[Tex/LaTex] Sans and monospace font match for STIX Two

fontsfontspecstixunicode-math

I am writing my PhD thesis using LuaLaTeX and unicode-math, and I would like to use some font different from Computer/Latin Modern, at least for the printed version. It is a thesis in theoretical physics, so a lots of math. As a consequence, I am first choosing the math font.

I would like to obtain a professional appearance, but I am not able to tell if a font is better than another for a PhD thesis in science. So I prefer to stick to some standard choices that are known to produces high quality results without fine tuning. The only feeling that I have is that the Computer Modern font, ubiquitous in the scientific community, looks like a bit to "light" for my taste.

I like the STIX Two Math font. The natural choice for the text serif font is then STIX Two Text. I need a sans serif and a monospace font to match with STIX Two. Actually, there are sans and monospace letters in STIX Two Math, so I could use the text font from which these letters were taken. So my question is: What is the source of sans and monospace letters in STIX Two Math?

I am using sans for headings. If the exact same font is not available, I could use a similar one that is a good match for STIX Two. Have you suggestions?

Other math fonts that I might consider:

  • STIX version 1 from what I understand does not support unicode-math. A better choice would be XITS. What would be the pros and cons of XITS versus STIX Two?
  • Minion Pro and Minion Math look very nice, but I prefer something freely available.
  • Libertinus (https://github.com/khaledhosny/libertinus) comes with serif, sans, mono and math, but at least in the TeX Live 2016 version the math font is missing the \lAngle ⟪ and \rAngle ⟫ delimiters that I need. Also, there are only a few discussions on it, maybe just because it is quite new. I am not able to judge if it is a good choice for a thesis or it is still half-baked.
  • Asana math? What would it be the text companions?
  • Am I missing any good option?

Thank you for any suggestion.

Best Answer

i've checked with the font developers charged with "cleaning up" the stix 2 fonts.

the basic text font is modeled on times roman, as noted.

the sans and monospace characters in unicode plane 1 are the outlines from stix 1. they are both slated for cleanup and some redesign (but as far as i know that is not yet scheduled). the developer says this:

I don't know if you could say that there is a direct model for any of the sans, it is simply intended to work decently with the rest of the font stylistically. The math monospaced glyphs are also the outlines from 1.x, [...] but as with most other math monospaced are a modified Courier.

regarding selecting compatible fonts for sans serif and monospace text, again from the developer:

I think if one had to choose a matching Sans, there are a number of candidates, but yes, Helvetica and Courier are as good as any, if we consider availability issues.

there is plenty of advice in other questions on this site regarding adjustments in relative size (e.g., normalizing x-height) to these fonts for the sake of compatibility of appearance.

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