Math Mode – How to Display Greek Lowercase Letters Without Italics

Question

I don't know why but my greek letter eta refuses to become italic. Any ideas?

Here is a minimal example:

\documentclass[12pt]{report}

\usepackage[a4paper,width=150mm,top=25mm,bottom=25mm,bindingoffset=6mm]{geometry}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}
\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}


\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amstext,amsthm,mathtools}

\begin{document}

$\eta = 1$ 

\end{document}

Unfortunately, the eta looks just normal. Why does it not turn italic?

Answer 1

The package mathptmx provides Times-like fonts, but it's a 35-year-old hack and for Greek letter it uses glyph from the slanted Symbol font.

You get better results with NewTX.

\documentclass[12pt]{report}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}

\usepackage[a4paper,width=150mm,top=25mm,bottom=25mm,bindingoffset=6mm]{geometry}

\usepackage{amsmath,amsthm,mathtools}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}

\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}

\begin{document}

$\eta = 1$ 

\end{document}

The package ucs is obsolete and does nothing really useful here. Also amssymb should not be loaded along NewTX, because this one already provides the needed symbols. Note that amstext is automatically loaded by amsmath.