[Tex/LaTex] Import curly brackets from MathDesign (Utopia)

bracketsfontsmathdesign

I am using Fourier maths fonts with Utopia text (\usepackage{fourier}) for a book project, but I'm not satisfied with the curly brackets \{ and \}. They are too slim, and barely distinguishable from other brackets in font size 10. Utopia with MathDesign (\usepackage[utopia]{mathdesign}) seems to have better-looking curly brackets.

Is there a way of importing just the curly brackets from MathDesign to my document, sticking to Fourier otherwise. And are the curly brackets defined by the maths fonts even if they are used outside math mode, since with MathDesign you get better-looking brackets in normal text, too.

Following egreg's answer I added the suggested lines, but the sizes of the bigger brackets are incorrect. When I load type $\{\bigl\{\Bigl\{\biggl\{\Biggl\{$, this is what I get:

enter image description here

After a bit of research, I've found that the cause seems to be the amsmath package. I'm relying on amsmath quite heavily, so it would be nice to find a fix. Unfortunately, I have almost no experience in working with fonts in LaTeX myself.

Below is a working example:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{fourier}

\DeclareSymbolFont{mdsymbols}     {OMS}{mdput}{m}{n}
\DeclareSymbolFont{mdlargesymbols}{OMX}{mdput}{m}{n}
\DeclareMathDelimiter{\lbrace}
   {\mathopen}{mdsymbols}{"66}{mdlargesymbols}{"08}
\DeclareMathDelimiter{\rbrace}
   {\mathclose}{mdsymbols}{"67}{mdlargesymbols}{"09}
\renewcommand{\textbraceleft}{%
  {\fontfamily{mdput}\fontencoding{OMS}\selectfont\char"66}}
\renewcommand{\textbraceright}{%
  {\fontfamily{mdput}\fontencoding{OMS}\selectfont\char"67}}

\begin{document}
$\{\bigl\{\Bigl\{\biggl\{\Biggl\{$
\end{document}

Best Answer

You can put the following in your preamble:

\DeclareSymbolFont{mdsymbols}     {OMS}{mdput}{m}{n}
\DeclareSymbolFont{mdlargesymbols}{OMX}{mdput}{m}{n}

\DeclareMathDelimiter{\lbrace}
   {\mathopen}{mdsymbols}{"66}{mdlargesymbols}{"08}
\DeclareMathDelimiter{\rbrace}
   {\mathclose}{mdsymbols}{"67}{mdlargesymbols}{"09}
\renewcommand{\textbraceleft}{%
  {\fontfamily{mdput}\fontencoding{OMS}\selectfont\char"66}}
\renewcommand{\textbraceright}{%
  {\fontfamily{mdput}\fontencoding{OMS}\selectfont\char"67}}

We define two new math symbol fonts from which we draw the braces.

Here's what results from $\{\bigl\{\Bigl\{\biggl\{\Biggl\{$:

enter image description here

Compare it with the original result simply with the fourier package:

enter image description here

When also amsmath is loaded, the result can be different, because the package redefines \big and family. For braces I get the correct result with

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\big}{\bBigg@{1.1}}
\renewcommand{\Big}{\bBigg@{1.415}}
\renewcommand{\bigg}{\bBigg@{2.1}}
\renewcommand{\Bigg}{\bBigg@{2.5}}
\makeatother

but this breaks the scaling of parentheses (which happens with fourier anyway).

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