[PATCH 0/6] Add targets for alternative fonts

* [PATCH 0/6] Add targets for alternative fonts
@ 2016-10-18 21:57 Akira Yokosawa
  2016-10-18 21:59 ` Akira Yokosawa
                   ` (7 more replies)
  0 siblings, 8 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Akira Yokosawa @ 2016-10-18 21:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Paul E. McKenney; +Cc: perfbook, Akira Yokosawa

From ec360d66cdab86bbe98d544aca52aaec1e03518e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2016 20:11:35 +0900
Subject: [PATCH 0/6] Add targets for alternative fonts

Hi,

As I implied in the cover-letter of previous patch set, I attempted to
add make targets for alternative monospaced fonts.

Courier font is said to be a standard monospeced typewriter font.
It is good as long as you don't mix it with other fonts, but when mixed
used in Times Roman text, it looks too wide and too thin.

Typewriter fonts available in LaTeX are listed at the LaTeX Font
Catalogue site: http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/typewriterfonts.html
(including both monospaced and proportional fonts).

I have no idea how much people prefer courier font, so I took two
approaches.

One was to try courier font variations.
The other was to try "txtt" based font packages. "txtt" is a font
designed to look better when mixed used with Times fonts.

But I couldn't figure out which to propose because of pros and cons
of candidate fonts. So I just added make targets for people to try.

Detailed explanation of these new targets and font packages can be
found in the commit message of the 3rd patch ("Makefile: Add targets
for alternative monospace fonts").

Summary of pros and cons of each target is as follows.

  mss: (courier scaled)
    pros: o can build on old TeX installation
    cons: o too thin
          o scaling by .94 affects apparent vertical position (looks
            slightly lower than Times Roman text)
  msr: (nimbusmono regular)
    pros: o thick enough
    cons: o requires recent TeX installation
          o scaling by .94 affects apparent vertical position (looks
            slightly lower than Times Roman text)
  msn: (nimbusmononarrow)
    pros: o can hold up to 64 characters in a line of code snippet
    cons: o requires recent TeX installation
          o single letter variable names denoted by \co{} may be hard
	    to recognize
  mstx: (txtt)
    pros: o can build on old TeX installation
          o looks mostly good when mixed with Times Roman
    cons: o zero character is slashed
          o asterisk character has a higher position
  msnt: (newtxtt)
    pros: o looks mostly good when mixed with Times Roman
    cons: o requires recent TeX installation
          o asterisk character has a higher position

Shrinking courier based fonts reduces the x-height, and causes
monospaced text to look somewhat lower than Times Roman text.
Actual baseline is not affected but the look is affected.

My preference is the target "msnt" which uses "newtxtt" font package.
But "txtt" based fonts have higher positions of "*" character.
I anticipate some people to have hesitation to use it.

There are other obstacles here.  Some of the targets require quite
recent LaTeX installation or manual installation of font packages.

On Ubuntu Trusty, only the targets "mss" and "mstx" can be built on
TeX Live 2013 available there.

On Ubuntu Xenial, TeX Live 2015 works just fine for all the targets.

My recommendation is to use "mss" (courier scaled) option as the default
and permit up to 57 characters in a line of code snippets, and give people
alternative font choices as make targets.

If "mss" is acceptable as the default, we can modify "perfbook.tex" and
revert ad hoc fontsize tweaks done in the past.

The latter half of this patch set is an attempt to use sans serif font
(Helvetica) as default font for one-column layout. Sans serif fonts are
said to be easier to read on a lower resolution display. 

Again, there is an obstacle here. I used a package "mathastext" for math
mode font tweaks, but the version of mathastext on Ubuntu Trusty conflicts
with hyperref package. The version provided on Ubuntu Xenial works fine
with a workaround given in the 5th patch ("Redefine \path command for
sans serif font").

Please take time to see which one meets your preference and let me
know what you feel.

                                                Thanks, Akira

Akira Yokosawa (6):
  Separate font package declarations
  Adjust scale of sans serif font
  Makefile: Add targets for alternative monospace fonts
  Makefile: Add target '1csf' (one-column sans serif)
  Redefine \path command for sans serif font
  Makefile: Add notice of mathastext version for 1csf

 Makefile     | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 perfbook.tex | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------
 2 files changed, 50 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

-- 
2.7.4

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