Home → General LaTeX tips and tricks → Using Adobe Courier

10. How do you use Adobe Courier instead of Computer Modern Typewriter?

Answer

You can globally replace the typewriter font (i.e. the font LaTeX uses when you e.g. say \texttt{foo}) for the entire document by using the courier package.

Example usage

In the preamble:

\usepackage{courier}

In the manuscript:

When adding two vectors of length $n$, a sequential program might
perform the required calculation element by element in a loop:

\begin{mylisting}
\begin{verbatim}
  double a[n], b[n], c[n];

  for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
      c[i] = a[i] + b[i];
\end{verbatim}
\end{mylisting}

(The mylisting environment is discussed on the How can I get source code listings nicely printed? page.)

Result, before

Result, after

Things to watch out for

As you can see from the screenshots above, the courier font is quite a bit thinner than the standard Computer Modern monospace font. This is precisely one of the reasons why I wanted to use Courier in the first place: I needed a monospace font that had a visibly different bold variant — the built-in version does not.

However, the thinness of regular Courier can also cause visibility problems, especially at lower font sizes. Also, when the thesis is printed, the high-resolution printing process will make the font display even thinner than it does on output from your own laser printer. In general, I think a 10pt Courier font size is still perfectly readable, but keep the above in mind if you want to go lower.