[Tex/LaTex] How to write the mathematical version of the greek letter phi when using the babel package to make greek letters upright

babelgreeksymbols

I'm writing an essay in which I need the greek letters to be upright. I have fixed this by applying the accepted solution given to this question. I quote from that solution:

\documentclass{minimal}

\usepackage[greek,english]{babel}

\begin{document}

\greektext A whole paragraph in greek letters \latintext

\end{document}

However, when i try to write the letter phi, by using the Latin letter f, I get a version of phi that I don't want. It looks kinda like this enter image description here (only upright) but I want it to look like this enter image description here (only upright) which is the version I get when I use the standard \phi within the math environment.

Best Answer

I don't think there is any way to do this via babel-interpreted keyboard input, at least not without serious hacking.

Now, if you're typesetting actual Greek, I would recommend simply going with the loopy phi. That's what's used in Greek writing.

If, however, you're typesetting Greek letters for science or math, there are some packages that provide an upright variant phi:

  • upgreek (Euler or Adobe Symbol): $\upphi$
  • txfonts (Times-like): $\phiup$
  • pxfonts (Palatino-like): $\phiup$

If you need these letters a lot, you could define marcos for them with shorter names. For other upright Greek letters from these packages, see The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List.

Another option would be looking for a font that has the variant you like (Don't know if that exists, cf. above) and using that, probabaly with XeLaTeX. For XeLaTeX, however, you should use polyglossia instead of babel. Then again, if you're using XeLaTeX already, you might as well just directly put in one of the phis available in Unicode: ϕφɸ. But since this would mean a lot of copy-and-pasting, this might miss your point entirely because you seem to be looking for a comfortable way of typing in Greek letters.

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