[Tex/LaTex] Use case for Latin Modern Math (LM Math)

fontslatin-modern

Since July 2011, there has been a beta release of LM Math. Some people seem to be quite excited about this. The release announcement states that this release

…completes the modernization of the Computer Modern family of typefaces …. the modernization was incomplete without the math fonts of the Comupter Modern family

I understand many reasons to use the lmodern text fonts:

better support for diacritics and non-english glyphs than CM (allowing hyphenation, etc). See this FAQ answer for more details;
allowing correct search and copy/paste from the pdfs unlike the virtual font-based solutions (\usepackage{ae}, \usepackage{zefonts});
decent type 1 outlines, rather than EC-fonts' bitmapped type 3, or the slightly rough autotraced type 1 from CM-Super, etc;
slightly improved metrics and diacritic positioning compared to EC, and a small number of redesigned/improved glyphs and ligatures;
some additional shapes and weights compared to the bluesky/ams/y&y CM (eg: roman slanted smallcaps, light/dark/condensed typewriter). See the table at the end of this document.

As far as I can tell, none of these advantages apply to the LM Math fonts. So my question is, why did the GUST team feel the need to produce new math fonts? As far as I can tell the only advantage that they quote on their release announcement is that they are "modern", but I fail to find "new" a compelling argument. Why would I use a newer, less-tested font (that, if it is anything like the other LM fonts, is likely less well-hinted than bluesky/ams/y&y CM)?

I understand that this in an early beta release, so it is not suprising that there is not much (any?) documentation or rationale accompanying the fonts, but I hope someone here knows the reason for them.

EDIT: I looked a bit harder, and I saw that my installation of the lm package, version 2.004, 30.10.2009 already includes math fonts. In LaTeX I can use them by default \usepackage{lmodern}, or not by \usepackage[nomath]{lmodern}. The README says that these 20 math fonts are "at the moment a duplicate of PL math fonts", which presumably refers to these fonts. So, presumably, this new LM Math release is to replace these PL math fonts with something else. So, in addition to my question about what was wrong with the bluesky/ams/y&y CM math I'd also be interested to know: what was wrong with the PL math fonts?

Best Answer

The LM Math fonts are available in OTF Math format. As such they are usable with unicode-math and ConTeXt Mk IV. So you can finally use LM when using Xe/LuaTeX + unicode-math or ConTeXt (as LM + STIX Math just looks horrible). Presumably they also added additional symbols as Unicode defines lots of math symbols that aren't available in the CM math fonts.

As I read the announcement, you can't use the fonts without an OTF capable TeX engine. So with pdflatex, you have to continue to use the old fonts anyway (see the comments for a qualification of this statement).

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] What are all the font styles I can use in math mode

In texdoc symbols (the Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List) you can find Table 316:

The footnotes are explained in the document. Table 327 will additionally explain bold math.

Oh and needless to say but if you were asking this question because you need more mathematical symbols, the Comprehensive List is just your document. Greek variants, Hebrew, Tables 139 to 147 are letter-like symbols ... you'll probably never run out of symbols again.

Edit: After reading this answer https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/60018/13450 I feel the need to also point to the mathalfa package that is referenced there, providing even more alternatives than shown above.

Edit 2: This answer seems so popular that I decided to include the mathalfa table as an image as well. This is taken from the mathalfa documentation and some of the fonts are commercial or need to be installed from external sources. See the documentation for more information if you consider using any of these fonts. Warning, very long table ahead (stitched together from a multi-page table).

Edit 3: With this thread being so popular for reasons I don't entirely understand, I feel compelled to say that there is rarely a point in using more styles than regular, bold, italic, script/calligraphic (I wouldn't even mix those) and blackboard bold. What these tables really show are typefaces you can use for these styles, not a huge number of styles (which would be pointless and ugly anyway). If, however, you are just searching for math fonts to go with your main font, the overview you probably actually want before even consulting these tables is the list of math fonts on the LaTeX Font Catalogue.

[Tex/LaTex] Should I worry about the new math fonts when using pdfLaTeX

The tex-gyre-math release contains only OpenType fonts:

Description:

TeX-Gyre-Math is to be a collection of maths fonts to match the text fonts of the TeX-Gyre collection. The collection will be made available in OpenType format, only; fonts will conform to the developing standards for OpenType maths fonts. At present, TeX-Gyre-Math-Pagella and TeX-Gyre-Math-Termes are available.

So they are only (directly) usable with XeLaTeX or LuaLatex (and require the package unicode-math). I tried them this morning with the following, and here is what I do to load the fonts (I also load the TeX Gyre Termes font for text):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ifluatex}
\usepackage{unicode-math} 
\ifluatex
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{TeX Gyre Termes}
\setmathfont{TG Termes Math}
\else 
% xetex
\setmainfont[ExternalLocation,
             Mapping=tex-text,
             BoldFont=texgyretermes-bold,
             ItalicFont=texgyretermes-italic,
             BoldItalicFont=texgyretermes-bolditalic]{texgyretermes-regular}
\setmathfont[ExternalLocation]{texgyretermes-math}
\fi
\begin{document}
$\cos(x)=\sin(x)$
\end{document}

Perhaps there is a simpler way to let XeTeX find the fonts.

Note that there are no bold versions of the math fonts (as far as I can tell).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] What are all the font styles I can use in math mode

[Tex/LaTex] Should I worry about the new math fonts when using pdfLaTeX

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