Hi Audrey,

Have a look at the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection. These fonts were designed for both screen and print, so I think they are a good choice; also there is a chance that you might have them already if you are running Windows Vista or if you have Office 2007 installed. I would go for Calibri(Sans-serif) and Cambria(Serif). They are available for purchase from Ascender Fonts. For more info go here.

SB

Or, you could try the tandem Georgia (text, serif) & Verdana (figures, sans), or Arial (the options are quite limited) & Times New Roman. These four fonts should meet your typographical requirements and you most certainly have them installed.

Focus on the typography and not on the typefaces. Print samples. For example, try to see at what size/leading does Georgia (which is optimized for screen but should work in print also) invites you to read it, provided there are no more than twelve words per line. Check out Times too. It is neither ugly nor boring. Arial, having so many glyphs, is highly useful. You could do a nice piece of engineering of your thesis with some carefully planned typography using these fonts.

Have you seen this post: http://typophile.com/node/75410#comment-464863 ?

Try Sevag's suggestion first.

> I should really be writting it, not making it pretty

Typography isn't only about looks! Especially for
what you're setting, readability is very important.

> Helvetica (without being Arial, which is used to death and unappealing to me)?

Helvetica is used to death too. It died a while back.
Some people just like to worship corpses. They should
be introduced to the ancient Indian practice of Sati...

> Focus on the typography and not on the typefaces.

The two are integral. Focus on everything.

> Check out Times too. It is neither ugly nor boring.

Don't use Times. It's buried next to Helvetica.

hhp

Thanks for the suggestions. I have seen the new Windows fonts and I quite like them, although I'm a bit afraid they'll suffer the same fate as Arial and Times in some years. Unfortunately, I don't currently have access to them (very slow to upgrade software here, we're still using word 2003).

If we get a software upgrade in the next months, I might switch to that.

I really don't want to go for the Times/Arial combination, it's just been done to death for theses, since they are the two standard fonts on older version of word.

I had thought of Verdana and Georgia, so I might go that route. I wanted to get the opinion of some people who do this a lot. I was toying with the possibility of going for a Lucida Sans and Palatino combination, actually.

My problem is that I pick up small changes in typographic style very easily and they really bother my eyes, but unfortunately I am stuck with the Helvetica font for figures. I've looked for a way around, but there just isn't one.

When somebody says "there isn't a way around" I have a Pavlovian reaction...
So I just re-read your initial post, and I don't get it:

You're saying you don't have Helvetica, and you can't add any fonts, so how is Helvetica supposed to end up in the document? Do you just send raw text and they format it for you? But if so, would they accept installing a font for you? Or do you mean they have a large library and you can choose something from there? I don't get it.

> My problem is that I pick up small changes in typographic
> style very easily and they really bother my eyes

The bane of awareness. Welcome, sister. :-)

hhp

Hrant

My understanding is that Audry is using some software that generates graphics containing Helvetica characters. Those graphics are then included in the text.

I had a similar problem in the past and the solution I found was to edit the graphic using Inkscape. It might be worth trying.

Michel

It seems contradictory, that is true. You say, you can't install anything, but you don't want to go with what you have installed? Or are you asking what is the best alternative among what you have installed already?
Widespread serif fonts are: Georgia, Palatino/Book Antiqua, Century (Schoolbook), and on a mac in addition: Baskerville, Hoefler Text. They are all usefull alternatives to TNR.

If the old style figures are not a problem, go with Georgia and Verdana.

If you can actually install some fonts, then there are some and low cost possibilities out there.

I really meant to postedit with Inkscape the graphic produced by the software, not to produce the graphic itself. This works for changing captions, variables on axes and the like.

Thanks for your comments.

I didn't realise how complex my problem might sound. Michel basically summed up what I'm working with. The software that I use produces some graphics that I will be pasting into my thesis as figures. I don't have a way of changing the font in the figures. The software isn't actually installed on my computer, it runs on a computer cluster. The cluster computers may or may not have Helvetica installed (not sure how that works), but my computer doesn't.

I'm not looking for a new font to install, as I don't have administrator privileges on my computer (and thus can't do much setup-wise). So yes, I was hoping for some ideas of font combinations amongst some of the fonts I would already have installed.

Thanks Michel for your idea of editing the graphics. I'll look into it, but I'll probably run into a similar problem as the font issue: can't install any software unless it has been pre-approved. I'll look through the list of what we have to see if something might work... but I'm using .eps figures, so editing is likely to be tricky.

I'm using .eps figures, so editing is likely to be tricky.

Inkscape edits .eps and .pdf figures. I usually save my Inkscape figures as .eps and then run epstopdf to get the corresponding pdf though Inkscape can also save pdf files (Inkscape's "natural" mode is .svg). The resulting figures (.eps or .pdf) can easily be included in a LaTeX document as vector graphics (to be used with latex or pdflatex respectively). I use Inkscape on a mac, but it runs under X11. If your windows station has an XWindow terminal emulator, maybe you could run Inkscape from a unix server and get the display on your Windows station.

I haven't tried it, but according to the Inkscape site, there is a Windows version available. Probably won't help @loveguga, but might help someone else.

"The thesis guidelines require me to use a serif font for figures and sans serif for main body text".
So strictly speaking you can't use Helvetica or Arial for figures.
But do you mean figures or figure captions? Surely your software does not input captions directly, does it? Or do you mean text inside the image?

Sans serif for whole body text is also a little bit unusual, though I've seen institutions forcing students to use Arial 12 points for sections, chapter titles, everything.

Using only Word is also a problem, but I wouldn't suggest swithing to Latex/Xelatex either at this point (takes some time to get used to it), even though you could install it on a pendrive and in theory have it use any font in any directory with some commands.
And if you're using Word 2003 it must be a pain to insert equations, too (without additional software).

Every time I see this post title, I think Luc(as) de Groot's Thesis type is meant.

I don't think Luc de Groot's "Thesis" is meant. According to his site, "It grew out of a dissatisfaction with the limited range of good typefaces available for corporate identity projects". Corporate identity is far removed from scholarship, AFAIK. I even wonder why he even named it "Thesis".

@ speter & ycherem

OK, then: Skolar :-)

Ouppps... "The thesis guidelines require me to use a serif font for figures and sans serif for main body text". I meant the other way around, of course. I am required to use a sans serif for headings, figure captions and figures. And a serif font for body text.

I can change the font of figure captions, it's the font of text in the figures (labels, axis, etc.) that I don't have control over. I might be able to edit the figures, but it promises to be a lot of work.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

I looked at the Word thesis template provided by your university and even if they say that figure captions should use sans serif, their template uses the serif font. If the sans that is not Helvetica is used only in headers, the difference may not show that much.

Another option is to have the free font Tex Gyre Heros installed on your PC. That font comes with the texlive 2010 installation; it is based on Nimbus Sans, that is installed on Linux stations in our grad lab (and available in Open Office...).

By the way, Informatics has a nice LaTeX template using Nimbus Sans for headers and captions. It might be worth a try.