How do you change the document font in LaTeX?

Question

How do you change the font for the whole document to sans-serif (or anything else)?

Answer 1

I found the solution thanks to the link in Vincent's answer.

 \renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault} 

This changes the default font family to sans-serif.

Answer 2

For a different approach, I would suggest using the XeTeX or LuaTex system. They allow you to access system fonts (TrueType, OpenType, etc) and set font features. In a typical LaTeX document, you just need to include this in your headers:

\usepackage{fontspec} \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text,Scale=MatchLowercase} \setmainfont{Times} \setmonofont{Lucida Sans Typewriter} 

It's the fontspec package that allows for \setmainfont and \setmonofont. The ability to choose a multitude of font features is beyond my expertise, but I would suggest looking up some examples and seeing if this would suit your needs.

Just don't forget to replace your favorite latex compiler by the appropriate one (xelatex or lualatex).