UK TeX FAQ -- question 88

### Using the "Concrete" fonts

The Concrete Roman fonts were designed by Don Knuth for a book called "Concrete Mathematics", which he wrote with Graham and Patashnik (the Patashnik, of BibTeX fame). Knuth only designed text fonts, since the book used the Euler fonts for mathematics. The book was typeset using Plain TeX, of course, with additional macros that may be viewed in a file gkpmac.tex, which is available on CTAN. A few years later, Ulrik Vieth designed the Concrete Math fonts. The packages beton, concmath, and ccfonts are LaTeX packages that change the default text fonts from Computer Modern to Concrete. Packages beton and ccfonts also slightly increase the default value of `\baselineskip` to account for the rather heavier weight of the Concrete fonts. Packages concmath, and ccfonts also change the default math fonts from Computer Modern to Concrete and use the Concrete versions of the AMS fonts (this last behaviour is optional in the case of the concmath package).

There are no bold Concrete fonts, but it is generally accepted that the Computer Modern Sans Serif demibold condensed fonts are an adequate substitute. If you are using concmath or ccfonts and you want to follow this suggestion, then use the package with `boldsans` class option (in spite of the fact that the concmath documentation calls it `sansbold` class option). If you are using beton, add `\renewcommand{`\bfdefault`}{sbc}` to the preamble of your document.

Type 1 versions of the fonts are available. For the OT1 encoding, they are available from MicroPress. The CM-Super fonts contain Type 1 versions of the Concrete fonts in the T1 encoding.

`beton.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/supported/beton.tar.gz
`ccfonts.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/supported/ccfonts.tar.gz
`CM-Super fonts`
  fonts/ps-type1/cm-super.tar.gz
`concmath.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/supported/concmath.tar.gz
`Concmath fonts`
  fonts/concmath.tar.gz
`Concrete fonts`
  fonts/concrete.tar.gz
`gkpmac.tex`
  systems/knuth/local/lib/gkpmac.tex