For modifying the page margin, the best option would be to use the geometry package. You can modify the margins at package load by specifying

\usepackage[<options>]{geometry}

or by using \geometry{<options>} after loading the package. Margins are modified using a comma separated key-value approach such as top=1in (leaves a 1in top margin), bottom=2cm (leaves a 2cm bottom margin), left=50pt (leaves a 50pt left margin) and right=20bp (leaves a 20bp right margin). Alternatively, for equal margins, use margin=15mm (say), which sets all four to be the same. See the geometry documentation for more key-value options, and how to set them.

[Tex/LaTex] Change equation font to Times New Roman

Addressing your questions in turn:

To change only the math-mode font, while leaving the text-mode font unchanged (cmr, right?), you could load either the newtxmath package or the mtpro2 (short for MathTime Professional II) package. (Note that the latter package isn't free; however, a subset of the fonts, called the "lite" set, provides basic lettering capabilities -- but not "fancy" math fonts such as fraktur, caligraphic, curly, and blackboard bold styles -- and is free.) The mtpro2 font features "optically sized" glyphs for first-level sub- and superscript materials (aka "scriptstyle"-level materials).
- Separately, if you happen to use LuaTeX or XeTeX, you may want to give the "XITS Math" font package a try.
- If you happen to be a font purist: be aware that these font packages technically give you Times Roman, not Times New Roman. And if you're not a font purist? You may be excused for not noticing any differences -- they are are quite subtle.
In math-mode, be careful about making some symbols both bold and italics. In mathematics, each font shape and weight is generally understood to impart some special meaning. For sure, do not combine bolding and italics just for emphasis. Both newtxmath and mtpro2 provide methods for changing the slant of both lowercase and uppercase greek letters.
To make all displayed equations be set flush-left rather than centered, use the document class option fleqn.
How to set the contents of equations more compactly? Aaah, some would opine that MS Word's math mode is far too compact, leading to frequent overlaps of letters on the baseline and those in superscript or subscript position. Good news for you: Both newtxmath and mtpro2 render math expressions more compactly than does TeX's default math font (Computer Modern).

Putting these things together and simplifying some of your math code along the way leads to the following modified form of your MWE. The main substantive changes I've made are to replace the equation environment with an align environment and to replace the inner split environment with a bmatrix environment.

\documentclass[fleqn]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand\QSJ{\mathit{QSJ}} % define a couple of acronyms
\newcommand\CML{\mathit{CML}}
\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
L_{\CML}( \theta ) 
&= \Biggl(\, \prod_{g  = 1}^{\QSJ - 1} 
             \prod_{g' = g + 1}^{\QSJ} 
      P\left( [ y ]_g = [ m ]_g,\ [ y ]_{g'} = [ m ]_{g'} \right)  
   \Biggr)\\
&= \Biggl(\, \prod_{g  = 1}^{\QSJ - 1} 
             \prod_{g' = g + 1}^{\QSJ} 
   \begin{bmatrix}
   \phantom{-}\Phi_2 ({\tilde \vartheta }_g,{\tilde \vartheta }_{g'},\nu_{gg'}) 
          - \Phi_2 ({\tilde \vartheta }_g,{\tilde \phi }_{g'},\nu _{gg'})\\
          - \Phi_2 ({\tilde \phi }_g,{\tilde \vartheta }_{g'},\nu _{gg'}) 
          + \Phi_2 ({\tilde \phi }_g,{\tilde \phi }_{g'},\nu _{gg'})
   \end{bmatrix} \Biggr)
\end{split}
\end{equation}
\end{document}

enter image description here

For comparison, here's how the equations look like if the times (for text font) and mtpro2 (for math font) packages instead of the newtxtext and newtxmath packages. The overall look is very similar, but the output produced with help of the newtxmath package is a bit more compact.

enter image description here

Best Answer

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