Testing the new mathematical fonts for (La)TeX
XeTex, LuaTex and their LaTeX variants (XeLaTeX, LuaLaTex) have completely changed the way we manage fonts in TeX documents. Typesetting mathematics is still complicated. There are a few fonts that can be used to typeset the entirety of mathematics (that is, you use the same font for digits, letters, greek letters, delimiters, integrals...)The different fonts
In this document, I am making a comparison between 4 different fonts:
- Thre fonts obtained with the unicode-math
package:
- Latin Modern (the latest evolution of Computer Modern),
- XITS (based on the STIX fonts) and
- Asana.
- the MnSymbol option of the mathspec package, combined with Minion Pro.
The comparison
Continuous Fourier Transform
Fourier transform is great for comparison because it include several different operators (integral, differential, exponential...). Here is a side-by-side comparison for our four fonts:
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Ostrogradsky's theorem
Ostrogradsky is also nice because it combines vectors, nabla and integrals. It also underlines that triple integrals are tricky (Latin Modern doesn't have them, for example). Double integrals on a closed surface are also tricky (see how the Asana font has to make it an oval instead of a circle).
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Neumann series
Now let's try an infinite summation with Neumann series:
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Dirac equation
According to Wolfram, Dirac equation is the relativistic generalization of Schrödinger equation. Also a good opportunity to introduce greek letters, parenthesis...
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Whittaker Differential Equation
I don't know anything about Whittaker differential equation, I was trying to introduce partial differentials and parenthesis so large that they stop being scaled-up versions.
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Irwinn-Hall distribution
With Irwin-Hall distribution, let's try for an even larger delimiter:
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |
Variance and sigma
A good definition of sigma should have a very large square root.
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| Latin Modern | Asana |
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| XITS | Minion Pro + MnSymbol |