Regarding sans-serif math

[apoorvpotnis]

This is not a bug, but rather a feature request.

Are there any plans for a bold math font and a sans serif math font to accompany the Libertinus family? Many of the gylphs from the existing fonts can be used for bold math.

[alerque]

Math fonts have different code points for bold variants of glyphs. Kind of by definition they cannot have bold weights because of the way math layout works (for legacy reasons). So no, declined on that count.

It's possible that if this even got a variable font overhaul that the main font weight could vary some, but that all the bold maths glyphs would always be X amount bolder on the weight axis, but I also don't know of any math typsetting engines that support variable fonts yet except sort of SILE, so whether that would work would be up to such a project to figure out.

I have no plans to work on a sans-serif math font, if and when I get time for this project there are lots of things to fix on the much more commonly desired serif side of things. I have no objections if somebody else were to contribute such a thing, just no plans to sink my time into such a thing.

[apoorvpotnis]

Thank you for the reply. I don't quite understand what does a variable font means (I will look it up), but just for the record, I was talking about bold math in the sense of fonts such as xits, concmath-otf, xcharter-otf, erewhon-otf or kpfonts-otf. Along with the regular math font, they offer a different bold version otf of their fonts, with limited glyphs, mostly intended for use as section and chapter headers. Creating a full bold math font will likely require big effort, if ultrabold/heavy weights are to be provided, to be used as vectors. Vectors would be normally written in bold, but if the surrounding font is already bold, this would mean that even bolder (ultrabold or heavy) new glyphs would be needed. The above mentioned fonts don't provide that. The only font that I know which provides them is MathTimePro2, which is commercial. Perhaps Minion math also provides them, but it is commercial as well. Btw, we can use the bold math font in latex using the \boldmath command.

[Bolpat]

For a doctoral dissertation I typeset using Libertinus, I used fake bold for mathematical formulas in headings and faked slant in the little chapter on top of the page. It works and looks quite good enough, and a lot better than using simple math.

A sans-serif math font makes little sense as sans-serif vs serif is a mathematical distinction:

• U+1D5A0…U+1D66F encode sans-serif Latin letters
• U+1D756…U+1D7C9 encode sans-serif Greek letters
• U+1D7E2…U+1D7F5 encode sans-serif numbers

“Normal” mathematical variables are serif by definition. The only kind of letters missing in Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is upright Latin, Greek and numbers, which are to be taken from the Basic Latin and Greek blocks.

[apoorvpotnis]

It is not true that "Normal" mathematical variables are serif by definition. It is simply a historical artifact, displaying that fact thata creating a math (sans serif) font is a very time consuming affair. As running text is seldom typeset in sans serif in printed books, the demand for sans serif has been historically low.

Some sans serif math fonts do exist, which have normal math variables in sans serif, such as Fira, Lete (lato), Kp sans math, GFS neollehenic, Noto Sans math (recently updated to sans serif). Beamer presentations are traditionally typeset using sans serif fonts (as projectors often have low resolutions). The reason one sees serif math in beamer with sans serif text is simply because comprehensive sans serif math fonts did not exist for a long time.

On Wed, 29 May, 2024, 4:48 pm Quirin F. Schroll, @.***> wrote:

For a doctoral dissertation I typeset using Libertinus https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/29424/1/Rolke_Simon.pdf, I used fake bold for mathematical formulas in headings and faked slant in the little chapter on top of the page. It works and looks quite good enough, and a lot better than using simple math.

A sans-serif math font makes little sense as sans-serif vs serif is a mathematical distinction:

• U+1D5A0…U+1D66F encode sans-serif Latin letters
• U+1D756…U+1D7C9 encode sans-serif Greek letters
• U+1D7E2…U+1D7F5 encode sans-serif numbers

“Normal” mathematical variables are serif by definition. The only kind of letters missing in Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is upright Latin, Greek and numbers, which are to be taken from the Basic Latin and Greek blocks.

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