[Tex/LaTex] Aesthetically, which font should I use when I want to use Euler Math fonts

best practiceseulertypefacesxetex

So the question is of an aesthetics "best practice" type. I know that I shouldn't use Euler math fonts with the standard Computer Modern, and I'm struggling to find a suitable typeface where I can use Euler math without looking unprofessional.

My documents usually stay as PDFs, meaning they're never really printed on paper, rather they're looked at on screens, where the display system takes advantage of font scaling, etc.

I'd like to use one of the typefaces that come in LaTeX repositories like Texlive or MikTex, I can probably get a custom font later when I really need to.

The main problem is really finding a main font, to which Euler is a decent math companion font. I'm using XeLaTeX, if that makes any difference.

I've seen someone mentioning a set of packages which combine sets of these into entire presets, however I can't find them anymore. If someone could link me to those, that would be great, too.

Best Answer

(I only quote another answer)

User Mico points out in "https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/103983", that

Quote 1

Concrete and Euler were used together (very successfully, I'd say) in the textbook "Concrete Mathematics" by Graham, Knuth, and Patashnik. However, be forewarned that this is a "raster font" and thus won't look very good on screen.

Quote 2

[...] There is no text font that's matched perfectly to AMS Euler. [...] Other text fonts that are known to work well with AMS Euler are Palatino, Aldus, and Melior -- all are, perhaps not coincidentally, creations of Hermann Zapf, the designer of the AMS Euler fonts. To set Palatino as the text font of your document, you could, e.g., issue the command \usepackage{newpxtext}.

Quote 3 (see comment below)

Hermann Zapf’s Optima (or its clone URW Classico, available gratis) is a good sans-serif companion. I like Inconsolata as a monospaced companion font.

Oh, and there now is at least one body font based on Euler: Aref Ruqaa. I don’t know that I’d recommend it, but it’s the closest match.

Short Answer

If you only print your document, then try the text font Concrete (only rasterized available according to the linked answer above).
In all other cases try Palatino, Aldus, or Melior as the text font.
Aldus and Melior seem to be commercial fonts.

Links

Euler on CTAN: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/euler ("[...] AMS Euler family of fonts for mathematics in LATEX documents.")
Euler Virtual Math Fonts on CTAN: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/eulervm ("Euler-VM is a set of virtual mathematics fonts based on Euler and CM. [...] This approach has several advantages over immediately using the real Euler fonts:")
Concrete on CTAN: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/concrete
Palatino on CTAN: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/mathpazo

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Which measurement units should one use in LaTeX

There are no hard-and-fast rules, but here's a short list of guidelines:

"1em" can be considered a horizontal length and "1ex" a vertical one, so use them accordingly but mix and match as you need (they are horizontal and vertical arbitrarily, but usually you hear people talk about "1em" is the width of an "m" — usually false — and "1ex" is the height of an "x" — usually true). I usually consider 1em to be about the same size as the font size in points.
em and ex are relative lengths, so they're better for designing around text; like you say, an indent of 2em will work whether the fontsize is 9pt or 12pt.
Things that are of fixed size (such as the page size) should be defined with fixed units, of course.
When things should be relative, it will often make more sense to define them in terms of the page design. For example, width=0.5\linewidth might make more sense than width=5cm for a figure.
Watch out for the pt unit! In TeX, 1pt is 1/72.27in, whereas the more common "PostScript point" used by most other software is 1/72in which in TeX is 1bp. If you're dealing with other programs and need your lengths exact, use bp or use standard cm or in measurements.
Remember that TeX uses fixed point arithmetic, so there are precision problems when you hit around five significant figures. E.g.,
```
  \newlength\x
  \x=1in
  \showthe\x
```
gives
```
  > 72.26999pt.
```

[Tex/LaTex] Which command should I use for textual subscripts in math mode

First of all, the problem presents for textual subscripts, such as those used in physics to distinguish between vectors with the same name (say a force) by a subscripted label that should go in upright type. Textual subscripts are used in many other fields.

In what follows, amsmath is assumed.

$W_{\rm total}$ is totally wrong as it relies on a deprecated command that classes don't need to define (and indeed some don't).
$W_{\mathrm{total}}$ is the correct form of the above. Limitations: spaces are gobbled and hyphens become minus signs.
$W_{\textnormal{total}}$ uses the main roman font of the document, no matter the context; the argument is typeset as text at the correct size.
$W_{\mathup{total}}$ (with Ulrike Fischer's definition) has one advantage over \mathrm, since it uses \familydefault, but the same limitations.
$W_{\operatorname{total}}$ is like using a sledgehammer for killing a fly. It's the same as \mathrm, but hyphens don't become minus signs.
$W_{\text{total}}$ might seem ideal, but it changes font according to the context, so the subscript would appear in italics in a theorem statement.

Therefore, form 3 seems the most natural. Notice that braces are not really necessary, except in case 5.

To be honest, for single words \mathrm (or \mathup) is more efficient, as \textnormal uses \mathchoice and typesets four times the subscript in different sizes. However, the overhead is almost negligible with modern machines and uniformity is to be preferred to efficiency, when it doesn't slow the workflow in a significant way.

If, for some reasons, one wants that textual subscripts are typeset in upright type, but keeping the current font family, for instance because some parts of the document use sans serif type also for math (which I don't agree with), a modified version of \textnormal can be used:

\makeatletter
\DeclareRobustCommand{\textnormalf}[1]{% f for "keep the family
  \text{\usefont{\f@encoding}{\f@family}{m}{n}#1}%
}
\makeatother

Here \f@encoding and \f@family are the current output font encoding and font family, as stored by LaTeX at each (text) font change; with font series m and font shape n we're choosing upright medium type.

Of course, a more meaningful name for \textnormalf should be chosen according to its usage and semantics.