fontsfourier
As far as I can tell from the documentation, \usepackage{fouriernc} should set up NC Schoolbook, from the fourier package, as the front for the main text with a suitable font for math. So I expect a document that does not contain any math to look the same with \usepackage{fouriernc} and \usepackage{fourier}.
But in fact, they look similar; with fouriernc the font is a bit thicker and wider… Why is that?
You could start by loading mathdesign, afterwards you may change the text font. For example:
\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage[charter]{mathdesign}
\renewcommand*{\rmdefault}{fnc}
\begin{document}
\blindmathpaper
\end{document}
sorry, @Herbert, the image doesn't say it all.
what was neglected in the description is that metafont was run at a particular resolution to produce the first image, which, when scaled up, shows the artifacts of bitmapping.
here is a counterexample, adding in to your first test the type 1 cm fonts scaled in the "plain tex manner", along with the file that produced it. during the tex run, mf was launched automatically, with this report:
kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode / --bdpi 600 --mag 1+0/600 --dpi 6000 cmr10
mktexpk: Running mf-nowin -progname=mf \mode:=ljfour; mag:=10+0/600; nonstopmode; input cmr10
This is METAFONT, Version 2.718281 (TeX Live 2010)
the output:
that said, it's possible to see small differences -- the right-hand stem of the M and the stem of the R look thicker in the cm than in the lm. so i conclude that the type 1 cm fonts are more "true" to the original mf cm than are the lm fonts; nearly everyone these days except knuth uses the lm fonts because they're superior in many ways for work in languages other than english.
for folks who want to try this out for themselves without retyping, here's the input code; i didn't realize it wasn't possible to cut-and-paste from an embedded pdf image. (i included the code as "proof" that it was exactly what produced this output.)
\documentclass{article}
\pdfmapfile{lm.map}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\noindent
\scalebox{10}{CMR}\\[10pt]
\font\bigfont cmr10 at 100pt
\bigfont CMR\\[10pt]
\fontfamily{lmr}\selectfont
\scalebox{10}{CMRL}
\vspace{2\baselineskip}
\verbatiminput{\jobname.tex}
\end{document}
Best Answer
It's quite the contrary, in fact:
fourierncuses the NewCentury Schoolbook fonts for your text, and the Fourier fonts (designed by Michel Bovani) for your maths.If you load the
fourierpackage, it's the Utopia fonts which will be used for the text: the Fourier fonts are in fact math fonts which have been designed to complement the Utopia (text) fonts.So it is quite normal that your 100 % text document looks different with each package. One uses New Century Schoolbook and the other Utopia.