[Tex/LaTex] Beyond Bringhurst: mathematical typesetting

booksmath-modetypography

I've been reading The Elements of Typographic Style and I was wondering whether there was a similar resource for specifically mathematical typesetting.

Is there a book or other document that sets out answers to the following questions:
– What are the basic units of mathematical writing and how much space should there be between each of them?
– What fonts are available that contain a good selection of specially designed mathematical symbols (Sum and integral symbols; Greek letters that fit with the italic and roman alphabets; arrows, primes, etc. that fit with the typeface)
– Advice on when inline maths is appropriate and when formulae should be on a new line.

Ideally something that deals with these questions with an eye to TeX and friends, but I'm really looking for something on typography. N.B. I'm not really looking for answers to the above questions here, but for resources that offer answers to them as part of a systematic treatment of mathematical typesetting in the mould of Bringhurst's Elements …

Best Answer

You can have a look at Knuth's Guide to Mathematical Typography, it is a bit different, but consider it as a guide by example. For example it helped me to solve Should one use thousands separators in equations?. (See also http://tex.loria.fr/typographie/mathwriting.pdf).

P.R Halmo's How to Write Mathematics is also good, although not concentrating on typography but more on style and exposition, as he says This is a subjective essay, and its title is misleading; a more honest title might be 'How I write Mathematics' . There is a copy here.

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[Tex/LaTex] Mathematical typesetting requirements

I have seen (and write) documents with four or more fonts in the same equation.

The idea behind is to visually differentiate the signification of symbol. for exemple : mathitalic for variable, sans-serif for matrix, fraktur for ideals and so on.

For example : $$\mathfrak p=\big(\mathsfup P\big)\coloneq\big((p)\big)$$ denotes a prime ideal in a matrix ring who's engendrate by a single element.

[Tex/LaTex] Spacing of sectioning commands for grid typesetting

As you have noted, ex (and em) lengths are relative to the currently used fonts. The reason for this depends on the application. In your instance it makes sense using a font size-specific length, since the typesetting the sectional heading may be different depending on whether the document is processed using 10pt, 11pt or 12pt (or, for that matter, any other font size) as \normalfont. For example, using absolute lengths (like pt, bp or pc, for example) may cause the gap between section headings and text to seem too small, or too large, if the font size is changed. The example below a font-based skip of 1em between a pseudo-section heading is replaced by a fixed-width 11.5pt skip (in 10pt, 1em or roughly 11.5pt, see the TeX Book, p 60):

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\bfseries% For bold font

{\normalfont Font-based skip of \verb!1em!} \par \medskip

\newcommand{\myskip}{\unskip\rule[0.5ex]{1em}{1pt}\ignorespaces}
{\normalsize 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\large 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\Large 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\LARGE 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\Huge 1 \myskip A section \par}%

\bigskip \hrulefill \bigskip

{\normalfont Fixed-width skip of \verb!11.5pt!} \par \medskip

\renewcommand{\myskip}{\unskip\rule[0.5ex]{11.5pt}{1pt}\ignorespaces}
{\normalsize 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\large 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\Large 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\LARGE 1 \myskip A section \par}%
{\Huge 1 \myskip A section \par}%
\end{document}

Since I am not entirely sure of your sectional intent (that almost came out wrong), here's a suggestion when it comes to page-breaking woes. The needspace package provides \needspace{<len>} that issues a \break if there is less than <len> space available on the page. And, the code is not very complicated. Here is a modified version, now taking 3 arguments for the sake of this discussion:

\makeatletter
% \needspace{<len>}{<NOT enough space>}{<enough space>}
\newcommand{\needspace}[3]{\par \penalty-100\begingroup
  \setlength{\dimen@}{#1}%
  \dimen@ii\pagegoal \advance\dimen@ii-\pagetotal
  \ifdim \dimen@>\dimen@ii% execute the following if there IS NOT enough space on page
    \ifdim \dimen@ii>\z@
      \vfil
    \fi
    \break
    #2% <NOT enough space>
  \else% execute the following if there IS enough space on page
    #3% <enough space>
  \fi\endgroup}
\makeatother

It would be possible to redefine \section so as to use the above \needspace and condition on the type of \@startsection that should be called.

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Mathematical typesetting requirements

[Tex/LaTex] Spacing of sectioning commands for grid typesetting

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