mathcal letters
Robin Fairbairns
Robin.Fairbairns at CL.CAM.AC.UK
Tue Apr 6 14:45:16 CEST 2004
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
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