8 ms·
Three typefaces for mathematics (2007) [pdf]
- Skaven 7y agoWhy should I read a paper on typesetting, that itself has the worst typesetting?
- chrisseaton 7y agoUniversities often have standardised thesis typesetting requirements, so the author may not have a choice in how it looks. And - anyway - don't judge a book by the cover.
- Skaven 7y agoFair points, but in this case a more crisp look would be a better fit for the topic.
- copperx 7y agoIt looks more than acceptable to me. What would you change?
- Skaven 7y agoI think only left side justified, the strange use of empty pages in the beginning and the overuse of indents and pauses make it most unappealing to me. Cutting the pages in two columns to give some explanation to figures is odd enough, but is then broken on some pages due to space issues (e.g. page 28). To me it feels this all was done without care. The content was dropped into some weird style. Is this written in Word?
- pmiller2 7y agoDoubtful it’s written in Word. The empty pages are because this is a document that’s intended to be printed double sided and bound. Try printing off 10 or 20 pages that way and you’ll see those empty pages serve their purpose.
- jhanschoo 7y agoFrom the column alignment and page number alignment, it looks to me to be typeset to be double-sided but clipped / stapled. And I agree that most of the decisions work in favor rather than against. I disagree with ancestor comment that the author "breaks" their figure placement; it's done so that figures can be typeset to take up either text-width or page-width, depending on which is preferable for the figure.
- pmiller2 7y agoI doubt it's designed to be stapled or clipped, because it's a dissertation, but you're absolutely right about the figure placement. I forgot to mention that.
- grovehaw 7y agoThe document was created in Adobe InDesign CS2 (4.0.5). This means all the features you find unappealing are the result of conscious decisions. The strange use of empty pages is due to being a print on paper document governed by the strict rules of an academic thesis. I also think the designer is working in a different tradition to the one you value. I see echoes of the work of Donald Tufte, Jost Hochull and Hans Hagen.
- jacobolus 7y agoThe real feature that is throwing you off is the extra wide spacing between lines (leading). This is just an unfortunate requirement of many academic departments for theses, which can’t be avoided by authors. If you set the document tighter it would look much better. Otherwise the typography is very careful and deliberate. It was very obviously not produced with Word. Word falls over badly when you try to produce this type of document.
- gerikson 7y agoThe author won a Monotype Foundation scholarship on the basis of this dissertation http://ultrasparky.org/work/experience.html http://ultrasparky.org/work/experience.html
- drfuchs 7y agoThe 4th paragraph on the 29th page names the students involved with the Euler effort in alphabetical order, giving the incorrect impression that I made a significant contribution. All credit goes to the others listed.
- litoE 7y agoI'm surprised there's no mention of eqn and troff.
- reikonomusha 7y agoThose are programs, not typefaces.
- litoE 7y agoThe author is talking about the difficulty of typesetting mathematics, and refers to TEX as an approach to solve this problem. eqn and troff preceded TEX. Heck, even Microsoft's and Open Office's approach to typing in equations are direct descendants of eqn.
- reikonomusha 7y agoVery true! Side note: I always admired the idea of eqn, loved reading about it from Kernighan and Cherry, but never saw it as powerful (or pretty) enough for serious use.
- mturmon 7y agoI think the author is only interested in the box model that TeX uses insofar as it influenced the typeface design. He’s contrasting TeX’s “box and glue” setup with the rigid matrix design needed by Monotype faces, and the much more expressive non-box layout model used by Cambria.
- reikonomusha 7y agoIn my opinion, the Monotype caster with a competent operator, the Modern Series 7 typeface, and the 4-line system produced mathematical typesetting not yet surpassed. There is no contemporary system for typesetting mathematics that can produce such beautiful compositions as the Monotype did. TeX is phenomenal. And Computer Modern was a Herculean effort by Knuth, but in my opinion, it’s wholly lacking in many departments. It’s spindly, clinical, and vapid. But I don’t blame Knuth; we just need a serious typographer to learn METAFONT and make a beautiful typeface for mathematics that is not gimmicky.
- Isamu 7y ago> we just need a serious typographer Well, that is why Hermann Zapf was commissioned to design AMS Euler. Knuth supplied the METAFONT and critiqued it in iterations by trying it out.
- reikonomusha 7y agoI’ll be honest. I consider AMS Euler to be a gimmick. Yes, real books by serious mathematicians have used it, but it’s so non-traditional that it has not been broadly accepted. (Zapf is a real typographer of course. But the project, to me, is more of an exercise in avant garde typography than one to supplant “standard” mathematical type.)
