What is the simplest way to typeset an entire document in sans-serif?

Question

How do I typeset an entire document in sans-serif, e.g. Helvetica, without littering the document with font changes for every heading/paragraph, etc.? Like in How to set the font for a \section title (and chapter etc), but with the paragraphs all in sans-serif.

For example, I've seen documents typeset in Computer Modern and then switched to Palatino, but can I do the same with Helvetica with a few commands at the beginning?

(And please don't tell me to use a serif font for body copy / paragraphs. I know. I'm trying to use latex to typeset my resume to look like the one I've created in a word processor, which is hard to maintain but looks good. I'm hoping latex will let me do more advanced formatting/layout, separating content from form.)

Answer 1

\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault} will switch to using sans-serif for everything except mathematics. The sans-serif will be computer modern sans unless you also put \usepackage{helvet} in the preamble in order to set the default sans font to a clone of Helvetica (or \usepackage{avant} for Avant-Garde, etc.).

Answer 2

The best way to have BOTH the text AND the math is just by adding:

\usepackage{cmbright}

in the preambule of the LaTeX document. It gives a nice and homogenous look to your document. Cheers!

Answer 3

In ConTeXt you obviously use \setupbodyfont. This will not affect math mode.

\setupbodyfont[ss]

\starttext

Sans-Serif

\stoptext

Answer 4

You can use the fontsetup package for easy configuration of fonts if you are willing to use XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX. It supports two sans serif fonts Fira Sans and GFS Neohellenic, both with math support as of writing this answer.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[fira]{fontsetup}
%\usepackage[gfsneohellenic]{fontsetup}
\begin{document}
    \section{Some section header.}
    The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
    THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.
    1234567890
    \begin{align}
        \oint_{\gamma} \sum_{i=0}^n \int \bigcup \bigcap \
        \symup{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \omega \pi \rho \sigma \phi \psi \tau \omega}\
        \alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \omega \pi \rho \sigma \phi \psi \tau \omega \
        \partial \hbar \symbb{R, C, N, Z, Q}
    \end{align}
\end{document}

Fira: GFS Neohellenic:

There exists Lato Math, but not on CTAN, probably because it is not polished enough. Generated .otf file from GitHub: LatoMath.otf.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\setmainfont{Lato}
\setmathfont{LatoMath.otf}
\begin{document}
    \section{Some section header.}
    The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
    THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.
    1234567890
    \begin{align}
        \oint_{\gamma} \sum_{i=0}^n \int \bigcup \bigcap \
        \symup{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \omega \pi \rho \sigma \phi \psi \tau \omega}\
        \alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \omega \pi \rho \sigma \phi \psi \tau \omega \
        \partial \hbar \symbb{R, C, N, Z, Q}
    \end{align}
\end{document}

You can use the notomath package for sans serif text and math (on pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX and XeLaTeX). Noto math has open type support planned for the future as well.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[sfdefault]{notomath}
\begin{document}
    \section{Some section header.}
    The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
    THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.
    1234567890
    \begin{align}
        \oint_{\gamma} \sum_{i=0}^n \int \bigcup \bigcap \
        \alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \omega \pi \rho \sigma \phi \psi \tau \omega \
        \partial \hbar \mathbb{R, C, N, Z, Q}
    \end{align}
\end{document}

I don't know how to make the summation and the integral signs sans serif in Noto.

Answer 5

In OpTeX, you can declare (for example):

\fontfam[heros]

Then the complete document is in sans serif (including Unicode-Math).

Answer 6

Update: I now slightly prefer sansmathfonts over newtxsf. sansmathfonts seems to be missing some higher-level symbols like \leftrightarrow, but I noticed that newtxsf also replaces the font for numbers, making numbers in math mode look different from numbers in text, which I very much disliked and couldn't find a more specific fix for. What I use now is

\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsmath,amsthm}
\usepackage{sansmathfonts}
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

---

Original answer: No existing solution I found on SE or elsewhere worked for me, with the most common problem being pixelated math fonts. After testing many random packages and commands, I finally pieced together something that seems to work alright.

\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsmath,amsthm}
\usepackage{newtxsf}
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

This preamble gives me non-pixelated, sans-serif text and math. Note that the order can make a difference, for example it seems to be essential to load

\usepackage{amsmath,amsthm}

before

\usepackage{newtxsf}