I will really only scratch the surface about this particular field. This section is not about how to get your text in Verdana size 12pt! There are three main font families:
roman (such as Times), sans serif (eg Arial) and monospace (eg Courier). You can also specify styles such as italic and bold:
The following table lists the commands you will need to access the typical font styles:
LaTeX command Equivalent to Output style Remarks
\textnormal{...} {\normalfont ...} document font family this is the default or nor-mal font
\emph{...} {\em ...} emphasis typically italics
\textrm{...} {\rmfamily ...} roman font family
\textsf{...} {\sffamily ...} sans serif font family
\texttt{...} {\ttfamily ...} teletypefont family this is a fixed-width or monospace font
\textup{...} {\upshape ...} upright shape the same as the normal typeface
\textit{...} {\itshape ...} italic shape
\textsl{...} {\slshape ...} slanted shape a skewed version of the normal typeface (similar, but slightly different than italics)
\textsc{...} {\scshape ...} small capitals
\textbf{...} {\bfseries ...} bold
\textmd{...} {\mdseries ...} medium weight a font weight in between normal and bold
You may have noticed the absence of underline. Although this is available via the \underline{...} command, text underlined in this way will not break properly.
This functionality has to be added with the ulem package. Stick \usepackage{ulem}
in your preamble. By default, this overrides the \emph command with the underline rather than the italic style. It is unlikely that you wish this to be the desired effect, so it is better to stop ulem taking over \emph and simply call the underline command as and when it is needed.
• To disable ulem, add \normalem straight after the document environment begins.
• To underline, use \uline{...}.
• To add a wavy underline, use \uwave{...}.
• And for a strike-out \sout{...}.
Finally, there is the issue of size. This too is very easy, simply follow the commands on this table:
size 10pt (default) 11pt option 12pt option
\tiny 5pt 6pt 6pt
\scriptsize 7pt 8pt 8pt
\footnotesize 8pt 9pt 10pt
\small 9pt 10pt 11pt
\normalsize 10pt 11pt 12pt
\large 12pt 12pt 14pt
\Large 14pt 14pt 17pt
\LARGE 17pt 17pt 20pt
\huge 20pt 20pt 25pt
\Huge 25pt 25pt 25pt
Table 11.1: Absolute Point Sizes in Standard Classes
Note that the font size definitions are set by the document style. Depending on the document style the actual font size may differ from that listed above. And not every document style has unique sizes for all 10 size commands.
Even if you can easily change the output of your fonts using those commands, you’re better off not using explicit commands like this, because they work in opposition to the basic idea of LaTeX, which is to separate the logical and visual markup of your document. This means that if you use the same font changing command in several places in order to typeset a special kind of information, you should use \newcommand to define a “logical wrapper command” for the font changing command.
\newcommand{\oops}[1]{\textbf{#1}}
Do not \oops{enter} this room, it’s occupied by \oops{machines}
of unknown origin and purpose.
Do not enter this room, it’s oc-cupied by machines of unknown origin and purpose.
This approach has the advantage that you can decide at some later stage that you want to use some visual representation of danger other than \textbf, without having to wade through your document, identifying all the occurrences of \textbf and then figuring out for each one whether it was used for pointing out danger or for some other reason.
Text mode superscript and subscript
To superscript text in text-mode, you can use the \textsuperscript{} command.
This allows you to, for instance, typeset 6th as 6th:
Michelangelo was born on March 6\textsuperscript{th}, 1475.
The primary use of subscripts within the text environment is to typeset chemical formulae. For this purposes, a highly recommend package ismhchem. This package is easy to use, and works with your text fonts (rather than math fonts). To insert a chemical forumula, use \ce{} with the text-equivalent formula, for example:
% In your preamble, add:
\usepackage[version=3]{mhchem}
...
% In your document:
Ammonium sulphate is \ce{(NH4)2SO4}.
Subscripting in text-mode is not supported by LaTeX alone, however, several pack-ages allow the use of the \textsubscript{} command. For instance,bpchem, KOMA-Script2 and, perhaps the most universal option since it is distributed with LaTeX, fixltx2eall support this command.
% In your preamble, add:
\usepackage{fixltx2e}
...
% In your document:
It is found that height\textsubscript{apple tree} is different than height\textsubscript{orange tree}.
It is found that heightappletreeis different than heightorangetree.
If you do not load a package that supports \textsubscript{}, the math mode must be used. This is easily accomplished in running text by bracketing your text with the $ symbol. In math mode subscripting is done using the underscore: {}.
For example, the formula for water is written as:
H$_2$O is the formula for water H2O is the formula for water
Note that in math mode text will appear in a font suitable for mathematical vari-ables. In math mode, to generate roman text, for example, one would use the \mathrm command:
This is $\mathrm{normal\ roman\ and}_\mathrm{subscript\ roman}$ text This is normal roman andsubscript roman text
Note the use of \<space> to insert a space in math mode.
Similarly, you can superscript using:
This is $\mathrm{normal\ roman\ and}^\mathrm{superscript\ roman}$ text This is normal roman andsuperscript romantext