Font Size Question

[Thomas Jacobs]

Hi,

I am trying to create a thesis from a series of papers and one of the
requirements is that pt. size can be no less than 7. I am trying to
ascertain how to ensure I do not break this rule. In looking at the
manuals, my current understanding is that given a default font size
such as 12 pt this is \normalsize in the document and each of the
following reduce it by one:

\small, \footnotesize, \scriptsize, and \tiny

If this is true than my smallest font size would be 8pt if I use
\tiny. Further, I could drop the \normalsize to 11 pt and still use
\tiny and I would be at 7 pt.

Can anyone confirm that I have grasped this correctly? THanks.

Tom

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Hi,
I am trying to create a thesis from a series of papers and one of the
requirements is that pt. size can be no less than 7. I am trying to
ascertain how to ensure I do not break this rule. In looking at the
manuals, my current understanding is that given a default font size
such as 12 pt this is \normalsize in the document and each of the
\small, \footnotesize, \scriptsize, and \tiny
If this is true than my smallest font size would be 8pt if I use
\tiny. Further, I could drop the \normalsize to 11 pt and still use
\tiny and I would be at 7 pt.

Not really. For example, bk12.clo, which book class uses for 12pt, has

small: 11pt
footnotesize: 10pt
scriptsize: 8pt
tiny: 7pt

You can redefine sizes in your preamble; v.gr.,

\renewcommand{\normalsize}{\fontsize{11.5pt}{14pt}\selectfont}


Best

Axel

[Thomas Jacobs]

Axel,

Thanks. Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font
sizes for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc. That is really what I need to know
but have been unable to decipher it myself.

Tom

Post by Axel E. Retif

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Hi,
I am trying to create a thesis from a series of papers and one of the
requirements is that pt. size can be no less than 7.  I am trying to
ascertain how to ensure I do not break this rule.  In looking at the
manuals, my current understanding is that given a default font size
such as 12 pt this is \normalsize in the document and each of the
\small, \footnotesize, \scriptsize, and \tiny
If this is true than my smallest font size would be 8pt if I use
\tiny.  Further, I could drop the \normalsize to 11 pt and still use
\tiny and I would be at 7 pt.

Not really. For example, bk12.clo, which book class uses for 12pt, has
small:        11pt
footnotesize: 10pt
scriptsize:    8pt
tiny:          7pt
You can redefine sizes in your preamble; v.gr.,
\renewcommand{\normalsize}{\fontsize{11.5pt}{14pt}\selectfont}
Best
Axel

[Karl Berry]

Thanks. Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font
sizes for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc. That is really what I need to know
but have been unable to decipher it myself.

No guarantees, but I attempted to extract the size tables out of the
sources at one point for the unofficial latex reference manual I work on
from time to time.
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html#Font-sizes

Hope this helps,
karl

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Thanks. Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font
sizes for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc. That is really what I need to know
but have been unable to decipher it myself.
No guarantees, but I attempted to extract the size tables out of the
sources at one point for the unofficial latex reference manual I work on
from time to time.
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html#Font-sizes

Ah! This is good, not only for font sizes. (And, by the way, I made a mistake in my previous reply ---tiny size is 6pt as Karl Berry writes in said document, not 7pt as I said.)

As to where to look for this data, it is, in a TeXLive distribution, in

/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base

There you can look into bk10.clo, bk11.clo, bk12.clo, size10.clo, size11.clo, and size12.clo. As you might know, the first number is the font size, and the second the baseline skip; so, for example,

\newcommand\tiny{\@setfontsize\tiny\@vipt\@viipt}

means tiny is 6pt in size with 7pt baseline skip (leading).


Best

Axel

[Thomas Jacobs]

Karl and Alex,

Thanks very much for the replies.  The link Karl shared helps me to
know that I cannot use tiny if my base font is 12 and I am limited to
a minimum 7 pt size.

I used Alex' reply to navigate to the .clo files in the MikTeX
distribution.  While I can see what he shared I must confess, I am
unfamiliar with much of the code.

What is the difference between bk12.clo and size12.clo?

How does one interpret @vipt vs. @viipt, for example?  Are these set
in the program or do they have defined values in the language?

