What fonts does LaTeX use and can I use them in Word or Mathtype?

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  • Thread starter Thread starter bomba923
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*what font does LaTex use? Can I download somewhere for use on Word or Mathtype?
(this isn't secret/hidden/copyrighted info, is it? :redface: )
 
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I think bomba923 is talking about the math typsetting capablities, is that just a complex font that I could download somewhere? I though Tex and LaTex was more complicated then that.
 
Eh? He asked what font latex uses. I believe the standard font is called computer modern and was desigend by Knuth from scratch when he wanted to fix a font for the original tex mark up language. This is the font used in the standard dvi output when running latex on foo.tex


I've never seen it used outside of latex, so I've no idea if you can install it for use elsewhere.
 
Check out http://www.ams.org/tex/type1-fonts.html. For Windows, download the cmps-pc.zip file, and read the README file for installation instructions.
If someone did want to know, LaTeX is a TeX add-on. The installation does seem quite large and complicated- and there are lots of extra capabilities you may never use. If you only want to type math equations and such, Word comes with Equation Editor; I haven't used it much, so I can't say how good it is. It may not be installed by default, but if you still have your install disc, you can install it easily. If you just want some extra symbols, you can create keyboard shortcuts (like "Ctrl+=" for an equivalence symbol- this is what I do) through Insert>Symbol, or, outside of Word, you can use the Character Map found through Start>Programs>Accessories>SystemTools.
If you really want TeX and LaTeX and are running Windows, proTeXt is recommended- there are very handy instructions.
 
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Having seen the result of Word's attempt at type setting, I can confirm the output is awful. Latex is easy to learn and free to install and pretty much works on any platform you can think of, plus the output is in, initially, dvi format, thus small files, and can easily be converted to ps and pdf format, and even html. The resulting file is smaller than any word document by a huge scale factor and is completely portable.
 
Well, I installed a font just to test it, and everything was easy: download, extract, install through ControlPanel>Fonts>File>InstallNewFont. I think I'll install them all- they're very attractive. If you have a version of Windows older than 2000, you may have to install Adobe Type Manager Light (it's free). I couldn't find out if they would work with MathType, but you can just try it for yourself.