- mikorym 7y agoI think that depends on whether you want your stuff to look like some definition of traditional. The equations in AMS Euler look good to me. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMS_Euler#/media/File:AMS_Euler_example.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMS_Euler#/media/File:AMS_Eule...
- Koshkin 7y agoThey look terrible, in fact. This is no way to typeset equations. (For example, variables should be set in italics.)
- macintux 7y agoOut of idle curiosity, what’s the difference on page 5 between the two “x = a + 4” calculations?
- baking 7y agoThe second one is "chi = alpha plus four." The general point he is trying to make here is that in a Greek word we would see the chi and alpha because of the context, but if you typeset an equation with letters intended for setting text there simply isn't enough distinction in the characters to prevent confusion because there isn't enough context to distinguish the "a" and the alpha. You need a mathematical typeface with characters that cannot be confused even though text set with those characters would look awful. In other words, a proper mathematical typeface requires more than just symbols.
- btrettel 7y agoWhat are some good sans-serif math fonts? I'm aware of sansmathfonts [1] and FiraMath [2]. I'm particularly looking for a font like Open Sans or Roboto. FiraMath is close. [1] https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/sansmathfonts/ https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/sansmathfonts/ [2] https://github.com/firamath/firamath https://github.com/firamath/firamath Edit: Many more listed here but you need to filter out the serif fonts: https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/mathfonts.html https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/mathfonts.html
- mattdavis333 7y agoKnow more about the other types here https://www.greedge.com/ https://www.greedge.com/ and get a clear knowledge about how t prepare.
- enriquto 7y agoThe LaTeX world is sorely missing a font that looks as good as the Springer Baskerville of legendary Bourbaki and IHES fame. No, the "baskervald" package is not up to par (just look at the ugly accent in the é character!).
- Tainnor 7y agoI've been guilty of using Baskervald myself. But I agree that's it's not a very good variant of Baskerville (which I like a lot). Do you happen to know what macOS's "Baskerville" font is exactly? That one looks much better than Baskervald.
- enriquto 7y agoBaskervald is not that bad, I use it almost exclusively and I am quite fond of it. Yet, it lacks the liveliness of classic Baskerville. I do not know exactly what it is the difference; but in the french accents it is very obvious. No idea about your macos question.
- skat20phys 7y agoI've always really liked Rhatigan's (that is, the author of the linked piece) Gina typeface: http://www.ultrasparky.org/work/typefaces/gina/gina_01.html http://www.ultrasparky.org/work/typefaces/gina/gina_01.html I read something about it evolving into an internally developed project somewhere but never saw it again. I really wish it were released publicly.
- Koshkin 7y agoThe example of the classic 4-line math typesetting at the top of page 4 is the best you will ever see. Anything else would serve nothing but to distract and annoy the reader (not to say anything about the writer who now has less time to think about math proper.)
- lioeters 7y agoA tangent, but what about typesetting and typefaces for music sheets - anything like TeX for written music? Totally different needs than mathematical notation, but seems to share common issues, like specialized symbols, placements and spacings.
- gerikson 7y agoPhilip Hazel (author and maintainer of the Exim mailer) has written a memoir where is discusses writing a program for typesetting music. It's well worth reading for that and other fascinating stuff: [pdf link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10TAOEgIL--CmzqOl0fkdP-cagjSLBM4J/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10TAOEgIL--CmzqOl0fkdP-cagjS...).
- lioeters 7y agoOh wow, what a fun read! I started with the section on Music Typesetting, good stuff: Oxford Music Processor, his Philip's Music Writer, the language syntax to encode notation information.. This is right up my alley, thank you for the link. So much of it is relevant to our current time, it's still not a solved problem and there's room for innovation. I'll enjoy reading the rest of his memoir.
- godbyk 7y agoI think Lilypond <https://lilypond.org/> https://lilypond.org/> is the TeX for music engraving. For typesetting short snippets of music notation within TeX, you can use the MusixTeX package <https://ctan.org/pkg/musixtex> https://ctan.org/pkg/musixtex>.
- lioeters 7y agoThank you, those are exactly the kinds of music typesetting/engraving software (and notation syntax) I was curious about. Following a few links, I found a great overview: MusiXTEX - Using TEX to write polyphonic instrumental music http://icking-music-archive.org/software/musixtex/musixdoc.pdf http://icking-music-archive.org/software/musixtex/musixdoc.p... (pdf) For Lilypond, here's an introduction that demonstrates how to "write music by typing text": Lilypond: "Compiling" Music https://lilypond.org/text-input.html https://lilypond.org/text-input.html