fonts
In preamble, I have:
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{arial}
but it doesn't work.
How do I set my font to Arial throughout the entire document?
UPDATE:
In short, both answers work.
It really depends on the environment. If using LaTeX and don't mind using a cloned font then choose Herbert's answer. If using XeLaTex and want to use the authentic font then choose Leo's.
You can use any font installed on your system with XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX.
% Compile with xelatex or lualatex
% source file should be UTF-8 encoded
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setsansfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Arial Narrow}
\begin{document}
\sffamily Some Arial Narrow
\end{document}
Some options include these (see examples below):
Use "Latin Modern" (\usepackage{lmodern}), the updated version of Computer Modern. It looks a bit less spindly on screen and print than the original, in my opinion. (Example below)
Scale "Computer Modern" as demonstrated below (thanks to this answer)
Use the font "Computer Concrete" (\usepackage{concmath}), which Knuth designed as a thicker version of Computer Modern using METAFONT.
Use a similar but thicker font. For example gfsbodoni (\usepackage[default]{gfsbodoni}) is in the same family of "modern" typefaces but perhaps has a more desirable weight.
Use METAFONT directly and adjust it to your liking. This kind of thing was the original purpose of that program.
(EDIT)
Demonstration of font scaling (#2 above):
Here is a way that you can scale the font. You ask for a smaller font size to be magnified to a larger one; since the smaller sizes have thicker strokes, you get a thicker-looking, but also wider font. You can experiment with the proportions. This example scales cmr7 up to the default 10pt.
(I didn't get the italic working yet, and I don't think the bold is scaled, but hopefully someone else can add to this.)
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\DeclareFontShape{T1}{cmr}{mx}{n}%
{<->cmr7}{}
\DeclareFontShape{T1}{cmr}{mx}{it}%
{<->cmr7}{}
\AtBeginDocument{%
\fontseries{mx}\selectfont%
}
% to create dummy text for testing
\newcommand{\quickfox}{The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog}
\newcommand{\Fox}{The Quick Brown Fox}
\newcommand{\Dog}{The Lazy Dog}
\newcommand{\Jumps}{Jumps Over}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\section{\Fox}
\quickfox?
\subsection{\Dog}
\emph{\quickfox.}
\paragraph{\Jumps}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}
Thus, cmr7 scaled to 10pt:
For comparison, here is the example with lmodern and no scaling:
This is gfsbodoni:
And this is concmath (Computer Concrete) (as noted in the comments it really is in a different font family despite being derived from Computer Modern):
(EDIT)
Here is a very basic demonstration of how to get started modifying a Metafont. (It's my first time doing it so take this with a grain of salt.)
TEXMF-DIST/fonts/source/public/cm/crm10.mf.cmthick.mf
thin_join#:=10/36pt#; % width of extrafine detailstexdoc metafont):
mf '\mode=localfont; input cmthick'gftopk cmthick.600gfUse the new font. Since this was just for demonstration and I don't know what I'm doing, I just did this in Plain TeX. File cmthicktest.tex:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
\font\cmthick=cmthick
\cmthick
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
\bye
Compiled with tex cmthicktest && dvips cmthicktest && ps2pdf cmthicktest.ps I get the following:
This is just to show that it can be done. I don't know if this is the right way.
Best Answer
Arial is not installed in TeX Live, I'm not sure about MiKTeX. You can use
helvetpackage instead.If you use XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, you can use TrueType Arial font installed in your Windows/Mac:
In Ubuntu, Arial can be installed by a Synaptic Package named ttf-mscorefonts-installer.