Thanks again,

Tom

Post by Axel E. Retif

   Thanks.  Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font
   sizes for a given class, like your book class example?  Where do you
   look for such information, etc.  That is really what I need to know
   but have been unable to decipher it myself.
No guarantees, but I attempted to extract the size tables out of the
sources at one point for the unofficial latex reference manual I work on
from time to time.
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html#Font-sizes

Ah! This is good, not only for font sizes. (And, by the way, I made a mistake in my previous reply ---tiny size is 6pt as Karl Berry writes in said document, not 7pt as I said.)
As to where to look for this data, it is, in a TeXLive distribution, in
/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base
There you can look into bk10.clo, bk11.clo, bk12.clo, size10.clo, size11.clo, and size12.clo. As you might know, the first number is the font size, and the second the baseline skip; so, for example,
means tiny is 6pt in size with 7pt baseline skip (leading).
Best
Axel

--
Thomas Jacobs

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Karl and Alex,
Thanks very much for the replies. The link Karl shared helps me to
know that I cannot use tiny if my base font is 12 and I am limited to
a minimum 7 pt size.

Yes, you can:

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\renewcommand{\tiny}{\fontsize{7pt}{8pt}\selectfont}
\begin{document}
Normal size in 12pt. {\tiny This should be in 7pt}. And 12pt again.
\end{document}

Post by Thomas Jacobs
I used Alex' reply to navigate to the .clo files in the MikTeX
distribution. While I can see what he shared I must confess, I am
unfamiliar with much of the code.
What is the difference between bk12.clo and size12.clo?

See your log file ---book class uses bk12.clo; article, report and letter classes use size12.clo:

(/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/book.cls
Document Class: book 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/bk12.clo
File: bk12.clo 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
6pt, 7pt


Best

Axel

[Thomas Jacobs]

Axel,

Thanks, yet again. That is most helpful on the resize of \tiny and it is
only on your sharing it a second time that I finally see

vii = 7, etc.

Tom

Post by Axel E. Retif

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Karl and Alex,
Thanks very much for the replies. The link Karl shared helps me to
know that I cannot use tiny if my base font is 12 and I am limited to
a minimum 7 pt size.

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\renewcommand{\tiny}{\fontsize{7pt}{8pt}\selectfont}
\begin{document}
Normal size in 12pt. {\tiny This should be in 7pt}. And 12pt again.
\end{document}

Post by Thomas Jacobs
I used Alex' reply to navigate to the .clo files in the MikTeX
distribution. While I can see what he shared I must confess, I am
unfamiliar with much of the code.
What is the difference between bk12.clo and size12.clo?

See your log file ---book class uses bk12.clo; article, report and letter
(/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/book.cls
Document Class: book 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/texlive/2009/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/bk12.clo
File: bk12.clo 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
6pt, 7pt
Best
Axel

[Reinhard Kotucha]

Post by Axel E. Retif

Post by Thomas Jacobs
Karl and Alex,
Thanks very much for the replies. The link Karl shared helps me to
know that I cannot use tiny if my base font is 12 and I am limited to
a minimum 7 pt size.

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\renewcommand{\tiny}{\fontsize{7pt}{8pt}\selectfont}
\begin{document}
Normal size in 12pt. {\tiny This should be in 7pt}. And 12pt again.
\end{document}

Sorry for the late response. But I woudn't redefine \tiny. I simply
wouldn't use it. My proposal is to redefine \tiny this way:

\renewcommand{\tiny}{\errmessage{<some text>}}

Then LaTeX aborts and complains loudly if \tiny is used accidentally.

Problematic are subscripts and superscripts in math formulas. They
are obviously controlled by \DeclareMathSizes.

http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/tutorial10/mathsize2.pdf

Since there is the \DeclareMathSizes macro, I assume that \tiny is
ignored anyway when typesetting math formulas.

I've seen in this tread that the .clo files were mentioned. It's
quite odd to point casual users to them. There's no need to change
them. They are 16 years old now and if there is really the need to
change them, I expect that a macro package is available which does
such changes. You can be sure that if such a macro package doesn't
exist (after 16 years) it's undesirable to change anything at all.

Convincing a casual LaTeX user to modify a .clo file is almost as
wrong as to convince him to buy "The TeXbook" in order to solve LaTeX
problems.

Please note that LaTeX's default values for scriptsize and
scriptscriptsize are fine for Computer Modern fonts because they
contain variants which are especially designed for these sizes. When
using any other font, {sub,super}scripts are scaled-down versions of a
10pt font. They appear too thin and should better be enlarged a
little bit anyway. It requires some experimentation because the
visual appearence is what counts.

BTW, the arguments of \DeclareMathSizes are numbers, but they aren't
restricted to integers.

Just for the record, I received the newest TUGboat release today and
there is a related article "Mathematical typefaces in TeX documents"
written by Amit Raj Dhawan (page 27). It provides samples of a math
formula typeset with various fonts. There is also a comparison
between "cmr5" and "cmr10 at 5pt".

