TheSerif? It's still got a large x-height. Slightly more condensed than Caecilia but not nearly as much as Officina.

http://www.identifont.com/find?font=theserif&q=Go

The Serif might be too "slab-serify" but The Mix looks better.

Then consider a wedge serif instead: it would give you the honest
charm of the slab style without the brutishness. Plus it would be
slightly more readable.

hhp

Any recommendations for a wedge serif?

I love TheMix. I've used it for bodycopy a lot and have always been pleased with the way it sets. (Some people don't like the Q.)

Back to slabs:

Soho: New, more mechanical, available in lots of weights and several widths
Chaparral: more organic, more readable, size and weight options, good contrast for reading
Amasis: somewhat organic, like Caecilia but softer, more contrast, some bracketing

(Heh, the trap worked like a charm! :-)
TMF Patria, Foundry Form, FF Page, Linotype Aptifer, FF Olsen ...

BTW, terminology refinement: you want the sheared wedge style,
not the pointy wedge one (AKA "Latin"), which looks too self-assured.

hhp

I don't know Hrant, these seem pretty stiff. I do like FF Page Serif though it (as weird as this will sound) might be too elegant. If this document wasn't just a working data report and was geared as marketing, I'd definitely be buying Page Serif. I'm putting that one on my wish list though.

I think I'm going to go with The Serif. I do appreciate all the suggestions. The collective brain trust definitely had some good ones.

I'll even make a suggestion: Placebo Serif

Page is by Albert Boton, and old-schooler,
so "elegant" is not a suprising observation!
Its x-height is quite large though, so you
wouldn't want to set it too large.

Placebo I hadn't seen - interesting!

Oh, and I just remembered Silica - very cool.

hhp

Yeah, I stumbled past Placebo looking for similar slab serifs on Myfonts. It has a very charming quality too it. I don't know if that's a good thing, it might not be the body copy workhorse I'd need.

According to Myfonts, Silica doesn't have any italics.

> Silica doesn’t have any italics.

Now you know a big reason for my liking it. :-)
It does have a fine gradation of weights, which I actually think
is much more conducive to sensical emphasis in most types of text.

hhp

Just and observation, it's not much of an issue regarding these reports, no italics are used.

Although you seem to have decided, I had to chime in with a wedge serif: Kandal.

Kandal is sort of in the gray area between slab and wedge (which Chaparral is in too). "Sheared Wedge" suggests another list:

Swift
Oranda
Charter
Fairplex
RePublic

Once you abandon conventional classification schemes, there are a lot of directions you could take this.

Good ideas from Carl. Also FF Avance.

In terms of tracking for Caecilia, what about just tightening it up in the layout software? I'm doing that in a test document and it looks OK (better than the default), but maybe I'm missing something?