[Tex/LaTex] Package “comicsans”: How to prevent setting of default fonts

fontssans-serif

I'm using the comicsans package and I noticed that it automatically changes a lot of default fonts to comics.

I was wondering if there is some command to restore everything to the default fonts?

I've already tried

\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{cmr}

The problem is the comicsans package change a lot of font families, so I would like to avoid setting everything manually to the right font (actually I don't which are the default fonts for book document) and use comic font only for few paragraph where it is needed.

Best Answer

The best would be, if you’d avoid loading the package. And also it is a bad idea to use this font for longer text parts. Comic Sans once was developed for Comics – hence the name – where the text is usually short. In my eyes it is depending on the context sometimes tolerable in headings, for instance in texts for children. On the other hand it is over used. See also Comic Sans Criminal - There's help available for people like you!.

Instead do one of the following things:

  • If you need the Type1 version define these two commands without loading the package

    \newcommand*{\cmcsans}{\fontfamily{comic}\selectfont}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcmcsans}{\cmcsans}

    and use this in the same way, as you would do with \sffamily (conforms to \cmcsans) and \textsf (conforms to \textcmcsans) and companions. To say this once again explicitly: This works without loading of the package comicsans, as long as it is correctly installed.

  • You could also install winfonts into a local root (cf. Create a local texmf tree in MiKTeX). This package makes several TrueType fonts installed in the Windows system available for pdfTeX. But see next point and note the warning in the documentation of this package:

    With these fonts, the T1 encoding is not not [sic!] complete: some glyph are missing, depending on the font. … You should test closely a font before using it for productive works.

    See perhaps ‘The usage of “sic” in writing’.

    I do not know, whether this is valid for the Comic Sans part, too, and if this also relates to the fact, that the TrueType version of Comic Sans lacks font files for italic (or slanted) and bold italic.

  • Instead of this second approach TrueType/OpenType fonts are better directly available with LuLaTeX and XeLaTeX using the package fontspec (this may be loaded in background by another package, most notably luatextra and xltxtra). Create a new font family and define again the corresponding text font command as above

    \newfontfamily\cmcsans{Comic Sans MS}
% if there are problems with this variant use this one instead:
% \newfontfamily\cmcsans[BoldFont=comicbd.ttf]{comic.ttf}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcmcsans}{\cmcsans}

    And again this could be used like \sffamily or \textsf.

Some links at the end, if you want to change the titles:

It is most easy with KOMA-Script classes, cf. KOMA-Script: change font of sectioning headings to serif.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\newcommand*{\cmcsans}{\fontfamily{comic}\selectfont}
\DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcmcsans}{\cmcsans}
\addtokomafont{sectioning}{\cmcsans}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}
\blinddocument
\end{document}

output of example code

For memoir see this for a start: Changing font size of chapter headings the same as that of section and Is there an easy way to change the font and size for Chapter Heading in Memoir?.

For standard classes see this one Change size of section, subsection, subsubsection, paragraph and subparagraph title.

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