Computer Modern

Computer Modern
Category Serif
Classification Didone
Designer(s) Donald Knuth
Sample

Computer Modern is the original family of typefaces used by the typesetting program TeX. It was created by Donald Knuth with his Metafont program, and was most recently updated in 1992.[1] Computer Modern, or variants of it, remains very widely used in scientific publishing, especially in disciplines that make frequent use of mathematical notation.

Design

The Computer Modern typefaces are described in great detail (including full source code) in the book Computer Modern Typefaces, volume E in the Computers and Typesetting series, which is unique in the history of font design: in Knuth's words, they "belong to the class of sets of books that describe precisely their own appearance."

As implied by the name, Computer Modern is a modern font. Modern, or "Didone", fonts have high contrast between thick and thin elements, and their axis of "stress" or thickening is perfectly vertical. Computer Modern, specifically, is based on Monotype Modern 8a, and like its immediate model it has a large x-height relative to the length of ascenders and descenders.

The most unusual characteristic of Computer Modern, however, is the fact that it is a complete type family designed with the Metafont system. The Computer Modern source files are governed by 62 distinct parameters, controlling the widths and heights of various elements, the presence of serifs or old-style numerals, whether dots such as the dot on the "i" are square or rounded, and the degree of "superness" in the bowls of lowercase letters such as "g" and "o". Computer Modern is by no means the only Metafont-designed typeface, but it is by far the most mature and widely used.

Derived versions

Knuth produced his original Computer Modern fonts using Metafont, a program that reads stroke-based definitions of glyphs and outputs ready-to-use fonts as bitmap image files.

The advance of publishing technology (PostScript, PDF, laser printers) has reduced the need for bitmap fonts. The preferred formats are now outline fonts such as Type 1, TrueType, or OpenType, which can be rendered efficiently at arbitrary resolution and using sophisticated anti-aliasing techniques by printer firmware or on-screen document viewers. Therefore, several other projects have ported the Computer Modern fonts into such formats. Some of these projects have also complemented Computer Modern with

Several such derivatives are now also widely used and included in TeX Live, a modern TeX distribution.

BlueSky

Computer Modern was first transformed to a PostScript Type 3 font format by BlueSky, Inc. in 1988, and then to Type 1 in 1992 to include font hinting.[2] The Type 1 version has since then been donated to the American Mathematical Society (AMS) which distributes them freely under the Open Font License.[3] It is found in most standard TeX distributions.

Latin Modern

The Latin Modern implementation, maintained by Bogusław Jackowski and Janusz M. Nowacki, is now standard in the TeX community and was made through a Metafont/MetaPost derivative called METATYPE1. It was derived from the BlueSky Type 1 fonts, which were converted back into outline-based METATYPE1 programs, from which then the extended Type1 and OpenType Latin Modern fonts were developed. ConTeXt uses Latin Modern as default font, instead of Computer Modern[4]

The Type1 to METATYPE1 to Type 1 roundtrip conversion process involved in the production of the Latin Modern fonts did try to preserve the hinting information of the BlueSky fonts, however it added rounding errors that do affect the quality of the hinting at low pixel sizes. As a result, on-screen display of the Latin Modern fonts can result in a less even display of kerning and character heights than is the case with the BlueSky fonts.[5]

The "LM-ization" process was later extended to some free PostScript font clones under the umbrella project called TeX Gyre.[6]

The Latin Modern font has also gained an OpenType math table.[7][8]

Others

References

  1. ↑ D. E. Knuth's apology for the updated font
  2. ↑ History of CM PostScript fonts
  3. ↑ http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/README.bluesky
  4. ↑ FAQ of ConTeXt
  5. ↑ A E F and T sized differently in lmodern package? • Fonts & Character Sets • LaTeX Community
  6. ↑ https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb27-2/tb87hagen-gyre.pdf
  7. ↑ http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/lm-math
  8. ↑ http://www.ctan.org/pkg/lm-math
  9. ↑ cm-super README file
  10. ↑ The Latin Modern (LM) Family of Fonts — GUST

External links