mathcal letters

[Robin Fairbairns]

mimi writes:

> On Apr06 08:40AM, Angela Partain wrote:
> > Hello!
> > I have a question about using mathcal letters.  In all the years
> > I've been using tex, I've never been able to get it to work
> > properly.  I was able to fix the problem, but now I have a situation
> > that's not working.
>
> first of all,   \mathcal{A} is the proper usage, and requires
> no definition of a "font" to use...
> it also requires a $ or something because it is *math*, not text.
>
>
> > When I use {\cal A}, \cal{A}, {\mathcal A}, or \mathcal{A}, I get an
> > A in Courier type.

so you don't have the font \mathcal is selecting.

> {\cal A} should work, unless your tex installation is really old, but
> this is the old latex2.09 way of doing things.   The current
> LaTeX2e  uses \mathcal{argument}....    it turns what is inside
> the braces into the calligraphic font.

provided she has the default caligraphic font.  if she has a times-only
version, she needs mathtime.sty to designate the relevant mathtime font
into the correct maths font family.

> > My fix has always been to put this command in the preamble:   \font\mcal=MTMS
> > and then type  \text{\mcal A} (in math) or just {\mcal A} in the text.
>
> remove this def...   it is built into LaTeX.

but this adds to my suspicion that she has a times-only system (though i
don't recognise the font name mtms).

> > This works fine unless the mcal letter needs to be sub- or
> > superscript.  In that case, it appears the same size as a normal
> > letter, rather than superscript size.   I tried this:
> > \text{\scriptsize {\mcal A}}, to no avail.
>
> well - if you look at your log file, you will see that this is
> an error..   mcal can't be used in text mode  ;-)

no: if she was using maths mode commands to select the character, this
would indeed happen, but she's not: she has bypassed all latex mechanisms.

> take the following and latex it and see what happens..
> \documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage[LY1]{mathtime} % or something similar

> \begin{document}
>
> \verb|\mathcal| will work, with \textbf{no} definition
> saying what font to use.

% the mathtime package seems to me the right way to go.  however, i'm a
% bit uneasy because i don't recognise the font name mtms

> \verb+\mathcal+  is a \textbf{math} definition.   It requires
> a dollar mark; you don't use  it in ``text''.
> $$ \alpha = \mathcal{A} + B_{\mathcal{A}}$$
>
> \end{document}

use \[ ... \] -- see
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=dolldoll

(and note the interesting bug in the translation to html that i
discovered today -- in particular, "$$" disappears in a few places ;-)

robin