[Tex/LaTex] Equivalent of \mathup for upright text in math mode

math-moderoman

To insert text in mathmode, there are a couple of commands:

\mathrm for Roman script,
\mathbf for bold weight,
\mathit for italic shape,
\mathsf for the sans serif variant,

and so on. Now, sometimes I would like to have some math entities typeset upright (see for example How to best typeset "special" constants (complex unit i, Euler's number e,…)?).
I understand that \mathrm sets the text in Roman and upright, but in some cases I do not want serifs (e.g., in presentations). The command \mathup does not seem to exist.

What is recommended way to set upright text in math mode?

Best Answer

I guess what you are seeing is the following when you use \mathrm with a serif font:

Sample output

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
  \( x y \mathrm{x} \text{\textup{x}}\)
\end{frame}

\end{document}

There are two ways to fix this: one fairly drastic option is to put

\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{cmss}

but this may feed through to places you are not expecting. An alternative is to replace the two relevant definitions from beamerbasefont.sty by

\AtBeginDocument{%
  \SetMathAlphabet{\mathrm}{normal}{\encodingdefault}{cmss}{\mddefault}{n}
  \SetMathAlphabet{\mathrm}{bold}{\encodingdefault}{cmss}{\bfdefault}{n}}

in your preamble. In the beamer style file {cmss} is {\rmdefault}.

Applied to the above example, either method gives you:

Second sample

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bold, italic math (\bm) and sansmath

As I understand your question, you would like the \bm command to always typeset its contents in slanted style, whether in ordinary, i.e., serif, math mode or in the sansmath environment. The following modified version of your MWE achieves this objective.

Relative to your code, I've made the following three changes: (a) The sansmath package is now loaded with the T1 option; (b) the \SetMathAlphabet{\mathsfbf}...{bx}{sl} command tells LaTeX to use a slanted font in bold-math mode; (c) the sansmath environment is augmented so that \bm will typeset its argument the way that \mathsfbf does. (I say "augmented" rather than "patched" because I believe that the sansmath package predates the bm package. Hence, the sansmath package couldn't make allowance for the emergence of the subsequent \bm command, right?)

A word of caution: This quick fix lets \bm operate, as expected, on lower- and uppercase Latin letters in the sansmath environment. However, some of the other "magic" of the bm package, which lets it operate on Greek letters and math symbols as well, is not preserved by this method. To set Greek letters and math symbols in bold in the sansmath environment, you'll have to use the \boldsymbol command. (By the way, AFAIK the Latin Modern font family doesn't provide separate sans-serif math-mode Greek letters, whether regular weight or bold. Therefore, if you use Greek letters in the sansmath environment, you'll get the ordinary math-mode Greek letters, which may look wrong in a sans-serif environment. If you must have sans-serif Greek math-mode letters in your document, you should probably use xelatex and employ a specialized math font that does provide this feature.)

\documentclass{scrartcl}                             
\usepackage{lmodern,bm}                
\usepackage[T1]{sansmath} 
\SetMathAlphabet{\mathsfbf}{sans}{\sansmathencoding}{\sfdefault}{bx}{sl}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\AtBeginEnvironment{sansmath}{\let\bm\mathsfbf}{}{}
\begin{document}                
Serif math:

$\bm{d} = (d_1, d_2)$                

$\mathbf{d} = (d_1, d_2)$                

\textsf{Sans-serif math:}

\begin{sansmath}                
$\bm{d} = (d_1, d_2)$                

$\mathbf{d} = (d_1, d_2)$                
\end{sansmath}                

\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] How to best typeset “special” constants (complex unit i, Euler’s number e,…)

Consistency is the primary goal. So the first task is to know what "special numbers" we need and define commands for them:

\newcommand{\euler}{e}
\newcommand{\ramuno}{i}

(ramuno was how some Italian mathematicians of the 16th century called the quantity that squared gives –1; then Euler started using i).

The mathematical typography tradition usually didn't have a special treatment of these symbols. See, for example, n. 359 in Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, where the equivalent of

$\cos\frac{\lambda kP}{e} + i\sin\frac{\lambda kP}{e}$

is found (the edition I consulted is from the Werke by the Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, vol. 1, 1863, page 450). There's no doubt what this i is denoting.

http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN235993352&IDDOC=137206

However, in recent times, under the influence of physics and applied mathematics, people started to denote "constants" with upright letters. There's even an ISO regulation about this, which is compulsory in some fields where uniformity among papers and books is very important.

In pure mathematics there's essentially no rule. Do as you like or how your field is used to. Using special names for the special numbers allow you to change the appearance of your document just by changing the definition.

If you feel that there may be confusion between the "imaginary unit" (no worse name could be chosen for it) and an index (for summations, for instance), you have three strategies:

use a special denotation for the imaginary unit;
don't use i as an index;
forget about it and let the reader know from the context.

Strategy 2 is used by Graham, Knuth and Patashnik in their "Concrete Mathematics". Strategy 3 is very common in math textbooks.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bold, italic math (\bm) and sansmath

[Tex/LaTex] How to best typeset “special” constants (complex unit i, Euler’s number e,…)

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