# [texhax] AMSTeX installation

Steve Schwartz s.schwartz at imperial.ac.uk
Wed Jul 1 14:04:51 CEST 2009

Rodolfo,

Here's poor man's bold (from Knuth's TeXbook):

\def\pmb#1{\setbox0=\hbox{#1}
\kern-.02em\copy0\kern-\wd0\kern.03em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\kern-.015em\raise.03em\box0}

It typsets its argument 3 times, each shifted slightly. Not ideal, but
it works when there's no real bold version of what you have.

Put the above \def in your .tex file (e.g., in your preamble) and then
use as, for example

\pmb{\beta}

HTH

Steve

PS I'll leave it to others to advise on how to install you own local
copy of AMSTeX, though if you use latex you should be able to simply put
the amstex.sty or amsbsy.sty files from the amslatex in the same folder
as your .tex file and latex will find it. Better would be to put it in a
folder pointed to by the TEXINPUTS environment variable. I would
distribution and simply putting \usepackage{amstex} in your preamble
will enable your distribution to find it. To get more help, provide some
minimal details, e.g., platform, (la)tex distribution, etc., etc.)

On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 12:24 +0100, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> I wish to try a feature of AMSTeX (in particular, I wish to try the poor man's
> bold font), but without actually installing it in my system yet.  Can any
> AMSTeX user out there suggest how to perform a local installation of the AMSTeX
> files (in the home directory), just to get it a try?
>
> Thanks for any help
> Rodolfo
>
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