Assume I would like to change the font for a section of text, e.g. use Bookman for both headings and paragraphs (similarly to the explanations in this community wiki guide).
If I change the \familydefault
, as in section (1), only headings are affected. If on the other hand I select Bookman as the \fontfamily
, it affects only paragraph text but not headings (2). Combining both commands gives the desired result (3), as does adding a \normalfont
command to \familydefault
* (4).
What causes this behaviour? Does \fontfamily
set some "currentfont" variable which is not accessed when headings are formatted? And why does changing \familydefault
immediately affect headings, but not text?
*This was pointed out in a comment by @mpg.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
%print a _short section of lipsum text
\newcommand{\shlipsum}{%
\section{A quick brown fox}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut purus elit, vestibulum ut, placerat ac, adipiscing vitae, felis. Curabitur dictum gravida mauris. Nam arcu libero, nonummy eget, consectetuer id, vulputate a, magna.\\%
}
%reset font to typewriter CM
\newcommand{\resetfont}{\renewcommand{\familydefault}{cmtt}\normalfont}
\begin{document}
\resetfont
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{pbk} %sets heading only
\shlipsum
\resetfont
\fontfamily{pbk}\selectfont %sets paragraph text only
\shlipsum
\resetfont
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{pbk}
\fontfamily{pbk}\selectfont
\shlipsum
\resetfont
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{pbk}
\normalfont
\shlipsum
\end{document}
Best Answer
\fontfamily{pbk}\selectfont
selects that family from that point for the rest of the current group.\renewcommand{\familydefault}{pbk}
Just redefines that macro and does nothing unless something does\fontfamily{\familydefault}\selectfont
. That combination isn't normally done explicitly but is part of\resetfont
or\normalfont
which heading commands usually use so that they get consistent fonts even if the text at that point in the document is locally using a different font style.