[Tex/LaTex] How to write a bold version of the reduced Planck constant, `\hbar`

boldfonts

I've tried \mathbf{\hbar}, \boldmath{\hbar}, and \boldsymbol{\hbar}, but none of them produce a bold version of the symbol.

Best Answer

I guess you did the wrong attempts, because \boldsymbol works. However, it's better \bm (needs the bm package to be loaded after amsmath).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{bm}

\begin{document}

$\hbar\ne\bm{\hbar}$

\end{document}

If you are using Times based fonts with \usepackage{mathptmx}, then no attempt can be successful, because the package doesn't support bold math symbols. If that's the case, do

\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath}

instead of \usepackage{mathptmx}.

Related Solutions

Fonts – How to Change an Entire Document to Use Bold Font

You could redefine \seriesdefault in your document preamble:

\renewcommand{\seriesdefault}{\bfdefault}

\bfdefault means the value bx by default, as font parameter, you also could have used this in the redefinition directly.

\renewcommand{\seriesdefault}{bx}

So, with bx as the default, either way, the default weight of the document font is like if you would have written\bfseries for some text. But with the redefinition above, every time \normalfont is called, bold weight is used. Also already at the start of the document.

Note, you still could switch to normal weight by \mdshape or \textmd. If you would like to prevent normal weight at all, you could redefine normal weight commands. It would be a bit strange, but you could decide that, such as by:

\renewcommand{\mddefault}{bx}

which would turn text even after using\mdseries to bold.

To the code in your question:

It doesn't work because you used m (medium) instead of bx (bold extended). This would have worked:
```
\fontseries{bx}
\selectfont
```
Even then it would just work where you placed it in the text, not as default. The next call of \normalfont, which could even be implicit, would remove the effect of these commands. That's also the reason why it does not seem to work if you placed it in the preamble, since \begin{document} causes switching back to default font.

Symbols – Bold Greek Letters with Mathptmx

As a last resort, over-printing (or under-printing) as a method to simulate boldness (or fake bold) is an option using the contour package. It may come in handy when there is no bold version of a font/symbol available:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathptmx}% http://ctan.org/pkg/mathptmx
\usepackage{array,contour}% http://ctan.org/pkg/{array,contour}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{rl@{\quad}>{\contourlength{0.01em}}l}
\verb|\sigma|: & $\sigma$ & $\sigma$ \\
\verb|\contour[1]{red}{$\sigma$}|: & \contour[1]{red}{$\sigma$} & \contour[1]{red}{$\sigma$} \\
\verb|\contour[10]{black}{$\sigma$}|: & \contour[10]{black}{$\sigma$} & \contour[10]{black}{$\sigma$} \\
\verb|\contour{black}{$\sigma$}|: & \contour{black}{$\sigma$} & \contour{black}{$\sigma$} \\
\verb|\contour*{black}{$\sigma$}|: & \contour*{black}{$\sigma$} & \contour*{black}{$\sigma$}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

The default interface is \contour[<number>]{<color>}{<stuff>} that prints <number> copies of <stuff> under <stuff> using colour <color>. The default is 16 repetitions if none are specified, while the starred-version \contour* prints 32. \contourlength{<len>} sets the radius of the under-printing. The two column above are default (0.03em) and 0.01em.

To make the under-printing more obvious/clear, here's a close-up view of the above contours at the default setting:

enter image description here

And, for \contourlength{0.01em}:

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Fonts – How to Change an Entire Document to Use Bold Font

Symbols – Bold Greek Letters with Mathptmx

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