Please apologise the advertising. :)

http://tug.org/join.html

Regards,
Reinhard

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

[...]

Sorry for the late response. But I woudn't redefine \tiny. I simply
wouldn't use it.

That would be a solution, of course; but I don't think there is anything wrong with that. The first example I gave was about redefining normalsize, which I had to do in a book ---you just can't go without using normalsize.

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
[...]
Problematic are subscripts and superscripts in math formulas. They
are obviously controlled by \DeclareMathSizes.

Ah! Good point ---if the OP needs to use math, but can't use anything below 7pt, that would be a problem. But the document you refer to wonderfully explains in a few lines what to do.

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
[...]
I've seen in this tread that the .clo files were mentioned. It's
quite odd to point casual users to them.

Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font sizes for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you look for such information, etc.

Well ---such information is in the bkXX.clo (for book class) and sizeXX.clo (for article, report and letter classes).

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
[...]
Convincing a casual LaTeX user to modify a .clo file is almost as
wrong as to convince him to buy "The TeXbook" in order to solve LaTeX
problems.

I never advised modifying .clo files! I clearly said

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

You can redefine sizes in your preamble; v.gr.,
\renewcommand{\normalsize}{\fontsize{11.5pt}{14pt}\selectfont}

[...]
BTW, the arguments of \DeclareMathSizes are numbers, but they aren't
restricted to integers.

Yes, this is really good, as different font families might require different adjustments, though usually package writers take good care of that.

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
Just for the record, I received the newest TUGboat release today and
there is a related article "Mathematical typefaces in TeX documents"
written by Amit Raj Dhawan (page 27). It provides samples of a math
formula typeset with various fonts. There is also a comparison
between "cmr5" and "cmr10 at 5pt".

Yes, I have seen those examples ---very good to have a grasp on the complexities of font design.

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
Please apologise the advertising. :)
http://tug.org/join.html

More than advertising, if one is able to, I think is a good advice.


Best

Axel

[Reinhard Kotucha]

Post by Axel E. Retif

Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font sizes
for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc.

Well ---such information is in the bkXX.clo (for book class) and
sizeXX.clo (for article, report and letter classes).

Sure. The OP assumed that he could solve his problem by
reverse-engineering LaTeX. You told him how to proceed. But I'm not
conviced that reverse-engineering LaTeX is a good idea. There are
better solutions.

Regards,
Reinhard

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif

Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font sizes
for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc.

Well ---such information is in the bkXX.clo (for book class) and
sizeXX.clo (for article, report and letter classes).

Sure. The OP assumed that he could solve his problem by
reverse-engineering LaTeX. You told him how to proceed. But I'm not
conviced that reverse-engineering LaTeX is a good idea. There are
better solutions.

Sorry, but I can't see how you consider this reverse-engineering, and not \DeclareMathSizes, which you talked about in your previous email. And the OP asked how he could *know* which were the defined font sizes for a given (point size option in a) document class, where he could "*look* for such *information*".

There is nothing esoteric about examining sizeXX.clo ---"The LaTeX Companion", 2nd. ed., for example, says (p. 144)

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif
... if you select the option 11pt, one of its actions is to change the list defaults. In the standard classes this is done by loading the file size11.clo, which contains the definitions for the 11pt document size.

And, p. 373,

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif
For best results, however, one needs to use a document class designed for the selected document fonts or, lacking such a class, to redefine the commands \normalsize, \footnotesize, and so on...

Well ---the only thing the OP needs is to ensure that the smallest font size in his document is 7pt, to comply with some in-house rule established by people who usually don't know anything about typography.

Thomas,

I would recommend you two books especially ---the above quoted "LaTeX Companion", and Kopka & Daly: "Guide to LaTeX"; you can see them (and other titles) here: http://www.tug.org/books/

In general, there is a wealth of information in tug.org; for example,

http://www.tug.org/interest.html


Best

Axel

[Reinhard Kotucha]

Post by Axel E. Retif

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif

Can you tell me how you (or I) would know the defined font sizes
for a given class, like your book class example? Where do you
look for such information, etc.

Well ---such information is in the bkXX.clo (for book class) and
sizeXX.clo (for article, report and letter classes).

Sure. The OP assumed that he could solve his problem by
reverse-engineering LaTeX. You told him how to proceed. But I'm not
conviced that reverse-engineering LaTeX is a good idea. There are
better solutions.

