[Tex/LaTex] How to make a vector bold and italic inside an equation

Question

I want all my equations to be in italics and the vectors to be bold as well. When I write the following LaTeX code it gives italic equations:

\begin{equation}
F = kx
\end{equation}

But when I re-write to make the vectors bold, the vectors become bold but don't stay italic anymore:

\begin{equation}
\mathbf{F} = k\mathbf{x}
\end{equation}

How can I keep the whole equation in italics with vectors appearing as bold?

Answer 1

You could use the bm package and its command \bm. One of the very nice things about this package is that \bm works equally well on letters and symbols; thus, one doesn't have to remember to use \mathbf on letters and \boldsymbol on symbols. Another nice aspect -- especially useful for your setup -- is that you get bold-italic rather than bold-upright output.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bm}
\begin{document}
\begin{equation}
\bm{F} = k\bm{x}
\end{equation}
\end{document}