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In Should I use fix-cm? the issue came up of strange output from Latin Modern. Here is an MWE to get this issue:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\begin{document}
TRUE

FALSE
\end{document}

has output as on the left of this image. Commenting out \usepackage{lmodern} produces output as on the right of this image. This is compiled with pdflatex in TeX Live 2012 and viewed with Adobe Reader 10.1.5 on Mac OS X.

Goofy LM, nice CM

Here is the result of \listfiles:

 *File List*
 article.cls    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
  size11.clo    2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
 lmodern.sty    2009/10/30 v1.6 Latin Modern Fonts
  ot1lmr.fd    2009/10/30 v1.6 Font defs for Latin Modern
 ***********

Many sources around the web (Wikipedia, this answer) say that the hinting in Latin Modern is not the best. On the other hand, the default Computer Modern in TeX Live is apparently not actually Metafont, but the Postscript Type 1 conversion by Bluesky, which the same sources say is the highest-quality vector conversion of CM. Is this accurate?

Xavier provided this pdf which demonstrates the issue; it renders correctly on some systems and not on others. In Adobe Reader 10.1.5 it looks like this.

CM Serif, LM Serif, CM Sans, LM Sans

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Nick Matteo
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    It seems a rendering problem. – egreg Feb 15 '13 at 21:36
  • I have experienced the same some time ago. It turned out that it only showed up on the screen and for certain zoom levels so I came to the same conclusion as egreg, that it would be some rendering issue. – Benedikt Bauer Feb 15 '13 at 21:53
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    I can't reproduce your issue either. Please post a pdf file with the issue if you want me to check how it renders on my computer. Here is my test file, which renders perfectly on OSX with Preview and on Linux with Evince. – Xavier Feb 15 '13 at 23:22
  • @Xavier, your test file reproduces the issue for me in Adobe Reader. I'll add it to the question, if you don't mind. – Nick Matteo Feb 16 '13 at 00:06
  • @Kundor Yes, the heading was wrong (the font used was correct). I've updated the file. – Xavier Feb 16 '13 at 00:18
  • Mhhh, this seems like a complex but interesting issue. A quick google shows this issue has been raised before (see comments trail from http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/9338/10102 or point 5 under "Some Glyphs / Ligatures" from http://wiki.contextgarden.net/index.php?title=Wishes_for_Latin_Modern&redirect=no). I'll shoot an email to the font author... – Xavier Feb 16 '13 at 00:32
  • Well, so the file by @Xavier shows the problem for me at certain levels. I use Acrobat Reader 9.5.1 for Linux. I understand that it "is a problem of rendering", still, a problem of rendering in the default PDF viewer (in the sense that PDF is an Adobe standard), certainly a most common one. – yo' Feb 16 '13 at 00:33
  • Not sure anymore what the issue is honestly. Some claim it's hinting within Latin Modern, some claim it's rendering within Acrobat... – Xavier Feb 16 '13 at 00:39
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    @Xavier Well, since the Bluesky Computer Modern Type 1 fonts render correctly in Acrobat and elsewhere, it seems reasonable to conclude that the hinting in Latin Modern could be improved. – Nick Matteo Feb 16 '13 at 03:41
  • @Kundor Don't mean to sound harsh, but with that kind of argument, one could as easily conclude that, as Latin Modern renders correctly in Preview and Evince, the rendering engine of Acrobat could be improved :) So far, we simply have no clue what the issue is. – Xavier Feb 16 '13 at 06:17
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    See also this answer for some comments about the suboptimal hinting. – Hendrik Vogt Feb 16 '13 at 09:57
  • @Xavier except that the Bluesky fonts also render correctly in Preview and Evince (right?), so that the hinting therein is evidently strictly better. – Nick Matteo Feb 16 '13 at 11:53
  • @HendrikVogt: That is the correct answer; I'm tempted to vote to close this question as duplicate. – Martin Schröder Feb 19 '13 at 22:33
  • @MartinSchröder: That would not bother me. I created this question because discussion about this didn't belong in Should I use fix-cm?, but I wasn't sure it was really a question. – Nick Matteo Feb 20 '13 at 04:17

0 Answers0