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Some examples for fonts in T1 font-encoding

Found in a full MiKTeX installation, but also in my (portable) TeX Live installation:

documentclass[12pt]article

usepackage[T1]fontenc
usepackage[english]babel
usepackagelmodern

newcommand*test Ill Bill
newcommand*testfont[2]#1: textsffontfamily#2selectfonttest

setlengthparindent0pt
linespread1.5

begindocument

testfontCabinCabin-TLF

testfontCantarellfca

testfontComfortaafco

testfontIwonaiwona

testfontKp-Sansjkpss

testfontPT-SansPTSans-TLF

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

testfontTahomatahoma

testfontMS Trebuchettrebuchet

testfontVerdanaverdana

enddocument

If used alone or with their family companions, most of them are called with a usepackage command. For the three fonts below the starred line one needs to manually install the winfonts package.

Just for comparison some fonts with no or only a little distinction between big i and small L:

The lack of distinction between the uppercase "i" and the lowercase "L" in many sans-serif fonts bothers me.

It's a legibility issue.

To help mitigate this issue, I am maintaining a simple list of sans-serif fonts which do not have this distinction problem, or at least less of this problem.

Maybe I am obsessing over something silly, but here it is:

http://www.crossbarifonts.info/

What about the new Source Sans Pro by Adobe?

A true sans-serif font might opt to add a finial to the lower case L, such as
http://www.fonts101.com/search/din+mittel

With the usual caveat involved in using truetype fonts in LaTeX.

Besides choosing fonts to be used in the document itself, it is also helpful to have a good font for doing the editing work. There it is equally helpful to be able to distinguish characters like o O 0 Q and l I | easily. My recommendation is neither free nor cheap but after switching editing fonts for some time I have setteled with PragmataPro.

I like Tahoma and Verdana because they have serifs on the capital I, but the rest of the characters are sans-serif.

Another fine choice is the Raleway font, which is available in a recent TeXlive via usepackageraleway. It is interoperable with pdftex, but also with the new Unicode engines xetex and luatex.

documentclassarticle
usepackageraleway
begindocument
sffamily
W. H. Gates III. | Ill Bill
enddocument

Not in TeX Live (not yet, at least), but if you’re using xetex or luatex, here’s an option: IBM has just released a beta version of its new corporate type family, IBM Plex, containing unambiguous sans as well as monospace and serif fonts, all with real italics and in eight weights. The family is open source and available at github.com/IBM/plex.

documentclassarticle
usepackagefontspec
setmainfontIBMPlexSans-Regular.otf
begindocument
Kim Jong Il
enddocument

Another unambiguous sans is Archia, of which the regular weight is available free with a tweet or a Facebook share (the whole family of six upright weights has a “pay what you want” pricing policy).

(There are more samples on Behance.)

Don’t overlook the Go fonts by Bigelow & Holmes, which are available in TeX Live. As Chuck Bigelow explains in his notes (texmf-dist/doc/fonts/gofonts/gofonts.pdf), this family conforms to the German DIN 1450 legibility standard, nicely described by Linotype.

Also noteworthy is Luciole, which is designed for readers with impaired vision. Its regular, italic, bold, and bold italic are free:

Update: Thanks to Bob Tennent, CTAN now has a package supporting IBM Plex for LaTeX and pdfLaTeX as well as XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX.

Segoe UI works as well. I don't know if this font is commonly available. I think it's what my Outlook uses for the calendar, folders, etc.