[atrettel]

I think a lot of people go through a life cycle of Computer Modern. I originally was indifferent, but once I learned LaTeX I used it since it was the default and it signaled to people that I knew LaTeX. Now I prefer Utopia/Fourier instead. Computer Modern seems to "thin", in my opinion, but I still use it on occasion. Some colleagues of mine really love it, though.

I can see why some people like it since it's the default font for a lot of technical documents and seeing it often signifies a certain level of "quality". The documents generally look better than Word documents, for example. Moreover, if an author took the time to learn LaTeX, it is easy to assume that they know what they are talking about. This is a form of "honor by association" (opposite of guilt by association fallacy).

Relevant XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/1301/

[jdnier]

Nice! https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/utopia-fouriermath/ I've been away from TeX/LaTeX typesetting for a long time. That's immediately appealing.

[elSidCampeador]

I loved Computer Modern till I read your post. Now I wanna move to Fourier for good - thanks for that!

[TheRealPomax]

Maybe have a look at XeLaTeX (the unicode-by-default LaTeX), which lets you just use any modern font you have installed, using normal syntax.

[improbable22]

Does the arxiv accept xetex yet? That's one constraint which kept me away.

[TheRealPomax]

If it doesn't, someone needs to raise a stink. It's been in TeX Live for over a decade now, there is no excuse for not supporting it.

[shakna]

Officially? No.

> Anything that relies on something other than TeX or (PDF)LaTeX will fail. At this time arXiv does not support processing with: XeTeX and its variants including LuaTeX, LyX, or PDFTeX. [0]

However, you'll frequently see papers with:

> Comments: PDF file generated using XeLaTeX/XeTeX.

Such as [1], where the author would prefer submitting a PDF-only than jump through the hoops to make it work under standard LaTeX.

[0] https://arxiv.org/help/faq/mistakes

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4830

[elSidCampeador]

I use XeLaTeX! Just wasn't aware of Fourier and Utopia.