Make This Look More Handwritten

Question

I'm building worksheets for special needs students and thus the instructions and examples must be uber clear.

To make this happen, I've switched the worked example font to sans-serif and large, but want to install friendly, handwritten-looking font package that works for both the text and math mode. And, of course, it must be easily distinguishable from the default text... which probably means no serif. Hence these either don't help much... or I just don't understand enough LaTeX to make sense of them. Thread 1, Thread 2.

This is what I've got so far. How would you suggest I make the second line look more handwritten?

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}

\usepackage{sansmath}
\usepackage{color}
\definecolor{examplecolor}{gray}{0.4}
 \newenvironment
 {exampletext}
 {\noindent\large\sffamily\sansmath\color{examplecolor}} 
 {}

\begin{document}

This is what text normally looks like: 3, third, $\frac{2}{3}$.

\begin{exampletext}I want my example text to look like this, but more handwritten: 3, third, $\frac{17}{25}$. Notice that even in math mode, there are no serifs. \end{exampletext}

\end{document}

Answer 1

Instead of using the sansmath package, have you considered arev? The latter provides both text-mode and math-mode sans-serif fonts, and the glyphs are generously spaced. If you want the text font to continue to be Computer Modern, just issue a \renewcommand\rmdefault{pcm} instruction after loading the arev package.

The x-height of arev is quite large, especially when compared to that of CM. If you decided to go this route, it may not be necessary to use \large in the setup of the examplecolor environment.

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}
\usepackage{arev}
\renewcommand\rmdefault{pcm} % revert text font to CM
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{examplecolor}{gray}{0.4}
 \newenvironment
 {exampletext}{\noindent\large\sffamily
    \color{examplecolor}}{\par}

\begin{document}
\noindent
This is what text normally looks like: 3, 17, 25, two thirds.

\bigskip
\begin{exampletext}I want my example text to look like this, but more handwritten: 3, two thirds, $\frac{17}{25}$, $x^{1/2}$. Notice that even in math mode, there are no serifs. \end{exampletext}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Take a peek at the LaTeX font catalogue.

Answer 3

This answers a question addressed to me in comments.

You have done everything you need to do. You don't need to do anything special to use the fonts beyond adding the lines you mention to your preamble.

Here's a complete example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lxfonts}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\begin{document}
  \kant[1-20]
\end{document}

If you want to only use the fonts within the special environment, then you can activate them for text just within its scope by copying relevant parts of lxfonts.sty. Note that this will still change the maths fonts globally.

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsfonts,mathtools,nicefrac}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{examplecolor}{gray}{0.4}
% font configuration adapted from lxfonts.sty
\input{ulmsa.fd}
\input{ulmsb.fd}
\newenvironment{exampletext}{%
  \renewcommand\rmdefault{llcmss}%
  \renewcommand\sfdefault{llcmss}%
  \renewcommand\ttdefault{llcmtt}%
  \noindent\large\color{examplecolor}%
}{}
\SetSymbolFont{operators}{normal}{OT1}{llcmss}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{letters}{normal}{OML}{llcmm}{m}{it}
\SetSymbolFont{symbols}{normal}{OMS}{llcmsy}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{largesymbols}{normal}{OMX}{llcmex}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{operators}{bold}{OT1}{llcmss} {bx}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{letters}  {bold}{OML}{llcmm} {bx}{it}
\SetSymbolFont{symbols}  {bold}{OMS}{llcmsy}{bx}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{largesymbols}{bold}{OMX}{llcmex}{m}{n} % no bold!
\DeclareSymbolFontAlphabet{\mathrm}    {operators}
\DeclareSymbolFontAlphabet{\mathnormal}{letters}
\DeclareSymbolFontAlphabet{\mathcal}   {symbols}
\DeclareMathAlphabet      {\mathbf}{OT1}{llcmss}{bx}{n}
\DeclareMathAlphabet      {\mathsf}{OT1}{llcmss}{m}{n}
\DeclareMathAlphabet      {\mathit}{OT1}{llcmss}{m}{sl}
\DeclareMathAlphabet      {\mathtt}{OT1}{llcmtt}{m}{n}
\SetMathAlphabet\mathsf{bold}{OT1}{llcmss}{bx}{n}
\SetMathAlphabet\mathit{bold}{OT1}{llcmss}{bx}{sl}
\SetSymbolFont{AMSa}{normal}{U}{lmsa}{m}{n}
\SetSymbolFont{AMSb}{normal}{U}{lmsb}{m}{n}
\makeatletter
\xdef\Join{\mathrel{\mathchar"0\hexnumber@\symAMSb 6F%
\mkern-14.2mu\mathchar"0\hexnumber@\symAMSb 6E}}
\makeatother
\global\let\leadsto\rightsquigarrow

\begin{document}

  This is what text normally looks like: 3, third,  \nicefrac{2}{3}.

\begin{exampletext}
  I want my example text to look like this, but more handwritten: 3, third, $\frac{17}{25}$. Notice that even in math mode, there are no serifs.
  \[
  \mathbf{B}(P)=\frac{\mu_0}{4\pi}\int\frac{\mathbf{I}\times\hat{r}'}{r'^2}dl = \frac{\mu_0}{4\pi}\,I\!\int\frac{d\boldsymbol{l}\times\hat{r}'}{r'^2}% from the LaTeX Font Catalogue example
  \]
\end{exampletext}

\end{document}

I wouldn't recommend changing the maths font set up only for the specialist environment because you'll end up with symbols which don't look quite the same representing the same thing depending on whether you are within the environment's scope or not. But then, I probably wouldn't use these settings anyway.

Or you could adapt Mico's method although it is a bit more complex here as lxfonts.sty changes fonts at the end of the preamble so we have to override that:

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsfonts,mathtools,nicefrac,lxfonts}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{examplecolor}{gray}{0.4}
\newenvironment{exampletext}{%
  \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{llcmss}%
  \renewcommand{\ttdefault}{llcmtt}%
  \renewcommand{\sfdefault}{llcmss}%
  \noindent\large\color{examplecolor}%
}{%
  \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{lmr}%
  \renewcommand{\ttdefault}{lmtt}%
  \renewcommand{\sfdefault}{lmss}%
}
\AtEndPreamble{%
  \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{lmr}%
  \renewcommand{\ttdefault}{lmtt}%
  \renewcommand{\sfdefault}{lmss}%
  \renewcommand{\familydefault}{\rmdefault}%
}

\begin{document}

  This is what text normally looks like: 3, third,  \nicefrac{2}{3}.

  \textsf{hi} \texttt{bye}

\begin{exampletext}
  I want my example text to look like this, but more handwritten: 3, third, $\frac{17}{25}$. Notice that even in math mode, there are no serifs.
  \[
  \mathbf{B}(P)=\frac{\mu_0}{4\pi}\int\frac{\mathbf{I}\times\hat{r}'}{r'^2}dl = \frac{\mu_0}{4\pi}\,I\!\int\frac{d\boldsymbol{l}\times\hat{r}'}{r'^2}
  \]
\end{exampletext}

  Here is some more standard text.

\end{document}