[Tex/LaTex] Does LaTeX define a semantic equivalent of \textbf

boldemphasissemantics

In HTML, there's the distinction between <em> as semantic markup and <i> as its pure-formatting equivalent. LaTeX has the same distinction: \emph is semantic markup, rendered using \textit.

HTML also includes an analogous distinction between <strong> and <b>. Does LaTeX define a semantic command (e.g. \strong{...}, but that doesn't exist) that gets rendered using \textbf?

EDIT: on very similar lines, does LaTeX define a semantic command like \quote{...} that will render using quotation marks (of some preferred type)? (HTML has <q>.)

Best Answer

You can define your own \strong command which switches between strong and normal text like \emph does with italic:

\documentclass{article}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\strong}[1]{\@strong{#1}}
\newcommand{\@@strong}[1]{\textbf{\let\@strong\@@@strong#1}}
\newcommand{\@@@strong}[1]{\textnormal{\let\@strong\@@strong#1}}
\let\@strong\@@strong
\makeatother

\begin{document}

Text \strong{strong text \strong{strong2 \strong{st-\strong{st}-st}  yyy } xxxx} after

\end{document}

Result1

Or you can define different levels of "strong" using a counter:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\newcounter{stronglevel}
\setcounter{stronglevel}{1}
\newcommand{\strong}[1]{%
    \csname strong\roman{stronglevel}\endcsname{{%
        \advance\value{stronglevel} by 1\relax
        #1%
    }}%
}
\newcommand{\strongi}[1]{\textbf{#1}}
\newcommand{\strongii}[1]{{\blendcolors*{!50!red}\color{.}#1}}
\newcommand{\strongiii}[1]{\textsf{#1}}
\newcommand{\strongiv}[1]{{\blendcolors*{!50!red}\color{.}#1}}

\begin{document}

Text \strong{strong text \strong{strong2 \strong{st-\strong{st}-st}  yyy } xxxx} after \strong{next}.

\end{document}

Result2

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] \textit is to \emph as \textbf is to…

The idea behind \emph is that it provides a high level way for giving emphasis to a part of the text. High level in the sense it is “independent” of the actual implementation.

The default behavior of \emph is to use italics when in an upright context and upright when in an italics context, but this can be modified on a document’s basis (or by a package implementing a particular style). In particular, your question has no real answer: \emph and \textit bear no “abstract” relationship; the relationship is only at the default implementation level.

This is different from stating some part of text is in italics; for instance, theorems are commonly typeset in italics and the styles use \itshape for this, not \em (the declarative form of \emph). Similarly they use \bfseries for the theorem tag (or \scshape or whatever).

You're free to define as many similar commands as you want. If your style requires a sort of “strong emphasis”, you can define \strong as you please, maybe using \bfseries in normal context and \extrabfseries (if your font supports it, the name is hypothetical) in a \strong context. Before doing this, think deeply whether your readers will be able to appreciate the difference between \emph{word} and \strong{word} (which I think they won't).

[Tex/LaTex] \textbf{} does not work

I don't really know if tgtermes even has a bold variant of Greek font (if so, you're better off with the computer modern variant, as searching for the right templates of such peculiar fonts is pretty much the definition of masochism). Since you didn't specify the necessity of a specific font, I think my answer should suffice. You will probably dislike the change of font, but when you see all the vast options that come with it (and would probably induce some errors when paired with other fonts) you might reconsider.

The code.

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}

\usepackage[english,greek]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\newcommand{\lat}{\selectlanguage{english}}
\newcommand{\gre}{\selectlanguage{greek}}

\begin{document}

\setlength{\parindent}{0cm}

{\lat It works!} \\
{\lat \textbf{It works!}} \\
{\lat \textit{It works!}} \\
{\lat \textbf{\textit{It works!}}} \\\\
{\gre It works!} \\
{\gre \textbf{It works!}} \\
{\gre \textit{It works!}} \\
{\gre \textbf{\textit{It works!}}}

\end{document}

The result.

Best Answer

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