I'm trying to find a good way to have the LaTex default font "Computer Modern" (CM) a bit thicker (also called "blacker"). I really like this font, especially when it comes to math mode, so answers like "Change the font." don't qualify, sorry. :) The only problem is that CM has very thin lines, so the font looks very light. There are several methods to make CM "thicker" (I'm not talking about the bold series of the font! This one looks different and is not what I am looking for.) which can be found elsewhere on tex.stackexchange:
1) Use FakeBold in XeLaTex: How to make the math font slightly thicker?
2) Use pdfliteral as suggested here: Fake bold in LuaLaTeX
3) Use pdfrender as suggested here: Make entire document heavier using pdfrender
However, the answers given there don't suit here: 1) Needs XeLaTex (I only have PDFLaTex and I cannot install additional software, as I'm not a system administrator.) Results produced with 2) + 3) look very good. Actually it looks exactly like I intend it to be. However, it only looks good with certain Reader software (Evince and certail versions of Okular). With other Reader software (like other versions of Okular or even the Adobe Reader) the base line of characters is not quite the same or there are white artefacts inside the letters.
I think, the only option to resolve the problems is to create a proper font. (The solutions in 2) and 3) don't create a new font, they are hacks that manipulate the way the original CM font is displayed.) And here is my question: How do I create a "vectorbased" (not pixelbased) proper font from Computer Modern which has the same "thickness" attributes like the results obtained with pdfrender/pdfliteral in 2) and 3) ? I don't really know anything about fonts. The basic idea should be to take the original CM font and to do some adjustments to its geometry. There is a German post:
http://www.typografie.info/3/topic/22238-ist-die-computer-modern-wirklich-zu-d%C3%BCnn/
There they talk about a "blacker" parameter in a "metafont source file" of CM. However they produce a pixel-based font and I'm not exactly sure what they are actually doing there.
Upshot: I'd like to have a thick (not bold) CM-like font which looks good with any reader software and it should be usable with PDFLaTex. Thanks for your help.
To give you an impression what I have in mind: Here's a (famous) article whose "oldschool" look I try to resemble with a modified CM font:
http://math.stanford.edu/~lekheng/flt/wiles.pdf
I've magnified it and compared it with my own "pdfliteral" results and my conclusion is that it is indeed a thicker CM (probably due to the fact that it was printed and scanned afterwards as is indicated by the not quite horizontal text lines on some pages).
I now get an idea of how to clearify my question: Using METAFONT, how do I create a new font from the original CM metafont source files (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/cm-mf) but with a higher blackness parameter?
;-)