This is the third (and, I expect, final) version of this page. See below for its history. This page is one of the most googled on my site, so here’s the short version: Computer Modern (the LaTeX default) is allowed for NSF proposals.
This page began in response to a change in the National Science Foundation’s official policies with respect to fonts in grant proposals. In March 2007, NSF published its updated Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide. One paragraph in particular came as a bit of a surprise:
These new guidelines seemed bizarre to me, given that almost all NSF grant proposals in Mathematics (and, I believe, related fields such as Computer Science and Physics) use either TeX or LaTeX, and neither of those typesetting systems uses any of these four fonts by default. In fact, neither TeX nor LaTeX have any obvious (to me) facility for choosing any of the NSF-approved fonts.
(The default in each case is a font called Computer Modern, designed by Don Knuth. It has its own problems, but it’s a perfectly usable font.)
After I read about the new restrictions, I did two things. I contacted Syracuse’s director of Sponsored Projects to see if she had any idea what NSF was thinking (she didn’t). Then I set about trying to learn how to make LaTeX produce one of the four chosen fonts.
The results are below.
In August 2007, NSF silently relaxed their (perhaps inadvertent?) restrictions. The new improved mandatory font style requirements read, in part:
(You can read the official publication [Link requires approval](approve). There’s no acknowledgment that Windows/Mac/TeX is an utterly absurd trichotomy.)
So, all’s well that ends well. The font information below isn’t needed to write an NSF proposal. Still, I tracked it down, so I’m leaving it here for posterity.
This is my favorite of the available options. It has the nice side benefit of the mathematical symbols being consistent with the body font. Plus it’s dead easy to use:
\usepackage[sc]{mathpazo}\linespread{1.05}
The second line is there because Palatino needs a little more room to breathe than Computer Modern Roman.
I think we’re out of luck on this one. I can’t find any way to get Georgia. (Luckily, it’s ugly anyway.)
update 15 August 2008: Matthew writes in to say, “The trick to get Georgia is to use XeTeX. I think it would involve some learning curve for mathematicians….” So there you go!
Easy as pie, and twice as tasty.
\usepackage{helvet}\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
I’ve heard that some installations of (La)TeX use Helvetica as their default sans-serif font, so that for these systems you could omit the first line. However, many installations default to CMSS (Computer Modern Sans-Serif) instead, and it doesn’t hurt anything anyway, so might as wel leave it in.
Many thanks to Carel van Dam for the following improvement to my initial attempt:
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}\usepackage[scaled]{uarial}\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
(I was missing the first line.) The font that is actually provided is [Link requires approval](approve). [Link requires approval](approve) (including uarial).
(You [Link requires approval](approve) anyway.)