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I do not know much about typography but when I wrote my first LaTeX document, I found d it awful.

And then I realised that it is much easier to my eyes than other documents and I cold not unsee it.

I still think that the default font is ugly, but when you have a longer document you cannot go wrong with LaTeX.

When you compare the result with the same doc, but written in Arial, it is painful. The Arial document is really more difficult to read.

I think that this is Knuth who said that a document is meant to be read, and not as an art display.



I find it interesting how far back you can trace back the dislike of Computer Modern and typefaces like it. Its appearance has been considered outdated for nearly a century: Times New Roman replaced the Times of London's 'Modern' typeface in 1932. Typefaces made in the 1700s (Baskerville, for instance) look more modern to our eyes than Computer Modern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman#/media/File:Ti...


Had to google what is the default font for LaTeX. Ah, this one? Right that does look familiar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Modern

And the font itself was created by Knuth? Did Knuth invent like everything?


Not just the font, the typesetting system behind it. All for his book!




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