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What is the most resembling font in terms of size and style to the default used in LaTeX? I write in MS Word first, then copy it to LaTeX – this seems to be faster for me if not dealing with graphics, however discussion 'why' is not part of the question.

So I need to know how many pages of word document will be in LaTeX. I am using Calibri 8pt, but I would be happy to use more precise number. And of course I do realise all left and right margins being different. 80% of page count precision would satisfy me.

I have seen similar questions, but I really don't want to annoy myself by downloading the LaTeX fonts and then fetching them into Word, what I want is the font and the size that definitely exists in Word and looks similar. As I will still go to mighty LaTeX realm afterwards.

Przemysław Scherwentke
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Aubergine
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  • I'd expect switching from Calibri to Times or Times New Roman would be a pretty close match, especially if you use the same point size in both documents. – Mike Renfro Feb 26 '12 at 03:58
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    @MikeRenfro The default LaTeX font is Computer Modern, which I think is less compact than Times. Aubergine: One solution, if you don't necessarily need the default LaTeX font, is to just use Times or Palatino or something in your final document. Both of those are very easy to use in both LaTeX and Word. – JohnJamesSmith Feb 26 '12 at 04:04
  • Sure, but I'd guess it's a ton closer to Times than 8pt Calibri is. – Mike Renfro Feb 26 '12 at 04:06
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    If 80% accuracy is enough, why don't you create a dummy 10page word document and then paste into a latex document with "default" latex style? Then you would probably obtain, for example, 15 pages, with which you can say 1 word page = 1.5 "default" latex page. – Chang Feb 26 '12 at 04:39
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    Calibri is a sans serif font and Times and Times New Roman are serif fonts. Why would you go for a sans serif font in word and a serif font in LaTeX? I'd imagine your document will get a completely different look and feel in LaTeX; you may not recognise it. –  Feb 26 '12 at 06:27
  • See also wordlike package. – Leo Liu Feb 26 '12 at 09:23
  • Take a word count to get approximate words per page in LaTeX. Then just use Word's statistics for comparison. – cfr Jul 05 '17 at 03:04
  • The Lora font in Google Docs looks a lot like the Computer Modern font that is used in LaTeX. – Noah Sussman Nov 01 '21 at 18:56

5 Answers5

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There are at least two font families that are based on Computer Modern (thus match its metrics) and are available in the OTF format that can be used with Word:

  1. Latin Modern
  2. Computer Modern Unicode (also supports Greek and Cyrillic scripts)

Click on the font name you've chosen, then proceed to the download page and get the OTF files. Install them in Windows and Word will see the fonts. As you're looking for just a 80% accuracy, choosing the upright 10/12pt Roman font for the text will be enough.

I can't see, though, how typing text in Word is faster than in any text editor (maybe save spell checking).

Andrey Vihrov
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  • Last sentence just in point, maybe modern latex guis support the spell checking, but mine TeXnicCenter does not. – Aubergine Feb 26 '12 at 06:19
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    Vim has spellchecking, as do many other editors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_text_editors#Basic_features – Psirus Feb 26 '12 at 08:45
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    TxC 2.0alpha definitely has spell-checking, and I'm pretty sure earlier versions did, too. Check for a Tools / Spelling menu and a Spelling tab under Tools / Options. – Mike Renfro Feb 26 '12 at 12:58
0

I find "Bookman Old Style" kind of resembles the one in latex

adam
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0

This might also be helpful to know. I know I found it useful when I was trying to figure out font sizes.

You could also change the font because of fontspec (compiling with XeLaTeX) like this: \setmainfont{Calibri} to see how LaTeX would process another font.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{xparse} % For \NewDocumentCommand (LaTeX3)
\makeatletter
\NewDocumentCommand\thefontsize{m}{{#1 The current font size is: \f@size pt\hfill{\string#1}}\par}
\makeatother
\NewDocumentCommand{\fontsizes}{m}{%
    \begingroup
    #1
    \offinterlineskip
    \setlength{\lineskip}{4pt}
    \thefontsize\tiny
    \thefontsize\scriptsize
    \thefontsize\footnotesize
    \thefontsize\small
    \thefontsize\normalsize
    \thefontsize\large
    \thefontsize\Large
    \thefontsize\LARGE
    \thefontsize\huge
    \thefontsize\Huge
    \endgroup
    %\thefontstyle\sffamily
}%

\begin{document}
\fontsizes{}
\end{document}

Output

enter image description here

Also see:

Does LaTeX automatically change fonts when switching between Title, Author, Date, and Body Text or sizes modifiers?

Community
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Jonathan Komar
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0

"bookman old style" and "Century" works good for me. However, I prefer "Century" more. With slight adjustment in the spacing and margin, you could get close resemblance to the one of LaTex.

Chin
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0

Please find the font at this link.

Extract the files and then follow the following steps:

  1. Open Control Panel.
  2. Go to Fonts option.
  3. Open it.
  4. Drag all the files from the folder that you just extracted to the **Fonts ** folder.

Open Word and you will see the newly installed fonts on the font choice drop-down menu.

I am on a Windows 8 64-bit environment, using MS Office 2010.

Hope it helps.

Pragyaditya Das
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