These commands are primarily intended for writers of macros and packages. The commands listed here are only a subset of the available ones.
\fontencoding{encoding} ¶Select the font encoding, the encoding of the output font. There are a
large number of valid encodings. The most common are OT1,
Knuth’s original encoding for Computer Modern (the default), and
T1, also known as the Cork encoding, which has support for the
accented characters used by the most widespread European languages
(German, French, Italian, Polish and others), which allows TeX to
hyphenate words containing accented letters. For more, see
https://ctan.org/pkg/encguide.
\fontfamily{family} ¶Select the font family. The web page https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/ provides one way to browse through many of the fonts easily used with LaTeX. Here are examples of some common families.
pag | Avant Garde |
fvs | Bitstream Vera Sans |
pbk | Bookman |
bch | Charter |
ccr | Computer Concrete |
cmr | Computer Modern |
cmss | Computer Modern Sans Serif |
cmtt | Computer Modern Typewriter |
pcr | Courier |
phv | Helvetica |
fi4 | Inconsolata |
lmr | Latin Modern |
lmss | Latin Modern Sans |
lmtt | Latin Modern Typewriter |
pnc | New Century Schoolbook |
ppl | Palatino |
ptm | Times |
uncl | Uncial |
put | Utopia |
pzc | Zapf Chancery |
\fontseries{series} ¶Select the font series. A series combines a weight and a width. Typically, a font supports only a few of the possible combinations. Some common combined series values include:
m | Medium (normal) |
b | Bold |
c | Condensed |
bc | Bold condensed |
bx | Bold extended |
The possible values for weight, individually, are:
ul | Ultra light |
el | Extra light |
l | Light |
sl | Semi light |
m | Medium (normal) |
sb | Semi bold |
b | Bold |
eb | Extra bold |
ub | Ultra bold |
The possible values for width, individually, are (the meaning and relationship of these terms varies with individual typefaces):
uc | Ultra condensed |
ec | Extra condensed |
c | Condensed |
sc | Semi condensed |
m | Medium |
sx | Semi expanded |
x | Expanded |
ex | Extra expanded |
ux | Ultra expanded |
When forming the series string from the weight and width, drop the
m that stands for medium weight or medium width, unless both
weight and width are m, in which case use just one
(‘m’).
\fontshape{shape} ¶Select font shape. Valid shapes are:
n | Upright (normal) |
it | Italic |
sl | Slanted (oblique) |
sc | Small caps |
ui | Upright italics |
ol | Outline |
The two last shapes are not available for most font families, and small caps are often missing as well.
\fontsize{size}{skip} ¶Set the font size and the line spacing. The unit of both parameters
defaults to points (pt). The line spacing is the nominal
vertical space between lines, baseline to baseline. It is stored in the
parameter \baselineskip. The default \baselineskip for
the Computer Modern typeface is 1.2 times the \fontsize.
Changing \baselineskip directly is inadvisable since its value is
reset every time a size change happens; instead use
\baselinestretch. (see \baselineskip & \baselinestretch).
\linespread{factor} ¶Equivalent to \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{factor},
and therefore must be followed by \selectfont to have any
effect. Best specified in the preamble. See \baselineskip & \baselinestretch, for using setspace package instead.
\selectfont ¶The effects of the font commands described above do not happen until
\selectfont is called, as in
\fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont. It is often useful
to put this in a macro:
\newcommand*{\myfont}{\fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont}
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand).
\usefont{enc}{family}{series}{shape} ¶The same as invoking \fontencoding, \fontfamily,
\fontseries and \fontshape with the given parameters,
followed by \selectfont. For example:
\usefont{ot1}{cmr}{m}{n}