[Tex/LaTex] Maths mode with chemmacros

chemformulachemistrychemmacros

I am a beginner with chemmacros and I have a problem during the compilation when I want to use greek letters inside the \ch{} command. Here is an example:

\ch{\Delta E=h.\nu}

A solution is to write this :

\ch{$\Delta E=h.\nu$}

However, I know that there is another solution as the initial command was already compiled on another computer. And as I have a 10,000 lines file, I cannot fix everything by hand…

Here is the package I loaded :

 \usepackage{upgreek}
 \usepackage{chemmacros}
 \usepackage{textgreek} 
 \chemsetup{greek=textgreek}
 \usepackage{amsmath}

I am using MacTeX2016 with LaTeX v3.62 and the lastest chemmacros version.
Any idea? Thanks a lot for your help.

Best Answer

\ch{\Delta E=h.\nu} should never have worked (I surely never intended it to). Also it doesn't make sense: $\Delta E=h\nu$ is a mathematical formula and not a chemical one. If you need math in a chemical formula chemformula offers to surround the entry with $…$ as you've already discovered.

Using \ch{$\Delta E=h.\nu$} is still wrong – not only semantically: the spacing is also wrong. Use \ch for chemical formulae and equations and math mode for math expressions and equations.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{chemformula}

\begin{document}

wrong: \ch{$\Delta E=h.\nu$} \par
correct: $\Delta E=h\cdot\nu$\par
correct: $\Delta E=h\nu$

\bigskip

correct: \ch{H2SO4} \par
wrong: $H_2SO_4$

\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Proper chemical notation in chemmacros with names

This is a question of leaving enough blanks between the different input types: there should be blanks around formulae and stoichiometric factors as well as around the dot for crystalline water. Here is how I would write it:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{chemmacros}
\begin{document}

\begin{reaction}
 !(crystalline\ copper\ sulphate)( CuSO4 . 5 H2O \sld )
 ->[heat]
 !(anhydrous\ copper\ sulphate)( CuSO4 \sld ) + !(water)( 5 H2O \gas ) 
\end{reaction}

\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] Typesetting of (formal) addition compounds according to IUPAC using chemmacros

First of all: leave more spaces in the input. The detailed syntax for \ch is described in the chemformula manual. Especially stoichiometric factors and formulas need to be surrounded by spaces (that holds for the optional arguments of the arrows as well) even if they're part of a larger formula like in hydrates. This is shown in section 6.1 of the chemformula manual:

The correct syntax for your example is like this:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{chemmacros}

\begin{document}

\ch{CuSO4 ->[ 5 H2O ] CuSO4 * 5 H2O}

\end{document}

If you now want to adjust the space surrounding the dot you can set the option adduct-space to a value that suits you. The IUPAC Red Book indeed both has no spaces surrounding the dot and no spaces between compounds and stoichiometric factors which means both adduct-space and stoich-space need to be set to 0pt for getting the same output:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{chemmacros}
\chemsetup{
  formula = chemformula ,
  chemformula/adduct-space = 0pt ,
  chemformula/stoich-space = 0pt
}

\begin{document}

\ch{CuSO4 ->[ 5 H2O ] CuSO4 * 5 H2O} 

\end{document}

I am not convinced, though, that the Red Book is making a typographical recommendation here, since the chapter only describes the naming of addition compounds. The Green Book on the other hand has a lot of typographic advice. Although it doesn't explicitly mention it it does use spaces to separate compounds from stoichiometric factors which implies to me that the spaces actually do follow the IUPAC recommendation.

Please also note that you should leave no space between arrows and their arguments. The typeset result of your input clearly shows this:

\ch{CuSO4 -> [][5 H20] CuSO4*5H2O}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Proper chemical notation in chemmacros with names

[Tex/LaTex] Typesetting of (formal) addition compounds according to IUPAC using chemmacros

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