Sorry, but I can't see how you consider this reverse-engineering,
and not \DeclareMathSizes, which you talked about in your previous
email. And the OP asked how he could *know* which were the defined
font sizes for a given (point size option in a) document class,
where he could "*look* for such *information*".
There is nothing esoteric about examining sizeXX.clo ---"The LaTeX
Companion", 2nd. ed., for example, says (p. 144)

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif
... if you select the option 11pt, one of its actions is to
change the list defaults. In the standard classes this is done
by loading the file size11.clo, which contains the definitions
for the 11pt document size.

And, p. 373,

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif
For best results, however, one needs to use a document class
designed for the selected document fonts or, lacking such a
class, to redefine the commands \normalsize, \footnotesize, and
so on...

Even if it's mentioned in "The LaTeX Companion" I don't see any good
reason to bother a casual user with such low-level stuff.

Post by Axel E. Retif
Well ---the only thing the OP needs is to ensure that the smallest
font size in his document is 7pt,

\let\tiny\relax (or better, \errmessage)

I fear that redefining \tiny has no impact on math formulas.

Post by Axel E. Retif
to comply with some in-house rule established by people who usually
don't know anything about typography.

Why do you assume that they don't know anything about typography?
They noticed that fonts smaller than 7pt are incomprehensible. This
is a reasonable decision. At least unless the fonts used are
especially designed for this particular size. And only Knuth's fonts
support "design sizes".

Regards,
Reinhard

[Axel E. Retif]

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif

[...]

Even if it's mentioned in "The LaTeX Companion" I don't see any good
reason to bother a casual user with such low-level stuff.

Post by Axel E. Retif
Well ---the only thing the OP needs is to ensure that the smallest
font size in his document is 7pt,

\let\tiny\relax (or better, \errmessage)
I fear that redefining \tiny has no impact on math formulas.

Well ---if it bothers you so much, I can advise Thomas to forget all about \tiny (not even \relax ing it) and use a new command:

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\newcommand{\mytinysize}{\fontsize{7pt}{8pt}\selectfont}
\begin{document}
Normal size in 12pt. {\mytinysize This should be in 7pt.} And 12pt again.
\end{document}

Post by Reinhard Kotucha

Post by Axel E. Retif
to comply with some in-house rule established by people who usually
don't know anything about typography.

Why do you assume that they don't know anything about typography?
They noticed that fonts smaller than 7pt are incomprehensible. This
is a reasonable decision. At least unless the fonts used are
especially designed for this particular size. And only Knuth's fonts
support "design sizes".

Legibility depends sometimes more on the font design than on point size ---I typeset a book with Lucida fonts using 9pt for main text (that is, for \normalsize) with a 30pc text width; whereas 9pt in MinionPro is hardly OK for footnotes. You can't specify a minimum point size in general ---you have to specify minimum point sizes per font family.

A few months back, we had in this list a similar but more annoying problem caused by a bureaucrat ignorant of typography ---the author was told to use 12pt for his text, but said bureaucrat (obviously checking the document with Acrobat) told him it wasn't right ---he was using 11.96pt instead of 12pt! Martin Schröder solved the problem advising the use of bp, instead of pt. As the solution redefines \normalsize, you might not like it :)

http://tug.org/pipermail/texhax/2010-February/014318.html


Best

Axel

[William Adams]

Post by Reinhard Kotucha
And only Knuth's fonts
support "design sizes".

Well, there were the nifty multiple master fonts which had a design axis (e.g., Minion and Adobe Jenson)

Even now, some OpenType fonts come in multiple versions for explicit support of design sizes (e.g., Garamond Premier Pro and Arno Pro).

A note for the OP --- if the size is being checked in Adobe Acrobat you'll want to use bp for measurements instead of pt --- 7pt == ~6.972bp

William
(who got very tired of explaining why 10pt type measured as 9.96 (PostScript) points in Adobe Acrobat)

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Post by Karl Berry
No guarantees, but I attempted to extract the size tables out of the
sources at one point for the unofficial latex reference manual I work on
from time to time.
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html#Font-sizes

Just as a point of interest, do you happen to know whether these
sizes are affected by document /class/ (article, report, book, letter, slides, ...)
as well as by document class size ?

** Phil.

[Karl Berry]

Post by Karl Berry
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html#Font-sizes

Just as a point of interest, do you happen to know whether these
sizes are affected by document /class/ (article, report, book,
letter, slides, ...)
as well as by document class size ?

It is indeed an interesting point. I wouldn't hazard a guess for letter
and slides, but I think for article/book/report, the answer is no --
only the doc class size option affects it.

(It's precisely because I wasn't sure and didn't track it down
completely that I didn't say anything about it in the doc. I'd like to.)

Best,
Karl