56 lines
5.6 KiB
TeX
56 lines
5.6 KiB
TeX
\chapter{Styling Text in \LaTeX{}}
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One of the most confusing things in \LaTeX{} for some people is how to format text, especially when you are creating some custom macros that change the appearance of text.
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There are two key concepts to keep in mind here. The first concept to keep in mind here is that \LaTeX{} has both \textit{commands} and \textit{environments} to style text. The second concept is that ``text'' is not just a collection of characters, but a collection of characters with \textit{distinct groups of characteristics}.
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Those characteristics include:
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\begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
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\item Typeface
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\item Shape
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\item Series
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\item Size
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\end{itemize}
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Let's look at each of these in turn.\footnote{For the illustrations here, I am hugely grateful to the StackExhange user \kref{https://tex.stackexchange.com/users/4918/tobi}{Tobi}, who provided examples at \kref{https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/139592/245702}{https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/139592/245702}.}
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\section{Typefaces}
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For better or for worse, the rise of the Apple Macintosh led to a blurring between the words ``typeface'' and ``font''. What most people mean when they say ``font'' and what your GUI-based word-processing program is actually referring to in its ``Font'' menu is actually a \textit{typeface}, which means a collection of characters styled in a particular way. ``Times New Roman'' is a typeface, ``Verdana'' and ``Arial'' are others.
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A font, on the other hand, actually refers to a collection of characteristics, including shape, series, and size. ``Times New Roman'' is a typeface; ``Times New Roman bold italic 10 point'' is a font. This distinction goes back to the days when typefaces were physical objects made of lead.
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Typefaces fall into a number of different categories, including serif, sans-serif, proportional, and monospace.
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A serif font has small decorative lines attached to the ends of letters, whereas a sans-serif font does not. This zine is typeset using the \textsf{kpfonts} package, which uses serif fonts that were originally derived from the URW Palladio font\footnote{See \kref{https://fontesk.com/palladio-typeface/}{https://fontesk.com/palladio-typeface/} and \kref{https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/kpfonts?lang=en}{https://ctan.org/tex-archiv\\e/fonts/kpfonts?lang=en}.} so all the letters you see here have serifs. I also use the Cantarell font in some places, which is a sans-serif font.\footnote{See \kref{https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cantarell?lang=en}{https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cantarell?lang=en}.} \textsf{This sentence is typeset in a sans-serif font.}
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In a proportional font, each letter takes up a different width. Some letters, such as \textsf{m} and \textsf{w}, are fairly wide, whereas other, such as \textsf{i} and \textsf{l}, are fairly narrow, and most other letters are somewhere in between. In a monospace font, each letter takes up the same exact width. The \textsf{kpfonts} package I use for the text in this zine is a proportional font, but the code samples are in a monospace font. \texttt{This sentence is typeset in a monospace font.} Typewriters typically use a monospace font, but as computers became commonly available, a few of them could actually type in a proportional font.\footnote{Typewriters are a particular love of mine, and I can go on about them at considerable length. Don't get me started.}
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\section{Shape}
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The \textit{shape} of a font refers to how the individual characters are formed.\footnote{This is a terrible definition, but it is what it is. I didn't make the rules here.} Shape can be upright (i.e., ``normal'' or ``roman''), italic, slanted, and small caps.
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Both italic and slanted shapes lean to the right. The main difference between the two occurs when you apply this to a \textit{serif}. A slanted shape is just that: it's as if you had written out the text on a flexible substrate and then just stretched it a bit so it leans to the right. An italic shape, however, actually has a completely different, somewhat more curvy shape to each character. Italic or oblique shapes are often used to emphasize a word or group of words (i.e., ``This is \textit{very} good cake.'') but it also used by convention to indicate the titles of books and movies (i.e., \textit{The Grapes of Wrath}, \textit{Star Wars}).
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Small caps is shorthand for ``small capitals'' and refers to text in which all the lower-case characters are substituted by their upper-case equivalents. \textsc{This text is in small caps.} Small caps is often used to convey prestige and stability.
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This is what they look like in a serif typeface:
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\ksamp{large}{Normal abc}{-3}{-2}
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And here is what they look like in a sans-serif typeface:
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\textsf{\ksamp{large}{Normal abc}{-5}{-1}}
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It's interesting to note that in the Cantarell typeface, the italic and the slanted shapes are pretty much identical, and it also doesn't include a small caps version at all. Some font packages include these, and some do not. As always, you should read the font documentation to see what is included.
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\section{Series}
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Series is usually known as \textit{weight}, or how bold a particular bit of text is. In theory, you could have a number of different series or weights (and CSS does allow for this) but in reality, most typefaces are available either as \textit{normal} (i.e., not bold) or \textit{bold}. (A few also have a ``light'' option, but this is rare in my experience.)
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Almost all of the text you read is ``normal'' weight, but \textbf{this bit is in bold} (which is also called ``boldface'').
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\section{Size}
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Size is easy to figure out: it just refers to how large a bit of text appears, either on screen or on paper. In reality, a typeface's size is much more complicated than that. |